And there are things I love about the photo printer from HP I gave my wife.  It can read any memory card from anyone, and print pictures from them with little hassle, with no PC connected.  Which is nice. Cause booting my windows laptop takes 7 minutes. Used to take 4.

I avoided using my wifes printer for 2 years, but recently had to.  No problem, install the drivers.  Had to find a CD. Hassle #1 - I am on the internet, don't make me find a CD from two years ago.

Then the fun begins. HP installs a bunch of crap on my laptop. Photo software I don't want. Other applicaitons I don't want. I manage to un-install some of them.

But still, a year later, every time I boot my laptop or try to (TRY to ) shut it down, I have reasons to hate HP.

On boot

• It opens the HP drivers folder and takes up my screen. 
• Like thats why I booted my computer, to check my drivers.
• It checks on the internet (which, if I am not on a network , another 2 minutes trying.......) for a new driver.
• Like I want to check for a new printer driver ever. No. I want to print a word document, and never ever want a new printer driver.
• It occaisionally asks me to register. Not always.
• I don't want to register any information with HP ever, especially just to print a document on my wifes printer.
  

   On Shutdown

• One of the 7 (seven for gods sake) tasks that now run cause my laptop is infected by HP, won't shot down, ever.

• I have to manually "end process" for it everytime.
• Wonder how well that works with the americal-on-line crowd that is not always technical saavy, like my 83 year old mom?
  

Oh, and I have tried to uninstall every part of this driver and its freaking payload.  Its the worst thing ever.
All because 1 year ago I needed to print directions and my printer was out of ink.  I honestly considered for a minute writing them down by hand.

I should have.

Hey HP - you have made me prefer writing things by hand than installing your "payloaded" driver.

How many $50 ink cartridges you gonna sell me now?

And its a great printer.   The driver install people or the marketing people that decided to payload this printer CD into hell, could learn a lot about how to treat a customer.