Digital Persona U.are.U 4500 Fingerprint Reader

Great Product! I didnt order from Amazon. My reader didnt come with software or drivers but not a big deal.

Anybody with a simple internet connection and google can have drivers for this in under a hour. "digital persona 4500 driver" click the first link

I have my reader fully working with windows 7 you place your finger print down and it logs you in. If another person places finger down and it knows that user it switches to that users windows account. This is built into software they provide

I reccomend this reader highly its well designed has good structure, small and has long cord.

The cons, not so much a con but the screen has a rubberized surface to allow the finger to mold but its really difficult to clean and dont try using a papertowl =)

Works with windows 7 32bit, I think they just came out with 64bit software

Pros: Build quality & design.

Cons: No "out of box" functionality (details below).

Bottom Line Up Front: I have two and both work like a charm on XP Pro 32 and 7 Ultimate x64, once I was able to locate and install the necessary driver and application.

I have used U.are.U fingerprint readers on multiple systems since version 1.0 on Windows 98 (including the Microsoft-branded 2.0 version for XP) and have never found any flaws with the hardware. This model is by far the best built and looks/feels like it should last "forever." I upgraded to this model when I began planning to upgrade my operating system to Windows 7, as the Microsoft wizard informed me the old 2.0 reader would be incompatible with the new operating system. (Why didn't Microsoft support "their own" product? But I digress...)

I initially successfully installed them with Windows XP Professional SP2 (32-bit) and am now running on Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (64-bit) with no issues other than procuring software. The product ships without drivers or application software, both of which are required before it will operate properly. Unlike some other reviewers' experiences, my Windows 7 system did not recognize the reader until I manually installed drivers.

Note: If you are upgrading from an older fingerprint reader, be sure to uninstall any older application before installing the new drivers. For example, I had the DigitalPersona Password Manager for my 2.0 reader on the system. This application did not work with the 4500 reader and I ended up having to uninstall the new driver, uninstall the application, and re-install the driver.

The driver is available from the DigitalPersona dot com website, albeit indirectly. A search for "u.are.u 4500 drivers" (I used Google) gave me the link. The most recent version is 4.0.0.128, the file name is DP00_02_03.zip published March 10, 2009. Simply unzip and run the executable, then reboot. This driver worked with both my XP and 7 configurations. The operating system recognized that I had the U.are.U 4500 attached, and placed a (at this point non-functioning) "fingerprint log on" icon on my welcome screen.

Note: The latest firmware (search for "u.are.u 4500 firmware") is also available on the same website. It is Version 102, the file name is DP00_02_04.zip published July 9, 2009.

Version 4.x application software is still required at this point to register your fingerprints and actually use the reader. The Digital Persona company used to offer a "Personal" version for retail consumers, but stopped supporting it on April 26th, 2010. They now focus exclusively on corporate/ enterprise/ OEM markets. They will sell the least expensive version of their "Pro Workgroup" software for about $35 per license at the time I write this. It offers a number of pretty awesome features, I recommend looking at it. They offer a free trial as well. For my limited purposes, it was overkill if a free option was available.

Copies of the "Personal" software are still floating around the Internet. Of course it will not be supported by the Digital Persona company. The last version was 4.11, but the application includes an upgrade function that may make it possible to install an earlier 4.x version and then get to 4.11 anyway. There are both 32 and 64 bit versions of the "Personal" software, and they are NOT mutually compatible. There is also a version tailored for HP notebooks that may or may not work on other systems. On the XP system I successfully installed an HP 32-bit 4.01 which upgraded to 4.11. On the 64-bit system I initially tried an HP version that did not work, but after about an hour of searching I found a non-HP 4.11 64-bit install that works fine. Unfortunately I can't post links in this review, but the personal applications are still out there if you don't want the professional version and don't mind that they are no longer supported.

I purchased one of these for a trial. After receiving it I quickly noticed there was no software for it. (This is a very common complaint.) After contacting the company I found that they sell these devices for use with systems or you can program the software yourself and use them.

Tech support has several downloads you can use to utilize this device and one package for the workstation worked great to log me into my PC and also allowed me to setup logins for websites.

My main objective however was to write software that uses these devices to authenticate users on the shop floor. Tech support allowed me to access the developer's downloads and I could download sample code and instructions for using this device in many software platforms. I am currently using it in MS Access 2007 as an Active-X but you can use in C++, VB and so on.

I am sure this is frustrating for users expecting the complete package but for a developer, I am greatly pleased at the reliability of this device. We use this as our timeclock authentication device and you can scan your fingerprint in any orientation and it works great.