Why use Windows

[Dane D.]

As a diehard Mac user, one thing has always struck me when using a Windows machine - why the hell do people put up with such crap? An example, I had to copy four folders into the Shared Folder so I could access them. They totaled just over 5GBs, it took 23 mins to copy them, the drive is 50% open, with about 20 GBs left. This is way too long. And the whole Shared Folder concept, what a crock. I work in a small business, when we want something from another Mac, we connect as the owner of the Mac. This way I can see and use everything, not just some Shared Folder. Oh and copying to external ZIP drive on a PC, USB connection is dog slow. The whole experience of using a Windows machine drives me insane. I curse at it, I want to throw the POS out the window.

I could go on and on about Windows methods, but you get my point. Now without including games and MS Office, tell me why would any sane individual use Windows. Remember your answer cannot include gaming or MS Office. And to make it more interesting limit it to home computers and not business. I have always wondered about this.

 

[jellybean]

I use both mac and PC, but I'm more of a mac boy. But...

I don't like how a lot of macs are barely upgradeable. On my PC, I LIKE being able to go out and buy the latest and greatest graphics card and just stick it in. Not so easy in an iMac.

My old mac mini didn't last long... it feld old after just a few months, and I couldn't upgrade a thing. I would've liked a superdrive, maybe also a bigger internal hard drive, and if it were a PC I could've just bought the new parts and install them really easily.

So I have a love/hate thing about Apple's desktop hardware. It looks stunning, is practical and functional, and almost silent. (My PC sounds like a friggin Batmobile), but you can hardly upgrade them and things start looking very messy having several external hard drives and things plugged into it.

Apple's upgrade policy seems to be if it needs upgrading just chuck it out and buy a completely new mac.

 

[ljump12]

I believe your correct for home computers Apple is the best choice; It doesnt mean windows is a horrible choice; They are alot cheaper... i know all you guys come out and say Ohhhh NOOOo but equally configured blahblah same price. The problem with what yoru saying is equally configured....

You can go on dell.com and for $400 get a decent computer/monitor (Sure its not gonna be real fast), but i guarantee it will get the average mom onto Jcrew.com and gap.com and some minial ebaying, and let the kid write his report for school. Goto apple and buy the time you buy a computer and monitor; your talking $7-8 Bottom line...

YES apples support may be better... YES they may last longer.... but then again maybe not. Have you guys heard all the problems with these macbook's and whatnot?

Look i own a macbook, and yes its really cool; But you guys need to stop saying its the be alland end all for computers. Macs are far from perfect.

There are many apps that just wont run on mac; For instance, i cant listen to my MLB baseball online on mac; sure it may seem like something trivial but it jsut doesnt work. There are many other things that.. JUST WONT WORK... Sure this isnt apples fault; but its a problem with macs.

Like the user above me noted... Expandability. There just ISNT the options that PC has... you can't tell me their is. id ont care if the macpro has a million different configuration options. Ill bet any PC has more than a billion.

This all applies to hoome computing.. Dont even get me started on gaming. If you want to play games; Windows BLOWS mac out of the water

Look windows aint perfect; and neither is mac; Ive used both. One day maybe everything can live in harmony.. until then..........

 

[Dane D.]

I don't like how a lot of macs are barely upgradeable. On my PC, I LIKE being able to go out and buy the latest and greatest graphics card and just stick it in. Not so easy in an iMac.

Expandability. There just ISNT the options that PC has...

I realize that, what I am talking about is the user experience. The ability to sit down and actually get stuff done, with ease. Think of sitting in front of Mac and doing whatever it is you do. Then try the same thing on a PC. Ask yourself, how many steps did it take, how long did it take and was the end result what you wanted. Personally I don't buy computers every release, I see no reason to. Again, why would someone subject themselves to the pain of Windows.

 

[sjpetry]

why would someone subject themselves to the pain of Windows.

I have gotten several friend and family to realize this after fixing their Windows boxes. In the future, none of them will willingly buy another PC.

 

[After G]

Backwards compatibility. Mind you, it's not like I need this (right now), but I might someday. Microsoft works hard to make sure a lot of things can go over to a new system. Microsoft gets pushed around by its developers to keep old APIs and outdated methods that work. Whereas Apple pushes its developers to do new things with cool new stuff.

It's what a person knows. I remember when I introed my sister to Mac. She kept saying "Give me back my Windows!" for a LONG time. Now she wouldn't go back if I gave her a PC.

Special apps. Or features in apps. This is a pretty big one. It's the "If I can't do everything I can in Windows 1000% better it's not worth it." argument. Like how MSN Messenger for Mac can't do video chat. It's programmer laziness. Or lack of market. My uncle runs a VAIO because he has engineering stuff that's PC only.

