MP All Models What is stopping you from using Windows?

[ascender]

The short answer is macOS. I still have to use Windows regularly for some client work and while 10 is a big improvement, nothing I've seen has come close to changing my mind that I would like to switch back.

I first made the switch about 23 years ago when I was working with Windows servers day in, day out and really didn't want to be using Windows at home as well. I've never looked back.

 

[TopherMan12]

I actually enjoy both Windows and MacOS. Windows is much more versatile, but lacks the rich ecosystem Apple has built. Ultimately, as a gamer, Windows is the only real choice so that is where I am currently.

It’s buggy as hell

Hardware allways fails quickly

Updates are a PITA

Not as secure as MAC OS

Lack of integration with other Apple devices

Not going to argue how secure Windows is or the Apple integration, but Windows 10 is no more/less buggy than MacOS. And what do you mean "hardware always fails quickly"? How are updates a PITA?

 

[Shanghaichica]

Not going to argue how secure Windows is or the Apple integration, but Windows 10 is no more/less buggy than MacOS. And what do you mean "hardware always fails quickly"? How are updates a PITA?

Anytime I’ve used windows both on personal devices and at work, they are constantly throwing up one error message or another. Things don’t work and I find myself having to reboot the device constantly which takes an age. They slow down significantly after 6 months and it’s a downward spiral from there.

Every windows computer I’ve owned has always had hardware failures within a few months of owning. Screen failures, charging port failures, motherboard failures, hard drive failures, keyboard and track pad failures. Coupled with the horrid software I’ve never had a windows machine last more than 2 years.

In contrast my MBA is 5 years old in Febuary, It’s been issue free since I got it. No hardware failures and it runs as well as the day I bought it.

Windows machines are always bugging and threatening me about software updates and sometimes they just go ahaead and do it whenever the hell they want to, regardless of whether you’re in the middle of something or not. On the Mac updates are at timely intervals and when you want them to happen. The process is quite seamless.

Windows devices require too much maintenance.

 

[defjam]

I absolutely agree with jasonmvp; been using UNIX for years (and FreeBSD) and its a joy to be hold. Windows is an absolute laugh; "powershell?" really? try where (oops, don't know that command??) whereis (oops, don't know that command??) ssh (oops, don't know that command??) Why do people think there sooo many aggressive window users?? I use macOS now and its bliss on a daily base

Trying to use Windows like UNIX is bound to be frustrating. One should learn to do things on Windows using Windows commands, not UNIX commands.

PowerShell is very powerful and, many have argued, much better than piping commands together in UNIX.

Oh, ssh is available in the default install of Windows. If you didn't know this then I'm not sure you're qualified to comment on Windows' capabilities.
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It’s buggy as hell

Hardware allways fails quickly

Updates are a PITA

Not as secure as MAC OS

Lack of integration with other Apple devices

I'll give you that last one and a little bit of the third one. The first and fourth you'll need to provide details. The second? That's not a Windows problem and if you encounter a lot of failing hardware perhaps that's impacted the first.

 

[Passingby]

I have five operating systems running at the same time on different types of devices. Ran a hundred operating systems since a kid. Couldn't give a damn about the OS. I care about performance and not having bugs. Anyone who faithfully follows an OS or brand like a cult member is a corporate slave. Diversification means you have an open mind and no brainwashing.

 

[millerj123]

Trying to use Windows like UNIX is bound to be frustrating. One should learn to do things on Windows using Windows commands, not UNIX commands.

PowerShell is very powerful and, many have argued, much better than piping commands together in UNIX.

Oh, ssh is available in the default install of Windows. If you didn't know this then I'm not sure you're qualified to comment on Windows' capabilities.
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I'll give you that last one and a little bit of the third one. The first and fourth you'll need to provide details. The second? That's not a Windows problem and if you encounter a lot of failing hardware perhaps that's impacted the first.

It's not what you say. It's the way you say it. Why join a Mac site if all you do is say how great Windows is?

I use Windows, I don't like it.

 

[giggles]

Where’s Time Machine for windows? (don’t mention File History please)
Where are menu applets and little utilities that are a labor of love?
Where are all the little things that make having macOS at your fingertips the most “first class” experience ever?
Where’s really perfect migration from hardware to hardware?
etc.

Windows is a bag of “it is what it is”, most don’t even imagine what they’re missing out on.

 

[maflynn]

[MOD NOTE]
Enough with the bickering - a number of posts have been removed.

 

[defjam]

It's not what you say. It's the way you say it. Why join a Mac site if all you do is say how great Windows is?

Are you aware the title of the thread is:

What is stopping you from using Windows?​

I use Windows, I don't like it.

That's a perfectly valid reason to avoid using it.
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Where’s Time Machine for windows? (don’t mention File History please)
Where are menu applets and little utilities that are a labor of love?
Where are all the little things that make having macOS at your fingertips the most “first class” experience ever?
Where’s really perfect migration from hardware to hardware?
etc.

Windows is a bag of “it is what it is”, most don’t even imagine what they’re missing out on.

