I would say I'm reasonably comfortable with technology. I'm not a programmer. I don't create hardware. I am comfortable installing operating systems and various hardware though. However, today's experience proved, at least to me, that the experience has become very narrowly defined. The reason will be left to the reader to determine.

I bought a desktop inkjet printer today. A major brand and a mid-level priced unit. I simply wanted to disconnect my current printer/scanner I use via a USB connection and connect the new one. Oh, if it were only that simple.

It took 2 hours to coax this piece of mostly plastic into cooperating. I was forced to download the manufacturer's software before it would attempt to recognize it. The OS simply did not see a printer there, although it was able to see the scanner functionality and actually be capable of scanning. I guess I forgot to tell Windows it was the same machine.

I was able to enjoy downloading installation software, then drivers, then basic scanner software, then a diagnostics program, than another installer.... Each time required long reboots and still no printer being recognized.

I finally stumbled across another program that claimed to be the 'full' installer version, however after installing, it wouldn't start until I updated some windows framework something, something, blah, blah, blah. So I downloaded the file it directed me to but it won't install as it requires Windows 11 and I still have Windows 8. I mean it's not like Windows 8 is 20 years old.

Ok, so I download the framework for Windows 8 and attempt to install. After 30 minutes of looking at a progress dialogue that refuses to progress, I select cancel to 'roll-back' the installation process. Of course we will reboot as well.

After this I tried the installer and suprisingly even though the framework had 'rolled-back', it installed. About 2 reboots later (1 of which was frozen on the secondary POST screen that required a hard reset) it seems to be installing the proper drivers.

Finally, the process finished, I printed a test page and everything seems to be working - 2 hours later.

Since it appeared to work I decided to reboot back to Linux (I dual boot windows and Linux) and I walked away during the boot process to eat dinner or something and assumed I would need to budget some time to do some extensive tinkering to get this thing to work in Linux. To my pleasant suprise, Linux found the new printer, installed the drivers and set everything up without any user input. Linux is - what Microsoft wants to be. If Microsoft had a conscious they would be ashamed.