The illusion you save money by upgrading. A new computer with the parts you want is probably cheaper than throwing out pieces of your old rig for three years trying to keep it running. But somehow people keep thinking it is cheaper to just add a new part to their old Pentium IV rig and it'll do fine. I'm sorry, but in most cases it won't help. Oftentimes, the expandability goes to waste. That's why there's no mid-range Mac. Most people don't need it, even if they don't realize it.

 

[GFLPraxis]

I could go on and on about Windows methods, but you get my point. Now without including games and MS Office, tell me why would any sane individual use Windows. Remember your answer cannot include gaming or MS Office. And to make it more interesting limit it to home computers and not business. I have always wondered about this.

Because as a child I was forced to use Windows and thus all my software is on it and I'm a cheapskate. Regardless, I'm currently saving for my new iMac and can't way to ditch the crap that is Windows.

 

[zoziw]

On the net it is kind of fun to antagonize Windows users but in real life I'm kind of torn on the subject.

I think it is true that the average user (and by that I don't mean anyone clever enough to find their way to this forum) will get in less trouble with a Mac than a PC while browsing the net.

However, I also think about things like how common WMV is on the net and how difficult it is to get it to play on a Mac. I mean think about it, you've got people out there who click "ok" to every prompt that pops up on the net and these people are going to have to be clever enough to download and unpack (requiring an obscure download) Windows Media Player for the Mac or go with something like Flip4Mac which, ime, still doesn't work well with streaming content.

I also think back to last August when I bought my two laptops, an iBook and an HP, and the remarkable difference in terms of hardware that I got with the HP for the same price as the much weaker iBook.

Still, I've seen so many people bork their Windows boxes out of plain ignorance that it is awfully hard to ignore the advantages of the Mac for internet usage.

Ultimately, most people are just plain afraid to switch.

 

[eclipse525]

Use Windows to play on most poker sites. Whatever sites do support Mac's, usually use a Java based player and there slow as crap.

~e

 

[After G]

Use Windows to play on most poker sites. Whatever sites do support Mac's, usually use a Java based player and there slow as crap.

~e

I thought the OP said no games. Last I checked, poker was a game.

 

[btopro]

elite

Why is it that all you die-hard Mac people walk around like you are of a higher order just because you use an apple computer? I grew up learning to use a Macintosh back in the late Atari days. Even then when a 486dx was out of the question in terms of speed I still learned to use both and saw the usefulness of both. In a home environment the elite community of the Apple and its price deter entry level users from jumping on one and going to work. The recent conference Jobs introduces the HIGHEST OF HIGHEST END MACS...who is this targeting when it's the big announcement of the day? It's obviously not mom and pop who just want to get online. Average home use is based heavily on cost. Win PC. Macs just don't have the productivity software and support across the board to go entirely Mac, which is why I have avoided them in the past (along with the price).

Mac's might be more reliable, but that's also in part because of support for products. If you've got 20+ programs from 20+ different companies running in the background then of course it's going to be unstable.

I don't buy the Mac-fan boys who think people that use PCs are just dumb. I'm going to buy a Mac Book soon and I was turned onto the idea for one reason - dual-boot. Boot camp/XP and I can use all the software / web browsing that I currently do and OS X for all of my web design / video editing. Both are useful in their own ways, I'm just sick of Mac junkies thinking that they can insult people by scoffing at the idea of using a PC for anything other then "viruses" and "installing update drivers".

Can you honestly tell me that you can do everything on a PC that you can on a Mac with the same level of quality when you stack a high end PC and a high end Mac against each other?

 

[dejo]

Can you honestly tell me that you can do everything on a PC that you can on a Mac with the same level of quality when you stack a high end PC and a high end Mac against each other?

No, I honestly can't.

 

[solvs]

Because we have to. For some people that's all they know. Doesn't mean it's good, it just is. So people use them and people like have to support them. You'd be surprised at the number of people who just expect computing to suck and be hard.

For the record though, you could have just shared the folder the files were already in. Not that it's intuitive, or fast, but it's there. Just right click.

 

[iBookG4user]

I have no clue why any sane individual would choose to use windows. I was first introduced to computers through an Apple ][e, then a performa 650 then a power macintosh and then another power macintosh. My family was forced to get a pc because my sister's damn school only used pcs. I jumped at the chance to go back to mac with my current iBook G4 and I like the Mac SO much better than the PC. I also have a high end gaming PC which I'm getting rid of within the week so I can get a MBP. The only reason I would use windows right now is to play an AVI or H.264 file that is unplayable on my iBook, because my PC is 3 fold faster than my iBook. Although I have registered 0 minutes on my PC in the last week and basically the whole day on my iBook. And besides OS X is shinier than windows XP .

