My watch-only address is currently being ran on Electrum 3.0.6 with Windows 10 and it appears the zbar reader is not installed for me. When I go and try to load from QR code it says "Cannot start QR scanner; zbar not available".
Did you not see the following note on the Electrum download page?
![Huh](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/huh.gif)
Note: The QR code scanner is not supported in Windows binaries
Is there a way I can use zbar on windows 10 or do I need to get another bootable USB with an OS that supports it?
zbar is available for download and install, but it doesn't seem to be compatible with Python:
>>> libzbar = ctypes.cdll.LoadLibrary('libzbar-0.dll')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "C:\Program Files\Python36\lib\ctypes\__init__.py", line 422, in LoadLibrary
return self._dlltype(name)
File "C:\Program Files\Python36\lib\ctypes\__init__.py", line 344, in __init__
self._handle = _dlopen(self._name, mode)
OSError: [WinError 193] %1 is not a valid Win32 application
...even though you can run zbar just fine from the commandline?!??
![Huh](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/huh.gif)
Apparently, this is usually indicative of the .dll being compiled for 32bit architecture... and Python being 64bit...
![Undecided](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/undecided.gif)
As for your alternative idea... the QR code should load up fine using a QR Code scanner (like webqr.com)... However, the data in the QR Code is stored as a
Base43 encoded string... that is to say, it looks something like:
E:W-P131.RRM+R91DWWMGE0EQRXD:+879DLKFM.S2C9T/XZP:ZV8RV-*/H*X93O44A+1HS-J1F6:D266RS.Z8O9AYSJ*278CCUQ2H4Z6YWM9CTH66YH6MXFSJ3H7-YBASEABDYWOYGW5K.X0CG4QP6BKDUTWE.1B9MBWT68*B4EGKSWPLPQ2N2/8FW1WCC4:J3/:O7$0+N20QGS*OBXE9:RIQ8U/.MYC.75G*S$6DHA*YEVM3/$VRMT3$/1TNN:.XTN1.Z7:1JZWWTQ7$PG7EOZ:T8O-*PMNUOKN0NBT/CT*.JRU69PYTUI3MQK3-VL.4LCUCM2++YS:
Decoding this to raw hex is not exactly a simple task... by stepping through the Electrum Python code (and a bit of trial and error)... It is possible to get this to convert to:
0100000001e90bbe1976e7056eca27ea7a280948c17be71cd6f9936c16d4a7afddcb1ac31f010000006b483045022100c4afaa26eecb143927815969f5b409647d7fcbc24f5456f69f80e0ca631a6fa802200f537578611a9d14fb13e37f962a161c6a24ec5a356d26a0db4659d0fc2b77480121028087725567ce3b2395d019b430d9948dd7a91508a32d69d649cc4c1f67cd50b3ffffffff0218b39d00000000001976a91400a99b3e32116afa227b180c26dd03a0fcd7dce588ac319e0a00000000001976a914bcb55f0e60f9859de8a6467f9fcab69745028bf688ac00000000
Honestly, if you're set on using QR codes, for now you'll most likely need to use another OS.