Stupid Microsoft software. Suppose that I wanted to do something perfectly normal and reasonable, like sharing a printer on my network. I tick the “share this printer” checkbox just like you’re supposed to, check that my (still-awesome) router is okay, and go to add the printer on the other computer.

How am I supposed to know that …

Windows cannot connect to the printer. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server.

… means that “since you didn’t turn the printer on until after the computer started up, and I’m a stupid OS that doesn’t properly understand hot-plugging, I will refuse to let you connect to this printer”?!

I spent two hours chasing fairies around RPC endpoints, NetBIOS name resolution, and services that weren’t running … only to discover that all I had to do was turn the printer on before starting up Windows. Sheesh.