Re-Install a Brother MFC-8810DW MFC

I recently re-installed Windows 10 Pro and needed to get my Brother all-in-one Brother MFC-8810DW working like it was before. I had a file system backup but had not otherwise saved or exported settings. I use it with Nuance OmniPage 19 (notes on that install are here). Here are the notes on what I did to re-install the Brother MFC.

Get the the latest full install package from the Brother site (“MFC-8810DW-inst-D1-usa.EXE” as of 10/30/2021). Install that for a Wired Network Connection, choosing Custom Install. Choose to install network drivers, ControlCenter4, Status Monitor, and Remote Setup. I left PS Printer Driver unchecked, and I unchecked PC-FAX Sending and Receiving.

ControlCenter4 Shortcut

The install does not create a shortcut for ControlCenter4.  To create one:

1. Open “C:\Program Files (x86)\Brother\BrLauncher\MFC-8810DW LAN.ini”.

2. In the [SCAN] section, copy the value after “ControlCenter_Scan=”.  Put quotation marks around the program path.  My result:

“C:\Program Files (x86)\ControlCenter4\BrCcBoot.exe” /model=”MFC-8810DW LAN”

3. Right-click on the desktop and select New Shortcut.  Paste the string above into the box and create the shortcut.  Name it “Brother ControlCenter4”.

4. Move the shortcut from your desktop to

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Brother

5. Open ControlCenter4 in Home Mode (easy mode). Click on the Configuration button (upper right) and choose Preferences.  Uncheck Start ControlCenter on computer startup.

Scanner Setup

Use the TWAIN scanner driver when setting up OmniPage.  The WIA driver doesn’t have as many options, e.g. custom scanning page sizes.

Custom document sizes are stored in the registry here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Brother\Scan\TW-Brother MFC-8810DW LAN\TwdCDS

If you’re reading this before a re-install, just export that key from regedit.

To recover that registry key from a file backup, in File Explorer, uncheck “Hide protected operating system files,” then copy this file from a backup to the current desktop:

C:\Users\<username>\ntuser.dat

I could not open the restored ntuser.dat with regedit.exe but I could export it with NirSoft’s RegFileExport using this command

RegFileExport ntuser.dat brother.reg "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Brother\Scan\TW-Brother MFC-8810DW LAN\TwdCDS"

Check brother.reg in Notepad++, then import it by double-clicking on it.  The custom page sizes should be available when you scan with OmniPage.