[powermacj7]

This is not a Window Bash or anything, just my experience using Windows for really the first time for a length of time.

I have been using Macintosh since 1985. Truthfully, used a PC very few times in my life, a few times in college. The other day, i fired up my dads old IBM and restored the system with XP and Office 2003. Admit the system is slow, the PC is an AMD K 2.

I found the install process mildly confusing, although I believe that anyone with computer experience could accomplish an install. The system is slow, and this took almost an hour.

Login into Windows was a weird experience as I set up a new account, and configured the internet connection. Windows recognized my internet set-up and all went smooth.

Immediately, I was turned off by the huge green start button with the beige color around the window borders. The system tray loaded up with little icons representing the office programs, and other apps. I found the interface "busy" and cluttered compared to Mac OSX, or any other prior version.

Using the start menu to access programs is somewhat clumsy. Although I found internet explorer easy enough. Then I was bombarded with pop-ups about Windows Updates. And wow, there were like 40 critical updates, and several others. This was a painful process, and a slow computer did not help.

After getting the updates, I got on the net and began surfing around. I got destroyed with pops up, and found no preference in IE to stop them. I downloaded MSN tool bar and this eliminated the problem. What I did like was the link bar on IE with the icons, you know with colors etc.

I did not like the way Word opens in a full screen mode, and toyed around getting it more "Mac like" I watched some news video feeds and found Window Player a poor performer.

I downloaded Quicktime and iTunes for Windows and found, so far, these apps appear close to the Mac versions in appearance. I will have to try iTunes more.

In short, it was a strange experience to use Windows. I found it so far, poor interface design, and average internet experience. It has not froze up, or anything like that yet.

I am going to try to network the my Mac to the IBM, and see how that works next.

I must admit, it is nice owning a Mac, and I am glad I am using it right now.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Yup. I agree with pretty much everything you've said.

A lot of people say that, now, with Windows XP, Windows is actually usable and pleasant to use...but I couldn't disagree more.

It still is a cluttered and busy mess of poorly laid out toolbar buttons and a taskbar that tries to do too much in too little space.

[sniffer]

Agree with the above as well. MS need to cach up in many areas, especially in the general user experience. Anyway, I have a headless XP box and it is doing just fine. I primary use it for storing files, downloading and print serving.

[msuper69]

You're preaching to the choir.

[leperkuhn]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Yup. I agree with pretty much everything you've said.

A lot of people say that, now, with Windows XP, Windows is actually usable and pleasant to use...but I couldn't disagree more.

It still is a cluttered and busy mess of poorly laid out toolbar buttons and a taskbar that tries to do too much in too little space.

I've found that they've taken something that is difficult to use at the fundamental level and tried to make it easier to use by slapping on an "easy to use layer". Such as the start menu to help with applications.

But to a new user that accidently removed the item from the start menu, welcome to your nightmare. I am a sys admin at a small theater and the questions I get are things I have never even seen on a mac..

I often wonder if I could switch away from the mac, mostly due to hardware prices. But when I actually look at what's on the other side I'm pretty unimpressed.

I don't regret spending $2300 on a dual 1ghz g4 2 years ago because it still performs great. When I look at some of the machines that come out TODAY that don't match it's performance or ease of use I am reassured that my money was well spent.

Sorry I got slightly off topic..

[southtdi]

I use both systems. I switched to a Mac as my permanant computer a year ago and have never regretted it. I do run a windows based network at home as well as being a sys admin for a small company i have always have things to do in the windows machine.

Windows is more confusing and cluttered compared to OSX. One of the big reasons I switched was pure asthetics alone not to mention how much everyting was easier to use and the non-issue to lockups and crashes.

When I get around to one day getting a spare mac and setting up OSX server i will try that out but until then I have to keep my windows network at home.

