Various issues since Leopard upgrade

Question

I have just installed Leopard on a Dual 2.7 G5 with a 500GB Hitachi HDD and 5GB RAM and I have noticed one or two niggling little 'quirks' (I am lumping everything together here, rather than separating them in to more appropriate sections, so that I have a record of everything together).
1) I have an Epson Perfection 4870 scanner which I cannot use to scan directly from applications (for quickness I mainly use Preview) as the 'scan' button is always unavailable (greyed out, not highlighted in blue). This has been an issue since at least 10.4.8, so it's not a problem exclusive to Leopard, but it's extremely annoying nonetheless. As I can scan directly from the Epson Scan software (which is basically the driver) Epson will not assist me further and have directed me to Apple/Adobe/MS, etc., for support. Prior to 10.4.8 (IIRC) I could select 'import' (from whatever application) and it would automatically preview, the scan button would then become available and hitting it would launch the driver software. However, the link between the applications and the driver seems to have been severed somehow/somewhere and it is no longer recognising that the unit has finished its preview in order to make the 'scan' button available for the next part of the process.
In Tiger, I could also scan into Epson's EasyScan application, but have been told this isn't 10.5 compatible.
Does the above make sense...? Has anyone else experienced this - and have you solved it? If so, how?
2) This next bit concerns the Dock. I like to have it hidden along the left hand side of the screen, rather than at the bottom, because I only have a 17" panel and desktop space is at a premium. However, about one restart in five, it's back along the bottom and any icons or folders that I have added to it have gone AWOL.
3) The third issue is a sound issue. I have a Revolution 7.1 card which I understand, from reading a notice on M-Audio's Web site, is not yet Leopard compatible (though the promise it will be "very soon"' though as the last driver release didn't support anything newer than 10.4.6, IIRC, I'm not holding my breath!)
So I have removed the card and plugged my Logitech Z5500s back into the 'on board' card. This was working flawlessly under Tiger (I know because I tested it to make sure, because I knew that the Revolution wouldn't function under Leopard). However, whatever I try, I only seem to hear sound from the internal speaker; I even replaced the optical cable (at great expense - the original was a Belkin Gold Series, and so is the replacement and, at about £35 a pop, it's not a trivial outlay). Everything in the sound sys prefs is completely 'greyed out' so I cannot change it from the internal speaker to anything else. Whilst there is nothing on Logitech's Web site as regards to the Leopard compatibility of any of its products (it seems that it gave up on the Mac a very long time ago; I use a MX510 which was the last of their rodents to have any kind of OS X support and that stopped with 10.4.4, IIRC) I cannot see how a set of speakers, which should work with anything that has the required jack sockets, can be fussy about an OS. Incidentally, I also have a 'dark side' box running XP Home (when I win the lottery, I'll buy a Mac Pro and dispense with it) and they're plugged in there and work fine (via analogue, though, not digital).
I noticed it when I received some CDs that I'd ordered from Amazon the other day and found that iTunes was playing through the internal speaker.
4) The final issue is a networking issue. Under Tiger, I could (though it did take me some tweaking to get it working smoothly) dump things from the G5 on to the Windoze box and vice versa, without too many hiccups. However, Leopard is proving to be somewhat of a challenge, to say the least. I don't know how I managed it, but I did manage to render the machine completely inoperable at one point (it would only boot as far as the grey 'Apple logo' screen and I couldn't open the optical drive to stick the DVD in - a panicked phone call to a friend, who runs his own Mac repair and consultancy business, followed!
I don't understand SMB and AFP (though I do know about FTP). In the Finder, I can see the 'doze box and can send things to it (though should I be connected as 'guest'?) but there is nothing on the Windoze side, save for 'Printers and Faxes'). I have made sure I have permissions set correctly and everything is set up to share (and Windows sharing is on) but there is nothing on the other box at all.
Is it possible to share the main HDD across, or am I limited to this silly 'Drop Box' thing (which I did have available under 'doze at one point, though it was read only and I couldn't change permissions from Leopard because I didn't have sufficient privileges, even though I have an admin account and I could change permissions under Tiger with the same level of 'clearance'.)
4) This final issue is sort of linked with 3) as it concerns what I believe to be erroneous error messages. I was clearing some stuff off a drive I was going to use for Time Machine[1], but I wasn't allowed to delete most of it because 'XYZ was in use' or open in an application. Six reboots later, I was still receiving the same error; strikes me that Leopard's got its knickers in a knot somewhere along the line because the files in question (mainly old Word and Excel docs) were certainly NOT in use as I didn't have either installed at the time!
[1]Though having read the problems people are having with TM (not just here, but on other forums I read/post to) I think I might give it a miss and stick with ChronoSync (just have to wait for it to be compatible).
So, this is actually the second installation, but the problems remain - any help out there?
Sorry for the verboseness of this, but I wanted to make sure that I'd covered everything. I'm almost tempted to reinstall Tigger (but not quite - I like Spaces, and I like the Dock Preview).
Cheers for any assistance, folks!
Fran

Answer 1

Fran, I'm not sure I'm going to be much help for all your problems but I will attempt to answer what I can.
1. Scanner problems - have you tried reinstalling the software? I know you mentioned that the easyscan software is not compatible but it sounds like the driver software isn't in the right place. Optionally another program that you might want to look into is vuescan. I have had good success with the program in the past but I have yet to try it under Leopard.
2. Dock problems this sounds like either a corrupted preference list. But I don't have a clue as to why it might be reoccurring. Have you fixed permissions on your computer since installation?
3. I don't have a clue to figure out how to fix this issue.
4. Networking - As for sending things to the doze box. You don't need to be connected as guest. Just use the username and password that you use when you sign into the windows to sign into the windows box and you should have the same rights as you would as if you were using windows on that computer. Yes it is possible to share the main HDD but it isn't something that I would recommend. What I do recommend is creating a folder where you have both read and write rights to and then use that folder share items across both computers. If this isn't something that is going to work for then at the most I would just share your documents folder. You didn't mention how your trying view information on the windows side you should be able to browse your network and eventually find and see the mac.
4 (part 2) - I would recommend something besides TM, it is designed to recover lost/accidentally deleted files. And isn't really designed for being your complete backup program. Yes, you can use it for that but I would recommend something more robust. Some of that comes down to how you want to define your recovery strategy. Superduper!, promotes themselves as having the ability to boot for your backup drive and being able to almost immediately get back in business. If this is a critical factor to you then I would lean in that direction. If you are just worried about having a backup of critical data files then Chronosync or some other program will work just as well. Also mentioned in your post in this paragraph is a description of "files in use" problems. A couple of things come to mind did you let spotlight finish indexing your drive before you tried deleting files? I've run into a problem similar to this in Tiger when I was deleting files while spotlight was indexing.
One item that you didn't mention was what kind of installation you did when you installed Leopard. If you didn't do an 'erase and install" then that might be something to look into. First back up your computer before doing this. You might also want to run a permissions fix on your drive to see if that helps at all.
HTH
Paul