Why is Windows so hard?

I have an HP All-in-one printer/scanner/fax/copier that has been doing me sterling service in my home office for a while now. It is plugged into the network and I have been printing to it from Windows XP, Ubuntu Linux and Mac OSX fine. I have also been using it as a scanner from my XP Box with no troubles.

The other day the UPS powering the firewall pc between my home office and my router died.  “Ok, that’s forced my hand” I thought. “I was planning to get rid of that firewall pc sometime as it was slowing down my internet access anyway, now is as good a time as any”.  The thing is that now my printer and PCs have all changed their IP address, and the scanner in the printer is not happy about it.

Oh I can print ok, but whenever I try to scan a document from my XP box it complains that it can’t find the scanner.

Hmm, ok, delete the scanner in XP and recreate it I thought.

WRONG – no option to create a new scanner.  Hmm, uninstall the HP software and reinstall it.  Now where did I put the installation CD?

No problem, I’ll download it from the HP website.  Will it install? No of course it bl**dy won’t.  There are various comments on the forum about ‘delete all these files that the uninstaller misses’ – tried that, still won’t install.  Then I spot a comment that the latest driver on the HP website is broken and missing some files and that you need the original installation CD.

I find the installation CD.  It wont install, delete the files that files that should have been deleted from the previous attempts at installing.  It installs – hooray.

Try to scan a document – the PC refuses, says that it can’t talk to the scanner.\

Download latest firmware for the printer and install it.  Still no dice.

I wonder, can I scan from Linux? A quick google confirms that yes the HPLIP software can do it.

Install the necessary packages on my linux box (I already have HPLIP installed for the printing).

Sane says it can’t find a scanner. Run the HPLIP GUI, tell it to find new device, it does, I now have options to print, copy, scan and fax. cool.

Go into sane and scan a document, just like that.

Why does Windows have to be so hard and so slow?