As for the clown interface in XP I don't like it at all. I actually perfer the simplier interface of 2000. You can turn off the whole clown inteface in XP and make it look like that and since you are running such a slow computer for XP it will make a decent difference in speed. Make sure to defrag after the install, if you didn't, and once a week since windows doesn't like the slightest fragmentation.

[jasong]

I am an expert user on both system, but have just bought my first personal use PC, a tablet that I bought for school (Apple, please make one of these). It's interesting how many more "Windows-isms" are jumping out at me now that I am attempting to use the PC as a personal machine.

* Lack of spell-checking - spell-checking is pervasive throughout OS X. You don't realize what a boon this is until it's gone.

* Services - I have OmniDictionary on my Mac, definitions are just a right click away in virtually every application. I was able to hack this into IE, but that's it. No lookups in email, or IM.

* Volume control - The system doesn't have a hardware volume control, which is fine, except that Windows keeps hiding the volume icon in the system tray, thinking it is inactive because I am not changing the volume every 5 seconds.

* Battery Profiles - While I can save different power management scenarios, Windows won't change from plugged in to battery on it's own. So when I unplug, I have to open the control panel and manually switch profiles.

* Network Profiles - Changing locations with specified network settings is a real PITA. While the Location Manager on OS X is still a far cry from what it used to be, it is a million times better than what Windows has.

Things I like:

* Handwriting - Handwriting recognition works really well (and I have terrible handwriting), and combined with Windows Journal for taking notes, this thing has changed my note taking abilities for the better. I can search my handwriting (and it works) or text, and convert my handwriting to text.

* Built-in voice recognition - Works really well, both for dictation and spoken commands. Spoken commands works mostly like Speakable Items (a little less refined than Apple's, but I think it works a little better).

* Pen Interface - Obviously you don't want to write your dissertation longhand, but the pen interface leads to a whole new level of interaction with the computer, and has a much better tactile feel than the mouse.

As you can see, the things I like are TabletPC things, and not really intrinsic Windows things. I really wish Apple would make a Tablet, but I understand why they don't. I had an interesting discussion with a friend just yesterday where I was complaining about stupid Windows-isms (like if you use Word as your email editor in Outlook, when the Task Bar starts consolidating tiles, your email gets consolidated with Word and not Outlook. Technically right, but functionally stupid). When I got to the spell-check part, he started saying how he didn't want spell check in IM, apparently oblivious to his typos throughout the conversation.

Windows users, you can't even save them from themselves . . .

-- Jason

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally posted by southtdi:
I use both systems. I switched to a MAC as my permanant computer a year ago and have never regretted it. I do run a windows based network at home as well as being a sys admin for a small company i have always have things to do in the windows machine.

A year and you still haven't learned to spell it Mac and OS X?

[alphasubzero949]

Originally posted by msuper69:
You're preaching to the choir.

[ryju]

With the right hardware/software both platforms can be enjoyable for me. I use my Mac more though and once I upgrade I'll be using it exlusively.

[york28]

Let me know what you think when you try to un-share a shared printer in XP for the first time.

I agree with most of what you've said. I think most of us do.

[chris v]

Originally posted by msuper69:
You're preaching to the choir.

Yeah, but even the choir likes a good sermon now and again.

CV

[clarkgoble]

To improve your XP experience. (My primary machine at work is an XP box)

1. Download Firefox. It isn't as good as Safari and in particular I miss the inline spell correction and autofill. But it is heads and shoulders above IE.

2. Customeize the interface. You can turn off a lot of the "whiz bang" stuff in Windows. Turning it off in Office is harder and I truly hate that magically appearing sidebar in Office for XP. The Mac version of Office is, for all my uses, vastly better.

3. If you use Outlook for mail run and get SpamBayes. It is a free bayesian junkmail filter like OSX's mail program. It'll make email vastly more of a happy experience. (Sorry, I don't have the link handy)

4. If you use the unix underpinnings of OSX, get Cygwin which is a unix layer that sits on top of Windows. You don't really need it often, as many Unix utilities have Windows equivalents, including good versions of Python and Perl. But it makes doing shell work much more enjoyable.

