HP printer rant

[spinbaby]

I'm going to drop-kick this HP printer back to the Apple store. I've spent literally all weekend fiddling with it. Its installation CD installs literally THOUSANDS of files. Takes fifteen minutes. Haven't had a clean install yet, and keep uninstalling and reinstalling per HP instructions. Still can't print.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

I hate this thing and don't understand why Apple would choose to sell these monsters instead of their own printers like they used to. Apple's own printers were always elegant and they WORKED.

[Kutjara]

1. HP just loves to hose your machine with...

...megatons of barely functional bugware, in the mistaken belief that doing so makes them a player in the 'new-media' market. Just because they call their bloated, crashhappy, useless junk 'HP Image Station' (so that people will think it's someting like a workstation for images), doesn't make it any less junky.

I typically go to the HP website and just download the basic driver software, instead of the whole nine-course shitfest that comes with it. Seems even HP realize that a lot of their customers aren't fooled, which is why you can get the stripped-down driver directly from the downloads page.

[Crabby Appleton]

2. that's what I do also - work and home - nt

[spinbaby]

3. Thanks, I'll do that

I can't believe how much crap this thing loads into my system.

[Kutjara]

4. And once the crap is on your system...

...it pesters you endlessly to check for updates. Even when there aren't any, it still pop-up a dialog box telling you you have to install the nonexistent updates. When you quit the update dialog, it tells you what a bad person you are for not installing the updates that it doesn't have. Pure magic.