Question about printer scanners.

So I have a HP Deskjet 2540 printer/scanner, and it only scans if I'm in something like a PDF maker that has a "scan" option. If I just use the HP scan feature in my start menu it says I can't make a connection. My question is this, does anyone know how I might be able to fix this, and if not that's fine because I can always get my artwork scanned using the paint program or paint.net programs. I'm just worried about what I'd do if those don't work.

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