5. If you program, be happy. Visual Studio is (unfortuantely) head and shoulders above XCode at the moment. (Here's hoping for Tiger though -- I've not played around with the new version of XCode) Yeah it has flaws and some annoyances. But development on Windows unfortunately is better than on OSX.

6. Adobe Acrobat's integration with IE and Firefox is way better than on OSX. (Yeah there is a plugin you can install to view PDFs in Safari, but if you've used Acrobat on XP, you know how much better it is)

7. Just think of all the games you can play. And cry and how much crappier the freeware typically is. (And how much crap you have to wade through to find anything terribly good)

[snerdini]

clarkgoble nailed it, IMHO

[msuper69]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
...
5. If you program, be happy. Visual Studio is (unfortuantely) head and shoulders above XCode at the moment. (Here's hoping for Tiger though -- I've not played around with the new version of XCode) Yeah it has flaws and some annoyances. But development on Windows unfortunately is better than on OSX.
...

Except that Xcode is free while the list price of Visual Studio is $1,079. Sure you can get it cheaper but not free with every Windows purchase.

[clarkgoble]

Actually Microsoft has been offering extremely cheap limited versions. If you need to program than that extra $100 or so isn't a big deal. Especially when you consider the price markup on a Mac over a PC.

[MacGorilla]

I set up a PC for my daughter so she could use her windows only garbage from school. I found if you keep strict controls on XP, it is OK to use. I replaced outlook with Thunderbird and IE with Firefox. She doesn't have admin privswhich keeps the spyware down a bit. iTunes for Windows is just like iTunes for the Mac. The machine has been stable for a while but I sure wouldn't want to use it as my every day computer. XP is just bloated, unfreindly and always trying to tell you what to do. I hate that.

[Spliffdaddy]

I just wish there was a fast browser to replace IE.

Mozilla Firefox is dog slow - and it's the fastest non-IE browser I've tried.

There's a big difference between instantaneous (IE) and 6 seconds (Firefox) to render a webpage.

[Gee4orce]

I really miss Expose when using a PC - not being able to view the whole desktop effortlessly is a real pain, and makes the desktop virtually useless. Also, Windows apps always seem to be designed to optimally run in full screen mode, which just makes matters worse.

[Link]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
I just wish there was a fast browser to replace IE.

Mozilla Firefox is dog slow - and it's the fastest non-IE browser I've tried.

There's a big difference between instantaneous (IE) and 6 seconds (Firefox) to render a webpage.

I know that this is just being redundant, but mozilla's worst problem at the moment whether it be mozilla, firefox, camino or whatever -- is their image drawing system. It's -- as you said -- DOG SLOW. Heck I can go to say, dilbert.com and the whole damn thing seems to have to reload all the images even when I just click a link to another page on the site

I love it when programs with such great potential have stupid issues like that. One thing to keep in mind though, is that IE is part of the system where firefox is an entirely different program -- it takes a few seconds to launch.

[Mediaman_12]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:

6. Adobe Acrobat's integration with IE and Firefox is way better than on OSX. (Yeah there is a plugin you can install to view PDFs in Safari, but if you've used Acrobat on XP, you know how much better it is)

I have always found the 'Adobe' based Acrobat intergration on Windows dog slow in both IE and Firefox. It seams to take forever to launch the Acrobat 'app' into whatever browser, before getting round to opening the PDF it's self, then scrolling or changing magnifaication is allways very unresponsive.
The 3rd party plugin available for Safari on the other hand levriges the OS level PDF rendering so no startup time. The PDF seams to open faster and overall performance is far better.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
I really miss Expose when using a PC - not being able to view the whole desktop effortlessly is a real pain, and makes the desktop virtually useless. Also, Windows apps always seem to be designed to optimally run in full screen mode, which just makes matters worse.