 

[FadeToBlack]

About four months ago, I sold my Power Mac G4 (Dual 867) and bought a Dell XPS 400. I have grown up using Windows and I missed using ICQ (That's what most people use around here, oddly enough) and a few other things, like having a good version of WMP (which still sucks, BTW...I realize that now) and also having the ability to customize it with a internal memory card reader, etc.) I was also wanting to try out IE7 and WMP 11 and eventually Vista when it came out. There were a couple more reasons, I believe, but I can't think of 'em right now.

Well, after using the Dell for 4 months, I've came to the conclusion that I will be a Mac user from here on out. Windows just completely sucks. I haven't actually had any problems with my XPS, other than the memory card reader feeling really cheap and not recognizing the cards sometimes and some weird humming noises. It's been solid since I got it, but the OS is my problem with it. (Plus, it doesn't look nearly as good as a Mac)

Windows just feels so SLOW and clunky and out of date. Yeah, it's a decently stable OS, (haven't had it crash on me in these 4 months. App crashes, yes, but no system crashes.) but it just feels so bogged down all the time, even after I removed the biggest part of Dell's bloatware. I think it may be that OS X has much better memory management or something. I'm not sure. I'll tell ya, the 1.25GHz eMac that I used to have felt quite a bit faster than this Dell and I know the problem is the OS because the Pentium D is a pretty good processor, from what I understand. I can now remember Windows being slow like this before, but I guess I just got so used to OS X being fast that I didn't even consider that when buying the Dell.

Another thing, I have trouble finding good software for Windows. On the Mac, I know of all kinds of great software. On Windows, you have to wade through loads and loads of crappy software to find anything decent. It really sucks.

The simplicity of the Mac is another one of the greatest things about using one. If I had a problem on my Mac, it was usually an easy fix. (Actually can't remember ever having a problem that I couldn't solve on my Macs) On Windows, I don't even know where to start. Everything is much more complicated.

Earlier today, I ordered a new Mac mini Core Duo and I plan on sticking with that for a long time. I'm keeping my Dell 1707FP (LCD) and selling the XPS 400.

Man, it's gonna feel great to be back using OS X again.

Sorry for my rant.

 

[btopro]

Another thing, I have trouble finding good software for Windows. On the Mac, I know of all kinds of great software. On Windows, you have to wade through loads and loads of crappy software to find anything decent. It really sucks.

The simplicity of the Mac is another one of the greatest things about using one. If I had a problem on my Mac, it was usually an easy fix. (Actually can't remember ever having a problem that I couldn't solve on my Macs) On Windows, I don't even know where to start. Everything is much more complicated.

Just proving my point further that you guys don't know what you're talking about if you are just using a mac for simplicity....especially if you don't know how to do simple networking. Can't knock something you don't bother to figure out. The "oohhh shiney and cute with little bouncy animations and swoops to everything" OS X is nothing special and i'd rather use my resources multitasking which Mac's had no idea how to do until the recent switch. Can't wait for Leopard only because it'll have the final version of boot camp included and then I can use the best of both worlds.

 

[Dane D.]

btopro:
Why is it that all you die-hard Mac people walk around like you are of a higher order just because you use an apple computer?

Because we can see the insane ways that Windows wants you, the user, to do things.

btopro:
Macs just don't have the productivity software and support across the board to go entirely Mac, which is why I have avoided them in the past (along with the price).

I disagree, for home use. Now in the business world, yes there are apps that are Win only, but hopefully that will change.

btopro:
Mac's might be more reliable, but that's also in part because of support for products. If you've got 20+ programs from 20+ different companies running in the background then of course it's going to be unstable.

What's this all about, I don't understand your paragraph.

btopro:
I don't buy the Mac-fan boys who think people that use PCs are just dumb.

Never said they were dumb. Just question why use a product that is a pain in the ass.

btopro:
Can you honestly tell me that you can do everything on a PC that you can on a Mac with the same level of quality when you stack a high end PC and a high end Mac against each other?

My point is the how you got there.

solvs:
For the record though, you could have just shared the folder the files were already in. Not that it's intuitive, or fast, but it's there. Just right click.

Thats my point, Windows is non-intuitive.

btopro:
Just proving my point further that you guys don't know what you're talking about if you are just using a mac for simplicity....especially if you don't know how to do simple networking. Can't knock something you don't bother to figure out.

That's it, you hit the nail on the head. It doesn't have to be hard. I expect to sit down and use a computer, not waste my time looking for answers or trying to figure out something. Simplicity works, it is the experience of using a Mac.

 

[heehee]

I use a PC because of Autodesk products. Most of their software don't support Macs. Thats why.

 

[Dane D.]

heehee:
I use a PC because of Autodesk products. Most of their software don't support Macs. Thats why.