It appears you're trying to use Windows like you use macOS. Try doing things on Windows the Windows way, not the Macintosh way.
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Anytime I’ve used windows both on personal devices and at work, they are constantly throwing up one error message or another. Things don’t work and I find myself having to reboot the device constantly which takes an age. They slow down significantly after 6 months and it’s a downward spiral from there.

Every windows computer I’ve owned has always had hardware failures within a few months of owning. Screen failures, charging port failures, motherboard failures, hard drive failures, keyboard and track pad failures. Coupled with the horrid software I’ve never had a windows machine last more than 2 years.

In contrast my MBA is 5 years old in Febuary, It’s been issue free since I got it. No hardware failures and it runs as well as the day I bought it.

A lot of this sounds like arguments from 1990's. Recent versions of Windows are very stable.

Windows machines are always bugging and threatening me about software updates and sometimes they just go ahaead and do it whenever the hell they want to, regardless of whether you’re in the middle of something or not. On the Mac updates are at timely intervals and when you want them to happen. The process is quite seamless.

Windows typically updates once per month and they occur in the background. Not intrusive at all. There's no mystery to how Windows installs updates (i.e. it doesn't do it "whenever the hell it wants".

Windows devices require too much maintenance.

I must be the only person in this forum who just turns on their Windows systems and uses them. I can't recall the last time I had an issue with Windows and I use it as my primary system both at work and at home.

 

[vladi]

Anytime I’ve used windows both on personal devices and at work, they are constantly throwing up one error message or another. Things don’t work and I find myself having to reboot the device constantly which takes an age. They slow down significantly after 6 months and it’s a downward spiral from there.

Every windows computer I’ve owned has always had hardware failures within a few months of owning. Screen failures, charging port failures, motherboard failures, hard drive failures, keyboard and track pad failures. Coupled with the horrid software I’ve never had a windows machine last more than 2 years.

In contrast my MBA is 5 years old in Febuary, It’s been issue free since I got it. No hardware failures and it runs as well as the day I bought it.

Windows machines are always bugging and threatening me about software updates and sometimes they just go ahaead and do it whenever the hell they want to, regardless of whether you’re in the middle of something or not. On the Mac updates are at timely intervals and when you want them to happen. The process is quite seamless.

Windows devices require too much maintenance.

You have been dealing with cheap PCs pretty much. Spend as much as money as you do on a Mac and hardware will not fail. When it comes to laptop I got two Windows VAIOs, one from 2013 that cost me $2,300 working flawlessly, battery still in excellent condition after 6 years, CPU is high voltage quad core, nvidia dedicate GPU and I've been using it everyday. Second one I have that still runs without a single problem is 2003 $3000+ VAIO duo core Centrino, 4GB RAM with 17" WUXGA display, years before Apple implemented it on it's 15 MBPs. Yeah it's obsolete cause it runs Windows XP but no hardware failures after what, 15-16 years? Last time it was used was two years ago for email and web browsing but XP just can't handle it anymore.

 

[aevan]

what is stopping you from using Windows?

The fact that I really dislike Windows.

 

[barmann]

It took me almost a week to "personalize" Windows, to make it just work. When I was finally done, came the problems with certain drivers (Synaptics etc.) that were updated, but not functioning properly. Another week to find solutions...

It's a different world. Not always to my liking, to put it mildly.

While I very much prefer OSX over Windows , that has been my experience with OSX as well, since Snow Leopard .
It used to be about finding a few drivers after an OSX update, now it takes a few days of research and and another few days for adjustments to get it working and looking properly .

Apple has abandoned the crucial backwards compatibility game some years ago .
On the surface it is still a lot more intuitive, adjustable and approachable than Windows, but updating has become as much of a nightmare, if not worse .

 

[Onelifenofear]

inconsistent UI
Two separate design methods - Classic and Metro shoved together
Two Complete different "System Preferences" with settings in one and not the other
keyboard shortcuts are not well thought out and cannot be changed system wide.
The System registry is a complete clusterFudge
No quickview (spacebar)
Loads of file types don't show visually in windows explorer
Ancient code and sections that have literally not been changed since 2000 ( Backward compatiblity for Enterprise)
32 / 64 bit code all mixed up
Font control is terrible ( only changed recently from windows 95!) and still nowhere near as good as FontBook.
Notifications area is awkward.
4k+ resolution is inconsistent across apps and shonky from monitor to monitor.
Virus hell
Drivers... Drivers and drivers.
Even with iCloud app use with iPad / iPhone is limited
MacOS is way better integrated.
A few hundred other reasons.

 

[Ulenspiegel]

While I very much prefer OSX over Windows , that has been my experience with OSX as well, since Snow Leopard .
It used to be about finding a few drivers after an OSX update, now it takes a few days of research and and another few days for adjustments to get it working and looking properly .

Apple has abandoned the crucial backwards compatibility game some years ago .
On the surface it is still a lot more intuitive, adjustable and approachable than Windows, but updating has become as much of a nightmare, if not worse .

Fortunately, I did not have any problems with drivers on OSX.
But, had some annoyances, like Finder not keeping the set size and location or the Weather Widget that tend to change its place after each reboot etc. These problems were solved with 3rd party apps.