There is a mildly useful feature in Windows that roughly accomplishes what "F11" accomplishes in Expose -- Start button + M will minimize everything, exposing the desktop. Start button + Shift + M will "unminimize" everything. Of course, there is no corollary commands for Expose's F9 and F10 functionality.

[Sven G]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
To improve your XP experience. (My primary machine at work is an XP box) [...]

Firefox is great on the PC (better than on the Mac).

Also, I would say that the Start menu and the Taskbar are the best things of Windows, IMHO.

Another interesting thing (besides Cygwin) is, at least for the more adventurous people, to install Linux on the PC, in a dual-boot way (the System Rescue CD is excellent, with its QTParted tool, to make room for Linux, BTW)...

[clarkgoble]

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
I have always found the 'Adobe' based Acrobat intergration on Windows dog slow in both IE and Firefox. It seams to take forever to launch the Acrobat 'app' into whatever browser, before getting round to opening the PDF it's self, then scrolling or changing magnifaication is allways very unresponsive.
The 3rd party plugin available for Safari on the other hand levriges the OS level PDF rendering so no startup time. The PDF seams to open faster and overall performance is far better.

This is true, but once started up it's pretty fast. But yeah, the startup is very annoying and you can't use your browser until it is finished.

The downside with the Mac plugin is no searching and no easy size changign. Typically I'll use it to see if I want to read the PDF and then open it in Preview due to the limitations of the plug in.

I kind of wish Apple would build in PDF display into Safari with search and resizing. It shouldn't be that hard considering it would only involve borrowing code from Preview.

[CubeWannaB]

Originally posted by southtdi:
I use both systems. I switched to a MAC

It is just "Mac" not "MAC". "Mac" is not an acronym, it is short for Macintosh, a kind of apple.

[southtdi]

Yeah, that's how I usually type it but I was in a hurry when I typed that comment and just held down the shift key without thinking about it.

[CubeWannaB]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
development on Windows... is better than on OSX.

If you prefer to use C++, maybe. So don't use C++ on OS X. Use Objective-C and you will realise how much better Mac development is.

[CubeWannaB]

Originally posted by southtdi:
Yeah, that's how I usually type it but I was in a hurry when I typed that comment and just held down the shift key without thinking about it.

On the other hand to go throgh an entire thread of great posts about XP and the Mac platform and bother to post about one simple bit of irrelevant text is a bit much don't you think?

Heh, I didn't realise that space in the thread was at such a premium.

But the post wasn't just for your benefit: if a new mac user reads the thread they may not understand the difference between MAC and Mac.

Of course, you could always edit your post to say Mac and not MAC.

[diamondsw]

Originally posted by CubeWannaB:
Heh, I didn't realise that space in the thread was at such a premium.

But the post wasn't just for your benefit: if a new mac user reads the thread they may not understand the difference between MAC and Mac.

Of course, you could always edit your post to say Mac and not MAC.

After all, we all know MAC is Media Access Control.

Right?

[diamondsw]

Originally posted by powermacj7:
This is not a Window Bash or anything, just my experience using Windows for really the first time for a length of time.

I have been using Macintosh since 1985. Truthfully, used a PC very few times in my life, a few times in college. The other day, i fired up my dads old IBM and restored the system with XP and Office 2003. Admit the system is slow, the PC is an AMD K 2.

I found the install process mildly confusing, although I believe that anyone with computer experience could accomplish an install. The system is slow, and this took almost an hour.

Login into Windows was a weird experience as I set up a new account, and configured the internet connection. Windows recognized my internet set-up and all went smooth.

Immediately, I was turned off by the huge green start button with the beige color around the window borders. The system tray loaded up with little icons representing the office programs, and other apps. I found the interface "busy" and cluttered compared to Mac OSX, or any other prior version.

Using the start menu to access programs is somewhat clumsy. Although I found internet explorer easy enough. Then I was bombarded with pop-ups about Windows Updates. And wow, there were like 40 critical updates, and several others. This was a painful process, and a slow computer did not help.

