How to get a replacement copy of the free Canon Solutions Disk Software (DPP, EOS Viewer Utility, Zoom Browser...)

You might have noticed that if you bought a Canon DSLR from someone who did not pass you the Canon Solutions Disk with the EOS Viewer, the Digital Photo Professional Software (DPP) or the PhotoStitch software you like so much, you are out of luck and will have to pay for a copy on ebay. It is a free software available to all Canon DSLR owners (well if you are the first owner that is). Similarly if you bought a new computer and do not have the original Canon Solutions Disk, you are also out of luck as it seems Canon is now providing a link on their website for an Updater instead which requires that you first have the original software installed for the Updater to work. That does not solve the problem for most clearly.

There have been other solutions suggested online (here is one dfguo.com). Some folks who are tech savvy have been able to work around it and get the Updater to install as a complete software. The work around requires editing the registry to "fool" the Updater thinking that the original software is "installed" in your laptop as apparently the Updater is indeed a full suite but won't install unless you have the original version on your computer. I did try the method suggested on dfgua.com but my initial efforts were not successful. I was also apprehensive about having to edit my HKEYs and was concerned I may end up messing up the Registry if I have another go at it. So I looked around the web for an alternate solution which I found which I explained below.

I am a Canon user and have DPP and Canon EOS utilities on my old laptops but I recently added a third laptop to my line up. I bought this third laptop off ebay from a reseller and of course it did not have the Canon EOS Utilities bundled installed. In the past I have been able to download the full DPP software suite directly from Canon USA onto all my other computers. Things changed obviously at Canon Support desk and they decided to rein the free software in. With that change links to the full suite of image processing software were nowhere to be found. Instead what you see are links to "Updater software" only. Without the original DPP software on my new laptop, the Updater file I downloaded just will not install. A site I came across DSLR Film Noob dot Com's posting had some helpful info. After much poking around Canon USA home page (http://www.usa.canon.com) and other Canon International home page I found a link to the EOS Solutions Disk installer zip file hidden among the many Updater software links. The Canon Solutions Disk package is listed on the software page as the installer package for those who were not able to install originally from the bundled CD. To download the installer package you need a serial no and I used 0330113672. This was the number mentioned in the blog from DSLR Film Noob that had worked and the software pack downloaded quickly.
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Interestingly the same serial number is good for many downloads and worked each time no matter which model I selected, Canon 6D, or 50D or 60D, it did not seem to matter. I said this because I had initially downloaded DPPW 4.3.1 which installed fine but refused to launch greeting me with a message saying I need to reduce the display size of my screen to Small (100%) for it to work. Mine is set to Medium 150% (Control Panel - Display- Screen Resolution). I uninstalled it and went back to the same Canon site and downloaded the EOS Solutions Disk Software instead. That proved to be the better decision as in the Solutions Disk Software package are the DPP (v3), EOS Utility, Zoom Browser, PhotoStitch etc the whole suite of Canon utilities. Once unzipped, all the packages installed 100% on my laptop running Windows 7 64bit and they all work fine. They are essentially a copy of the Canon CD that is supplied with a new Canon DSLR.
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Now to get to the software download link you have to go to Canon USA or Canon Europe, or Australia or Singapore homepage, click Drivers and Software link on the top right corner, then user Product Finder, pick your model of Canon DSLR EOS. On the next page when a Recommended List pops up, select the Software tab. Find the Canon EOS Solutions Disk (towards the bottom of the page), and hit SELECT. You will prompted to enter a serial number before download begins. The file is fairly large (100M for the Solutions Disk) and 184M for DPPW 4.3.1 and may take some time depending on your internet speed.

Hope this helps some of you who face the same dilemma as I did. Cheers