That's hysterical.

Let's hope his CO has a sense of humor.

I have always found HPs to be good buys (pricey, but dependable).  But I do realize YMMV.  And they just got a black eye on this one!

I once spent a couple of weeks working a thing called the the X-Prize Cup (some of you gamers may know of it indirectly, but it had nothing to do with gaming).  One of my assigned tasks early on was to purchase & install 4 printer/fax/copier machines.  Hit the local Wal-Mart & picked up 4 HP All-in-Ones.  Spent damn near 48 hours trying to get any one of them to work on 3 different computers, half that time talking to HP support it seemed.  The installation routine locked up each computer it was tried on, never got any of them successfully installed, let alone working.  When the HP support tech finally told me I needed to reformat my hard drive to get a clean install, I told them to get serious (in less kind terms), returned all 4 of them and bought some printers (Konica) & dedicated fax machines (Brother) which installed in minutes without a hitch.

I give HP equipment a very wide berth, so as not to end up as collateral damage in a scene like this.

I actually haven't had a lot of bad experiences with HP/compaq.  Then again, I buy compaq laptop at a bargain basement price.  I beat the shit out of it until it breaks and 2 years later buy a new one.  I'm really not your typical user. 

But as 'resident computer guy' for quite a few people, I've had plenty of experience with HP stuff.  Haven't experienced too many problems,. 

I have not had any major issues with the laptops.  But desktops and servers?  Well, at least the Compaq side of them I do hate for good reason (try a 50% failure rate within 12 months!).  Printers always seemed to be the standard of excellence, albeit at a higher price.

But as we all know, my experiences are not your experiences, so I can see where Daiwa got some lemons that I just never have (I have a 8 year HP old ink jet photo printer that will just not die, and a 2 year old Lexmark all in one that is a paperweight).

Couldn't tell you whether they were lemons or not, DG.  It was HP's incredibly bloated and buggy installation software that screwed the pooch.

Ok, I can go with you on that!  I have had to install the software for others, and one mis-step and the thing is toast!  Rip out and start over!  I have also installed other printer brands, and at least the installation was more forgiving.  But once the sucker is set up, I have found that the performance is great.  And I do learn from those mis-steps, so usually I only make them once, before knowing not to do it again.  But for lay people?  I guess that is a reason to tell HP to take this (printer) job and shove it!

I'm not exactly a novice.  And the software for these things was just awful.  No excuse for it.  All I really needed was Windows drivers for the damn things but, nope, HP isn't that user friendly - it required the entire bloatware installation to be usable and the installer was defectively written, fatally so.  But I'm off my horse now & on to other things.