vmware, win95, and old scanner - will this crazy thing work?

[attilathepun]

So I realized my Windows partition was still running Win2K, and I decided it was way past time to upgrade to XP. Unfortunately, my old Agfa parallel scanner is not supported under XP, and there are no plans to write a driver, either, since "this line of products has been discontinued". WinXP runs so much better that 2K did, though, and the scanner won't work under Linux, either (I've tried, believe me), and I'm not in a position to upgrade the scanner, so I'm in a fix. I plan to install a light old version of Windows, like 95a, but don't want to give it a seperate partition - this would involve wiping and reinstalling xp.

The plan is to install vmware on my Linux partition and then install Win95a through vmware. I have a few questions, though. First, is vmware free? The website calls it open source but seems to want to charge for it. Secondly, which version should I install for this purpose? Thirdly, can I install standard Win95 device drivers and software without trouble if Win95 is installed through vmware?

If this isn't going to work, is there some other type of FREE emulator I could use to make this old scanner function?
Thanks

[xxqq]

Search the driver for Windows 2000 on the net.
The driver also work for Windows XP.

Perhaps you can create Windows 95 or 98 LiveCD and boot from the liveCD.
(Bart PE).

[attilathepun]

Search the driver for Windows 2000 on the net ... should also work for Windows XP

I tried. It doesn't. I might try making a liveCD, but does anyone know anything about vmware? I'd like to try that first.