The EOS Utility

I am eager to do some USB tethered shooting with my camera, but I have searched high and low and cannot find the disks that came with my camera.

It turns out that the Canon website does not offer a simple download of the EOS Utility, but instead offer an "updater" and expect that you must have already installed the utility on your computer. This is outrageous stupidity given that they give the utility away with every camera, and as far as I know it is not a "for sale" product, but that is how it is.

I stashed the EOS utility updater (version 2.10.2) eu2102en.exe right here, just in case Canon gets really weird and removes it from their website. I downloaded this in 9-2011 (and they posted it in 8-2011). It was the latest version under the Canon 5Dii listings.

I also have a Canon 20D, and it is not clear to me (though I get the impression that this is true) whether the latest version of the EOS utility supports all cameras. The latest version listed in 9-2011 for the 20D is version 2.7.3, so I also have stashed that file, namely eu273en.exe right here.

In their defense, I am told that if you call them and manage to find the right person, they will mail you a replacement disk for free.

If you are clever enough, there is a way around all of this, and you can search via Google to find out (and maybe Canon will get a clue and this will change). The method I found was described on the pinwire site and involves some monkey business with the windows registry.

As you may figure out, this works because the updater actually does contain a whole new version of the program it is updating.

Some of the older versions of the Canon software allowed you to extract the downloaded executable using a program like WinRAR and then manually run the install which bypassed the registry check. In those days you would use winrar to extract the files to some directory like "zzz", then:

Apparently Canon has modified their download packages so that you can no longer easily do this. So you need to follow the procedure about to be described.

Download the updater from the canon website (I downloaded version 2.10.2 in September, 2011 -- it was dated 8/11/2011) as EU2102EN.exe (it was a 33.5 megabyte file).

Before you try to run or install it, use notepad to create a file CANON.REG with the following contents: 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\DPP]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\EOS Utility]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\EOS Capture]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\EOSViewerUtility]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\PhotoStitch]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\ODSK
Actually, if you are really lazy, I put CANON.REG right here so you can just click on this link and download it.

Save this file, then double click on it, you want to merge this file into the registry. Answer first YES, then OK. This will fool the Canon updater into thinking you already have Canon Software installed. This does list every known item of Canon Software, no harm in that.

Folks say that if you want to update Zoom Browser, you must also add these entries: 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX\Settings]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX\Install]

The registry entries for vista 64 and windows 7 are different: 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\EOS Utility]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\DPP]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX\Settings]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX\Install]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\PhotoStitch
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\EOS Capture]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\EOSViewerUtility]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\ODSK]



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Tom's Digital Photography Info / tom@mmto.org