Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 are not great for backward compatibility with hardware, particularly printers and business scanners.And yet I'm running Windows 10 on a computer that's 10 years old, printing from Windows to a printer that I am unable to print to using Linux. Windows automatically recognized the scanner on that printer (it's an "all-in-one" printer) - no idea how to set up the scanner under Linux. I can print to this same printer from my iPad, but I carefully selected one that I knew would work with that when I bought it.
The fact is, Windows supports more hardware devices than any other OS out there. Where a device-independent standard exists, or can be created, Microsoft writes and supports the driver. In other cases, the device manufacturer is responsible for the driver. There are literally hundreds of thousands of devices out there, and it's just not practical for Microsoft to write and support the device drivers for all of them.
I do also find it frustrating that MS changed the driver model so many times over the years, but I can assure you there were very good reasons for doing so. Except for video drivers, it really hasn't changed significantly since Windows 7 (64-bit) / Windows 8.
BTW - printers with scanners build in are extremely cheap these days. For example, my Epson WF-3540 was purchased for less than $50. Maybe time for you to upgrade?