After getting the updates, I got on the net and began surfing around. I got destroyed with pops up, and found no preference in IE to stop them. I downloaded MSN tool bar and this eliminated the problem. What I did like was the link bar on IE with the icons, you know with colors etc.

I did not like the way Word opens in a full screen mode, and toyed around getting it more "Mac like" I watched some news video feeds and found Window Player a poor performer.

I downloaded Quicktime and iTunes for Windows and found, so far, these apps appear close to the Mac versions in appearance. I will have to try iTunes more.

In short, it was a strange experience to use Windows. I found it so far, poor interface design, and average internet experience. It has not froze up, or anything like that yet.

I am going to try to network the my Mac to the IBM, and see how that works next.

I must admit, it is nice owning a Mac, and I am glad I am using it right now.

Having used Windows for quite some time at work, I will say that it is bearable once you put a lot of effort into it. Here's my quick run through of how I set up a Windows box so it's not such a pain:

1) Install Windows - customize very few options as we'll have lots of that to do later.
2) On first boot, fire up Windows Update immediately and start applying patches. Do *not* attempt to configure preferences and other sundry bits yet. I've seen at least a couple installs get borked by so much as changing toolbar preferences! Keep installing patches and rebooting until they're all applied (and reboot when it tells you to!).
3) On Windows XP, open MSN Messenger from the tray, open its options, and disable "Start when Windows starts" or somesuch.
4) Customize the basics - lighten the beige (I use a neutral gray around 220 in brightness), turn off the XP look (if applicable), change the taskbar and start menu settings to classic look, customize what task bar items are shown and hidden.
5) Open System Properties, and go through the options on the Performance tab. Also, while you're here turn off automatic updating - it's generally best to let some Microsoft patches sit for a couple days before installing them.
6) Now for the fun part - go through *every* control panel, and *every* tab and set your preferences - you'll be amazed at what you find in there in odd nooks and crannies.
7) Download TweakUI, part of the XP PowerToys. Go nuts.
8) Download Firefox and set it as default browser. Set up its preferences to your tastes.

At this point you should have a much more sedate and usable desktop. All the needless junk is turned off, the tray isn't cluttered, and the start menu can be pruned as needed. On my work system it's actually very streamlined. It will still suffer from the architectural problems of Windows (my fiance's Thinkpad spontaneously corrupted its video driver over the weekend - THAT was fun to fix), but at least the day-to-day experience is more bearable.

[Spliffdaddy]

9) download & install necessary freeware: Zonealarm, Spybot Seek&Destroy, AVG 6 antivirus, and Lavasoft AdAware.

10) Scrap the crappy Windows-approved video driver because it's slow and still rather unstable - and you'd rather have the fast and unstable tweaked Radeon Catalyst drivers.

11) Set Internet Explorer home page to www.foxnews.com because Firefox takes a week to render that site.

[southtdi]

Originally posted by CubeWannaB:
Heh, I didn't realise that space in the thread was at such a premium.

But the post wasn't just for your benefit: if a new mac user reads the thread they may not understand the difference between MAC and Mac.

Of course, you could always edit your post to say Mac and not MAC.

OK, fair enough. I edited the MAC to Mac since I agree it was wrong and I also edited the other post to take out the derogatory comment. I hate comments like that in a thread and here I was stooping to that level.

I can admit when I was wrong.

OK now back to the regularly scheduled programming..........

[andreas_g4]

Ever had that "wow"-feeling on a windows box?

[MaxPower2k3]

Originally posted by andreas_g4:
Ever had that "wow"-feeling on a windows box?

a perfect way to describe the windows experience.


