Alternative to Canon Printer Software for scanning

You can just install scanner driver, open Paint, under menu File click on 'From Scanner or Camera...'

Otherwise you can use IrfanView instead of Paint. http://www.irfanview.com/

Other some info here: http://www.scantips.com/begin2.html

VueScan is one of the best 3rd party scanning utilities available

ScanTips is an amazing resource for all scanning knowledge