"But you can't fix my printer head over the Internet," the man said.

They were light-hearted moments in an otherwise serious meeting at which shareholders voted to approve HP's board, and Whitman for returning HP to its glory days.

Its core business will continue to be selling infrastructure gear -- servers, storage and networking, Whitman said. The company didn't buy Autonomy to transform HP into a software company, she said, but software helps solve customer problems and creates longer-lasting relationships.

But HP has relied too much on acquisitions, Whitman said. In the future it will make "selective acquisitions, at a much lower level" than in the past.

She implied the company will make at least a few layoffs as part of its ongoing reorganization -- something many already suspected after HP that it will combine its printer and PC divisions.