Windows 2000 is by far my favorite version of Windows. There was really no improvement at all in XP from 2000, they just took the slim, quick 2000 and consumerized it, with all of the bloat and useless stuff XP has now. For a while, everything that ran on XP would also run on 2000, but now some stuff is XP-only

[southtdi]

Have to agree with you there. On the windows boxes I have I run 2000 except for one and that belongs to the wife. 2000 isn't perfect but it seems to have far less issues than Xp and is more stable.

[york28]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
9) download & install necessary freeware: Zonealarm, Spybot Seek&Destroy, AVG 6 antivirus, and Lavasoft AdAware.

10) Scrap the crappy Windows-approved video driver because it's slow and still rather unstable - and you'd rather have the fast and unstable tweaked Radeon Catalyst drivers.

11) Set Internet Explorer home page to www.foxnews.com because Firefox takes a week to render that site.

I'd have to disagree- at least on my 1 ghz PIII here at work, it didn't take any longer than any other site.

And if you're getting news from Fox anyhow...

[DL_AMG]

My almost 3yr old PIII 1G 512mb that runs XP-Home using IE open webpages way faster then my 1 yrs old TiBook 1G 786mb with IE, Safari or Mazilla. But what the hack, I love the OS X, look and Expose.

[clarkgoble]

IE is definitely the speed king among browsers. The problems with it are
o no tabs. I've become hooked on tabs
o no inline spell checking. Of course neither does Firefox
o no nice shortcut bar
o no simple popup blocker
o the ever present danger that some damn thing will install
some new bar, some spyware or something else in the
background.

On the other hand there are lots of extra bars for IE like the Google bar that are quite nice. However all the dangers vastly outweigh the benefits. I tell everyone to use Firefox and half their spyware problems and popup problems will disappear.

[EmmEff]

Firefox still feels faster than IE to me and even if it isn't, I'll take the hit for the Adblock extension, and tabs. Besides, using Firefox on Windows and Linux keeps things consistent between platforms.

I have been following this thread with some interest. I am a long-time Windows user and programmer (been programming on Windows for over 10 years) and am looking to buy my first Mac soon. This thread has shown some of the highs and lows of each platform and has been especially useful to me who has zero OS X experience.

[clarkgoble]

If you are planning to move to the Mac, there is hope for programmers. First off in my opinion Python, Perl and so forth are far nicer on the Mac than on the PC, as is doing nearly anything in the shell. The PC's shell really sucks. This was improved moderately with XP but only just. The limitation has always been the vast superiority of Visual Studio over Project Builder or now XCode.

However XCode 1.5 is being released thursday. Ideally this will fix most of the big bugs and improve the UI. And, of course, it is free.

The only downside, for serious programmers, is that optimizing and memory leak checking is still far superior (for a cost) on Windows. VTune and Boundschecker are fantastic tools with nothing that equivalent available for the Mac. Boundschecker in particular has saved me weeks of debugging.

[EmmEff]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
If you are planning to move to the Mac, there is hope for programmers. First off in my opinion Python, Perl and so forth are far nicer on the Mac than on the PC, as is doing nearly anything in the shell. The PC's shell really sucks.

I have been working in UNIX for more than 10 years as well, so the shell is nothing new for me. With the cygwin package, I have virtually every UNIX command (and even X) in Windows.

This was improved moderately with XP but only just. The limitation has always been the vast superiority of Visual Studio over Project Builder or now XCode.

Same as UNIX/Linux, I guess. The integration of the editor, debugger, and help subsystem is just not there on other platforms.

However XCode 1.5 is being released thursday. Ideally this will fix most of the big bugs and improve the UI. And, of course, it is free.

Free is good. Either way, I prefer vim, make/Makefiles, a decent GUI debugger, and online API reference.

The only downside, for serious programmers, is that optimizing and memory leak checking is still far superior (for a cost) on Windows. VTune and Boundschecker are fantastic tools with nothing that equivalent available for the Mac. Boundschecker in particular has saved me weeks of debugging.

I have used these tools in the past, but they're not really something I would miss.

