Thanks very much for your help. Actually that weird rigmarole has been around since XP.
For the record, this wasn't the problem. The printer was actually on a networked print server, but Windows8 always insists on trying to detect everything automatically. It found an instance of the same printer that had been "shared" by another computer on the network, and kept insisting that this was my only choice. The missing ingredient was setting up the print queue and port on my own desktop, which has to be done explicitly. Your post caused me to realize that I had to punch down through Windows 8's new Anti-Productivity-Layer (the "Experience") to the actual nuts and bolts underneath. However dreadful that often is, it at least has the virtue of familiarity.