I just spent over two hours getting a run around from Hewlett Packard Technical Support. I wanted to use a Hewlett Packard Deskjet 460 with an old computer that has some greeting card software installed on Windows ME. Turns out that in July 2007, HP removed all the device drivers for their products from their website for Windows 98 and ME. If you still have your driver CD that you got before July 2007, you're ok. But if not, you're up a creek. You can read more about this horrible support decision here: HP Removing Drivers To Suport Older Operating Systems With their Printers.

Do you really think Microsoft is behind a horrible plan to force hardware vendors to remove drivers that were available for older operating systems that Microsoft doesn't want to support anymore? What would be the harm in continuing to make the old Windows 98 and ME drivers available? Or did someone at HP make a stupid decision to not support their customers. Should I just throw my old computer in a landfill just because Microsoft or HP now decide to make it difficult for me to continue using it with the hardware I already have? Let me know what you think. What do you think I should do about this problem? What are you willing to help me do about this problem?