Simplified walk-up enablement of inter-based, personalized access to retail imaging devices and services

A method for operating a central application server comprising:

• receiving a connection from a retail imaging device and in response, creating instructions for remotely accessing the retail imaging device, the remote access instructions including a unique URI for the central application server and configuration information record for the retail imaging device including an identification and software and hardware feature sets of the retail imaging device;
• sending the remote access instructions to the retail imaging device so that the retail imaging device can store the remote access instructions in the portable storage device for use by a remote user device;
• receiving a connection made from the remote user device using the URI and providing the configuration information record to the central application server;
• and,
• configuring and sending a software application to the remote user device that can be used by the remote user device to provide local feature sets at the remote user device that match the software and hardware feature sets available at the retail imaging device according to the configuration information record, with the local feature sets including a local graphic user interface that matches the graphic user interface provided to the user at the retail imaging device.