Hardware:
- Unpack HP Photosmart All-in-One C6100 and put on a table
- Remove 10 yards of tape and a plastic bag large enough to cover a motorcycle
- Install SIX ink cartridges
- Put in paper
- Turn printer on
- Hit OK button when prompted to run cartridge alignment.
- Come back in 5 minutes.
- Go to the menu to make sure the printer found your wireless network
- Dig the CD’s out from the pile of documentation.
Software – Windows:
- Insert CD and click on Install
- Wait
- Watch file copying progress (Step 1/4, 2/4, etc)
- Start Connection Setup, select Wireless Network
- Wait while Setup looks for HP printers
- Wonder why Setup didn’t find any HP printers
- Click Back, try again
- And again
- and again
- Swear
- Point at printer and tell Setup “It’s over there!”
- Try again
- and again
- Wait 10 minutes to make sure Windows is actually seeing the printer’s host name (since sometimes new systems take a while to appear in a Network list)
- Try again
- Give up and select Manual setup
- Walk across room and go into Printer setup to find out what the IP address is.
- Enter IP address into the “Search” field and click Next
- “Oh, you mean THAT printer!”
- Wait some more while even more files are copied
- Reboot
- More files are copied
- Your printer is installed! Time elapsed: 35 minutes
Software – Mac:
- Insert CD and run the HP Installer
- Watch file copying progress
- Start Connection Setup, select Wireless Network
- List of printers comes up; HP PhotoSmart C6100 Series is already there.
- Select it and click on “Make Default.”
- More files copied.
- Your printer is installed! Time elapsed: 4 minutes
(This is not an exaggeration… this is an actual account of my experience installing driver software onto the Windows and Mac OSX side of my MacBook Pro.)