[S.SubZero]

As a windows user who tinkers with MAC's, I will approach points in this thread from the other side. I'll quote bits from various posts in this thread.

Using the start menu to access programs is somewhat clumsy

As opposed to the MAC, with it's ultra-intuitive "Macintosh HD." It gives no indication that's where things are.. It's just one of the only things on the desktop so someone would eventually click on it, as opposed to being told bluntly "Start here."
The Start menu can be modified and made as un-clumsy as the user likes. The quick launch bar (which I like, and for some reason is no longer on by default in XP) is a handy tool.

Immediately, I was turned off by the huge green start button with the beige color around the window borders.

It's easy to switch to the old style classic theme, which is admittedly much easier on the eyes.

I found the interface "busy" and cluttered compared to Mac OSX, or any other prior version.

Windows comes with alot of junk apps and they create the clutter. Removing the shortcuts to things you don't use reduces the clutter considerably. Also, I *DO* like some amount of busy, as I want quick access to some apps. I'd rather have 10 icons on my desktop that I know what they are, I use them alot, and I have them in front of me rather than dig for them.

I got destroyed with pops up, and found no preference in IE to stop them.

Internet Explorer by default has no way to really stop them aside from neutering javascript altogether. The upcoming Service Pack 2 will finally put pop-up control specificially in IE.

I did not like the way Word opens in a full screen mode

This is the first-time default. Once you resize it, it will open in the new size from that point forward. v.X Word 10.1.2 didn't exactly open for me the first time in a very pretty format either.

I watched some news video feeds and found Window Player a poor performer.

I found Media Player 8 (which comes stock with XP) to have a really nice interface, but ever since MP9 more and more stuff simply doesn't work right in MP8. I have no problem with Media Player for playing back anything I have, and quality is fine. I used to watch BBC World News at work in Media Player full-screen and I had no issues with it. It does depend on the stream's format and compression.. And the AMD K2. For a fair fight, you should see how those feeds would run on an old pre-G3 MAC. That's what a K2 pretty much is.

But to a new user that accidently removed the item from the start menu, welcome to your nightmare

As opposed to deleting say, an icon out of Macintosh HD->Applications, and having the app uninstall. At least if you take a button off the Start bar, the application is completely unaffected. You can't break an app by taking it off the Start menu. Recreating a shortcut is preferable to reinstalling an application.

Network Profiles - Changing locations with specified network settings is a real PITA.

Windows ME, XP, and 2003 all support two different network setups. If contact with the DHCP server is lost, these OS's will try the alternate configuration. They will also do this if they can't find a DHCP server at boot. If you have 2 locations, ie. home and work, you can set up these two profiles very easily, and Windows will (if DHCP is on the primary profile) figure out which settings it should use automatically. I have done this for a few years now with my laptop.

Last point.. I'm tired...

I don't regret spending $2300 on a dual 1ghz g4 2 years ago because it still performs great. When I look at some of the machines that come out TODAY that don't match it's performance or ease of use I am reassured that my money was well spent.

I have a single processor 1.25Ghz G4. For all the presumed power it's supposed to have, how come in Safari if I do so little as click the scroll bar, anything animated in Safari (ie. animated GIFs) stops?

[MindFad]

Mac

[JMII]

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
XP is just bloated, unfreindly and always trying to tell you what to do. I hate that.

Agree - I had to configure a new PC onto our local network and once I turned off the Network "Wizard" I was actually able to get somewhere. I actually felt like I was fighting XP for control over the machine because every time you click on any network related setting the Wizard popped-up and starting trying to walk me thru the procedure it *thought* was correct. Mac's OS SetUp Assistant is like this as well, but atleast there is a button that says "No thanks I'll do it myself" and once dismissed it does not come back unless you launch it.

[BenRoethig]

Originally posted by powermacj7:
This is not a Window Bash or anything, just my experience using Windows for really the first time for a length of time.

