LaserSoft Imaging

Gentlemen,
I need to scan a few hundred images so I am trying to streamline my workflow but have encountered several difficulties. I have installed the latest firmware from Kodak (1.34) and the latest SF Photoshop Plugin (5.5.2r02).
1)I load a film strip (4 images), do a prescan of the first image and then a batch scan. Very often the film strip does not move forward and I get 4 scans of the first image. Sometimes it works OK but not consistently.
2)I am not getting accurate focus in the scans. Sometimes I get a really good and crisp scan but when I repeat the scan of the same image, using the same workflow the focus is way off.
3)I chose not to have ScanPilot active with the pref. button, but it keeps coming back on.
4)I am scanning negatives and I did not find a way to hide the NegaFix selector dialog box. It just stays on, using my screen space.
5)I re-arrange the layout of my SilverFast screen components but they keep coming back in their default positions. Since the control buttons on the preview panel are on the left side I want this panel left aligned on my screen and not right aligned.

Please let me know what I am doing wrong or how I can improve my workflow.

Thanks,
Persio.

It sounds like SilverFast isn't able to write its preference files to disk. Do you work in a multiuser environment?
If yes, do you have enough privileges to write to the folder, in which SilverFast was installed?
If no, try to remove the current preference files (maybe corrupted; located inside the Prefs folder in the SilverFast folder) and start SilverFast again - that should generate new preference files. Does the problem still exists?