Digital Persona 4000B thumb reader

Hey guys, I bought two of these beauties second hand, only to discover they are almost impossible to install on windows 7 machines.

Are there any hardware buffs (looking at you @JTRTech ) that have a way for these to work on Windows 7 machines, or have any advice?

I’ve tried finding drivers but only XP versions are available, the next model in the Digital Persona range the 4500 is apparently easier to install.

I’m wanting to use these for waiters to log in.

Have you got an XP machine to test?
I would like to see what kind of output they give before spending too much time trying to install.
Do they show as HID?

Dont have xp machine unfortunately.

This is what it gets picked up as…

Have never used so not sure what would be the expected output from it…
Ideally you want it to be a HID/Keyboard Emulator which spits out a string of numbers based on the print but doubt that will be the case.
Surely like an iPhone scanner you need to ‘train’ it? What utility/software it come with?

Try installing it as a legacy device.

From experience, most Digital Persona devices require applications to be developed for them to work. I can’t say specifically for this model, but when I tried with another model, it was near impossible to get drivers for them, and even then it doesn’t work with Windows login.

Note that you won’t be able to use a fingerprint scanner to login to SambaPOS. The best you will get if you use a compatible device is to give you Windows login capability, but that won’t do much with regards to SambaPOS.

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I would like to use it as a waiter log in for SambaPOS, instead of using the touch screen, so yes it would be used like a keyboard simulator. I have seen it being used in many such pos systems as a log in device.

But you are right I think it needs software to run, I see there is a Gold Fingerprint Recognition Software version 2.5 that would work but I’m struggling to find a downloadable version.

Why do you say it wont be able to use it for sambapos log in?

If it needs a software to run it might be a case of the software is the moderator of the registered users and that the reader is not a HID that it communicates with the software which decades who has scanned there print.
SambaPOS uses HID at login screen, either touch screen pressing the keypad or a keyboard typing the pin. An RFID or MSR is a HID which emulates a keyboard typing the serial/number of the card/fob.
The reader does the translation from the card to fob and outputs keystokes.
This is why I said unless it turns a print into a sting of numbers (unlikely) it would likely be hard to use.

Only solution if software is required is if that software were to act as the HID and trigger keystrokes based on who it identifies on a scan.

OK got that thank you,

I have discovered this software and it works well with WIN LOGIN and is very responsive, now hopefully to get software that will convert into a string of numbers.

Unfortunately that won’t be possible, unless there was some way to map a specific fingerprint being read from the device with its software to trigger entering numbers to the keyboard. I doubt there is such feature available in the software.

Where you have seen a fingerprint reader working with a POS software is because the POS software has implemented functionality to work with one or more types of fingerprint reader. The POS developer would have used the SDK for the device and built features into the app to support it. I have seen such with some software I worked with before.

The main thing you must remember is that a fingerprint cannot be reproduced as a number - it’s way more complex than that - so this is why it is not possible to use for a number based login like SambaPOS has.

Just on a side note regarding that software - the link you provide is to a cracked / unofficial upload and therefore you can’t guarantee there isn’t any nasties that came along with the software. For sure, the “Pro Enterprise” software is not free, I recall Digital Persona selling it for quite a bit on their site. This is also why you can’t find free software for this device… :frowning:

The main thing you must remember is that a fingerprint cannot be reproduced as a number - it’s way more complex than that - so this is why it is not possible to use for a number based login like SambaPOS has.

That statement isnt entirely true and this can be done

When i was teaching our school canteen pos system used fingerprints, every student had to have their thumb scanned so that when purchasing food scanning their thumb on the pos opened their account to pay for their food

I got talking to the guys who set it up and they said the way it works is that the fingerprint is never stored, it converts the print into numbers for data protection of the kids and this number is all that is stored. You also cannot create the fingerprint by using this number

When the kids scan their print to display their account it doesnt search for a match of a print as it doesnt exist it, it converts their print to a number and matches that number against the saved number for the student in the database to open their account

So it can be done but im guessing its extremely costly due to having all the data protection stuff needed for schools

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Wow generating deterministic unique ids without storing fingerprints should be a really though task.

Surely it depends what comes out of the device?
I’m not a pro on these and struggle to see how you could reliably generate a number from a print given the complexity and interaction variances like angle and position etc. Complex stuff…

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I have got digital persona 4500 sdk and documentation. @emre if I send you maybe you can be able to integrate the fingerprint login option?

I bought 2 and they sent me the sdk but I don’t have access to source code since we are on v5

Got a developed
version. works like a bomb. standalone app

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Developed for Samba? Can you share?

Made a standalone application.
Added a field(to store the fingerprint) to the user table in SQL.
FingerPrint Application Starts when Samba starts(you set this up in Samba Rules) and closes once the fingerprint has been been verified successfully(also Rules). Use SendKeys(CodeProject C#) to send to send the PIN combination to Samba log in screen. Its not integrated into samba but works rather well. Wrote another small C# app to enroll the fingerpints for the Users.

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also when the current user logs out and samba goes back to the log in screen then you open the FingerPrint App Again. I used the Digital persona SDK.

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We use the rules and action to execute another application that run over Sambapos and return a numeric value. The finger print is save on the user table and you enroll the user in SambaPOS. This is not a FBI secure solution but it works for our requirements to identify a person on their finger print. You will also require the Digital Persona SDK to run this application.
The setup is also automatically and you are required to install and configure the app everytime you update Sambapos as well as shanges screen resolutions (the position of the finger print logo is hard coded)

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