I have been using Macintosh since 1985. Truthfully, used a PC very few times in my life, a few times in college. The other day, i fired up my dads old IBM and restored the system with XP and Office 2003. Admit the system is slow, the PC is an AMD K 2.

I found the install process mildly confusing, although I believe that anyone with computer experience could accomplish an install. The system is slow, and this took almost an hour.

Login into Windows was a weird experience as I set up a new account, and configured the internet connection. Windows recognized my internet set-up and all went smooth.

Immediately, I was turned off by the huge green start button with the beige color around the window borders. The system tray loaded up with little icons representing the office programs, and other apps. I found the interface "busy" and cluttered compared to Mac OSX, or any other prior version.

Using the start menu to access programs is somewhat clumsy. Although I found internet explorer easy enough. Then I was bombarded with pop-ups about Windows Updates. And wow, there were like 40 critical updates, and several others. This was a painful process, and a slow computer did not help.

After getting the updates, I got on the net and began surfing around. I got destroyed with pops up, and found no preference in IE to stop them. I downloaded MSN tool bar and this eliminated the problem. What I did like was the link bar on IE with the icons, you know with colors etc.

I did not like the way Word opens in a full screen mode, and toyed around getting it more "Mac like" I watched some news video feeds and found Window Player a poor performer.

I downloaded Quicktime and iTunes for Windows and found, so far, these apps appear close to the Mac versions in appearance. I will have to try iTunes more.

In short, it was a strange experience to use Windows. I found it so far, poor interface design, and average internet experience. It has not froze up, or anything like that yet.

I am going to try to network the my Mac to the IBM, and see how that works next.

I must admit, it is nice owning a Mac, and I am glad I am using it right now.

There are three areas where windows actually has something over the mac

1. The progam list inside the startmenu.
2. GUI customisation. Themes, sounds, and even the cursor. You can get these through shareware, but why pay for what should be included in the operating system.
3. Support for hardware sound APIs.

XP is a great leap from ME, but no where near OSX.

[leperkuhn]

Originally posted by CubeWannaB:
If you prefer to use C++, maybe. So don't use C++ on OS X. Use Objective-C and you will realise how much better Mac development is.

Unless you want to connect to a database. Using Visual Studio and database is soooo easy.

Of course, I haven't written in Objective-C in about a year because of that very reason so things may have changed.

[clarkgoble]

"GUI customisation. Themes, sounds, and even the cursor. You can get these through shareware, but why pay for what should be included in the operating system."

Aren't these available for OSX also through shareware? Is that APE plugin for customizing your UI that much more limited? Admittedly Windows has more control out of the box (i.e. colors, text size, etc.) But there are plenty of fairly good shareware programs that can really customize your interface.

"Support for hardware sound APIs."

What do you mean here? Aren't there 3rd party sound cards you can easily plug into the Mac? Admittedly I've heard the API is a bit difficult - but it is there.

[CubeWannaB]

Originally posted by S.SubZero:
MAC's

Should I laugh or cry?

[CubeWannaB]

Originally posted by leperkuhn:
Unless you want to connect to a database. Using Visual Studio and database is soooo easy.

Of course, I haven't written in Objective-C in about a year because of that very reason so things may have changed.

That may be a valid point. I haven't done any DB development with Xcode because the only db apps I use are web apps in python, perl or php.

Is Visual Studio as useful with DBs if you use something besides MSSQL?

[leperkuhn]

Originally posted by CubeWannaB:
That may be a valid point. I haven't done any DB development with Xcode because the only db apps I use are web apps in python, perl or php.

Is Visual Studio as useful with DBs if you use something besides MSSQL?

I've only connected with Access and MSSQL. But it does use an ODBC driver so i would assume you could connect to anything.

It's a damn shame apple doesn't include this. Since I've started using databases I've been very happy. Everything I've done is related to data storage and presentation, and it is questionable when my choice of OS has very little database integration.

Of course, Apple doesn't really play well toward the business world, so that might just not be on the agenda either.