You didn't follow the rules set in my first post. No work apps, this is CAD type software. So far no one has given a reason why use Windows over Mac. Explaining the desire to be subjected to such computering pain.

 

[btopro]

You didn't follow the rules set in my first post. No work apps, this is CAD type software. So far no one has given a reason why use Windows over Mac. Explaining the desire to be subjected to such computering pain.

Then I can pose the same question to you. It's a preference issue, and it so happens that Apple is the minority on this one. You are of the opinion, like most Apple users, that Windows is non-intuitive and a crappy environment for...anything really it would seem. I'd like to know how you arrive at this conclusion? You make it seem like it is a given that XP sucks when I've used macs for quite awhile and the main reason i switched to PC's was that they made more sense and allowed you to do more. Then again, that also brings into question what "doing more" really means but I don't understand the total hatred for the PC. I guess it's because there arn't any super smooth cases for the hardware and the menus don't waste GPU resources by being sucked away and fizzling in and doing all kinds of other "smooth" effects.

If you actually sat down and used a PC and knew what you were doing then you wouldn't have issues with it. You all find ways of crashing them "constantly" and "running slow", i'm curious how you do this as I've never really had a problem with the XP interface or software running on it, even when loading it up with programs running concurrently. I'd expect the same from the Mac when I get one.

I guess there's no real reasoning with Mac people, if they consider themselves a "mac person" then it's just because they don't know what they are doing on a PC and are therefore affraid of them.

 

[Project]

A member of my team has problems with Windows every single day. I lose around an hours worth of time "working with" Windows. I hate the way it intrudes so often. The performance becomes lacklustre after installing a handful of apps and running them,. I put it down to registry hell.

So, Why do we use it? Cos we work for Microsoft.

 

[ljump12]

You guys have failed to address the biggest point that i have made.. THE PRICE!!

THIS is why people continue to use windows; When mac releases an imac for $425 I GUARANTEEEE you will see people drop windows like hotcakes. until then.....

 

[Project]

If you actually sat down and used a PC and knew what you were doing then you wouldn't have issues with it.

Got to call ******** on this one sorry. Mac users often make blanket statements, but that doesnt justify one like this.

Believe me, I know what I am doing with Windows. Been using it since 3.1. Only recently switched to the Mac. And the difference is profound in my opinion. Not just on the underpinnings, because Windows is no slouch in that respect, but the refinement of the UI. What you call fancy effects, I mostly call attention to detail. There are times Apple miss the mark sure, but on the whole the UI of OSX is considerably more refined and intuitive than

And the whole It Just Works thing? Well, it does. I have zero problems on my Mac running pretty much the same apps I do on my Windows machine. On the whole it stays out of my way and lets me get on with my work.

Finally, going back to your initial comment; this is 2006. Not 1986. Users should not have to 'know what they are doing' to get stable performance and not want to tear their eyes out each and every day in the office. I see regular users, who arent techy like us on this forum, struggle with Windows. There is a deeper problem here than merely a fanboy on each side, flaming the other. Outside of the arroganct comments a lot of Mac users make, as well as those diehard Windows fans, I truly believe OSX to be a much more enjoyable experience that presents far less problems than Windows does. Is it because of the registry? The spaghetti code to maintain a connection with legacy software? Who knows. But hte proof is in the pudding for an awful lot of users. You may be cool with Windows. Im happy that you dont have the same maintenance woes a lot of us do. Really I am. But behind all the arrogance, there is a cause and reason for MAc users to feel smug I believe. And its more to do with the OS than the hardware.

 

[steamboat26]

The only appealing thing i can see to windows is if you have to have an app that only runs on windows, or if you want an inexpensive computer. Also, i think many windows users are just so used to windows that they don't want to try anything else. To be fair, i don't find that all PCs are horrible. Almost everybody automatically relates dells to PCs. Dells are HORRIBLE computers. When you compare an Apple to a Dell, the apple will win every time. My family has an HP that we have been using for a year, and while there has been some slow down, it is still a pretty good computer. Bottom line- if you are going to compare Macs and PCs, don't compare a crappy company (dell) to a good one (apple).

 

[7on]

You guys have failed to address the biggest point that i have made.. THE PRICE!!

THIS is why people continue to use windows; When mac releases an imac for $425 I GUARANTEEEE you will see people drop windows like hotcakes. until then.....

And Apple could too. Maybe not an iMac, but a mac tower + lcd combo. Maybe a 15" LCD and a 1.5Core Solo (and this is after Core 2 is out). A combo drive, no AP/BT, 40GB hdd, 512MB of RAM, and a larger case for less R&D. They could sell that for $400 - and advertise it as an internet/word processor machine.