 

[InquiringMac]

Any privacy and security reasons, dear experts, for not switching to Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC❓

 

[AWW_13]

I feel like I would have to part with 2 decades of archived creative output/experiments. Sometimes it's good to start over I guess but not sure I can bring myself to do it. Perhaps a bit like a luthier having move to a new workshop and not being allowed to bring anything he's worked on in the past.
I've heard people suggest that with the money you save you could buy a MacBook but.. what's the point if you're not actually saving the money.
We'll see.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Yes, I do. While updates have, do, and will cause issues they're not frequent nor are they limited to Windows.

I have had my surface book bricked so hard by one of the updates they had to give me a new machine. They couldnt even pave over the SSD. Yea, I'm not going to sit here and remember which of the totally nondescript hellscape titled updates took my machine out. Before the bricking, twice I had to pave the drive and re-install from scratch. The microsoft employees say "its normal" for updates to fail, just do them over until it sticks. Mhmm.

This is on a machine with printer drivers for a vanilla brother printer, and scanner drivers for a panasonic scanner. It's a glorified firmware update machine and yet is more hassle just to keep it current.

You can try and shame people because they decided not to "dear diary" the outrageous number of system updates on windows, but you're certainly not convincing mac owners with that, and at least not me.

 

[defjam]

I have had my surface book bricked so hard by one of the updates they had to give me a new machine. They couldnt even pave over the SSD. Yea, I'm not going to sit here and remember which of the totally nondescript hellscape titled updates took my machine out. Before the bricking, twice I had to pave the drive and re-install from scratch. The microsoft employees say "its normal" for updates to fail, just do them over until it sticks. Mhmm.

Typical. Give some nebulous "example". I've had updates brick my Macs, each time they've given me a new machine. The Apple employees say "it's normal". Yea, I'm not going to sit here and remember which of the totally nondescript hellscape titled updates took my machine out.

So it's agreed, both platforms suck and we should all move to Linux.

 

[crjackson2134]

Typical. Give some nebulous "example". I've had updates brick my Macs, each time they've given me a new machine. The Apple employees say "it's normal". Yea, I'm not going to sit here and remember which of the totally nondescript hellscape titled updates took my machine out.

So it's agreed, both platforms suck and we should all move to Linux.

10.14.4 DP4 with 142.0.0.0.0 W3xxx Xeon "bricker" & updated APFSJumpStart EFI module

This one bricked my MP51 with factory CPU configuration. I spoke with apple for weeks getting this firmware pulled and replaced.

I had to install a new logic board and do a firmware reconstruction to get back to normal. I had a good 2012 MP51 logic board on hand, so it took about an hour to get back up and running.

Any hardware can fail at any time. That's just the way of it, regardless of macOS / Windows / Linux.

What's keeping me from switching... Well, honestly I have all three varieties of OS's on my MP51. Nothing to switch. That said, I hate Windows. I prefer macOS, then Linux, and only use Windows when it's logical.

 

[defjam]

Any hardware can fail at any time. That's just the way of it, regardless of macOS / Windows / Linux.

I agree and this is my point. However there are Mac users here who seem to feel only Windows has problems .

 

[defjam]

Um no. That's by YOUR "feelings" and definition. And in case you missed how much I value your feelings and definition, let me requote that fore you here:
""

I suggest you look up the definition of the word nebulous.

 

[user_xyz]

Windows user since 1992(Windows for Workgroups 3.11)
iphone 2008
mac mini 2018

I think windows is great!!

if you have trouble with windows; windows is not to blame!!

 

[AidenShaw]

Unless you can provide details your experience, by definition, is nebulous.

It's funny that there are close to a billion Windows users, but some Apple OSX fans consider it unusable.

They must be running Windows ME, or some other distro. Or maybe it's bootcamp that's unusable.
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Windows user since 1992(Windows for Workgroups 3.11)

Same timeframe, but Windows NT 3.1 pre-beta.

 

[ssgbryan]

It's funny that there are close to a billion Windows users, but some Apple OSX fans consider it unusable.

They must be running Windows ME, or some other distro. Or maybe it's bootcamp that's unusable.

Some people just can't grok the interface. When I jumped from OS/2 to OSX, it took me nearly a year to get used to the UI.

At the end of the day, it is a poor craftsman that blames their tools.

 

[AidenShaw]

Some people just can't grok the interface. When I jumped from OS/2 to OSX, it took me nearly a year to get used to the UI.

At the end of the day, it is a poor craftsman that blames their tools.

I think that there's also a tendency to focus on minor things that you don't like, and ignore the things that are fine.

For example, I really like my compact SUV - but there are a handful of things that I'd love to change. Doesn't bother me that it's not perfect, but I'd like to "fix" a few things.

For example, the transmission shifts from 4th to 5th gear at 37mph. My commute to work is about 2 miles on level, 35mph limit streets. I find myself speeding up to 37mph, see that that it's changed to 5th gear, and then slow to 35. (The 5th to 4th switch is at 32.) I wish that I had a knob to turn to set the "no throttle 4th to 5th" change to 34. And since everything on the car is controlled by the onboard computer, this should be easy to implement.

Do I whine about it on Internet fora all day? No.