Real case scenario: she might want to use her legacy Scanner, and an old printer, and that chinese gadget her nephew got her for Christmas, with Windows-only drivers.

That's why all of my family members still use Windows (Macs are still several salaries away here in Uruguay, and so is replacing the old stuff).

As someone who contributes to linux's printing subsystem I will say that we put a lot of effort into keeping old printers working. To the point where the original apple laser printers should be usable. Provided at some point it worked under linux then it should still work. Every time we rewrite the printing system we bring along all our supported printers through some comparability method.

On the other hand Microsoft and printer vendors do drop support for some printers at every major windows revision. Please do give Ubuntu a try.

I will, I might be prejudiced.

I had tried SUSE Linux as a replacement, and had to go back to Windows, but the latest versions of Ubuntu sound like they are very good.

However, the cost of additional trips to my parents', grandparents', or uncle's houses for maintenance or unfamiliarity is still too much for me, so I'm still reluctant to recommend it to them (especially since their computers already came with Windows preinstalled).

I will try it out for business use as well if I finally start my own company (hopefully next year).

Edit: thank you for contributing to Linux and I hope you will be rewarded for it.

Edit2: I have great faith that the newer generations will be much more likely to try out and like Ubuntu, since they've been given the OLPC computers :) . While I'm reluctant to suggest my older family members to switch, the younger ones have a chance.

You're probably better off with Linux then. Many old gadgets only have windows xp drivers, and don't work on any version of windows that has been derived from NT. However, most do have Linux support

Windows XP was derived from NT.

Win2000 as well, that was my favorite for a long time. I eventually upgraded, kicking and screaming, because the Supreme Commander beta wouldn't run on Win2000 and required WinXP.

Fun silly fact, Win8 appears to be WinNT 6.2, go figure.

I have seen that Linux (Mint or Ubuntu) has better printer/scanner compatibility than Windows 7 if you dont have driver CDs.

Try it - I think you will be surprised.

Actually, the last few (brand new and "legacy") printer/scanners I've hooked up have never asked for a driver disc on Windows 7. The driver situation on Windows is far, far better than it used to be.

EDIT: presuming you have an active Internet connection. Which is a fairly safe assumption these days, but by no means guaranteed.