Why use Windows

[dsnort]

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.

I'll second that opinion. I used PC's until I switched in January of this year. Everything from 3.1 to XP Pro SP1,and a lot of time on NT 4.0(?). I'm not a computer junkie, nor am I terribly savy as to the innner workings of one. All I know is that since I switched to Mac OS, I spend more time doing things with my computer, and less time doing things to my computer.

 

[Timepass]

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?

you know that statement goes both ways. I can think of some things that I do on a PC that no mac could hope of doing at the same level. It goes both ways. It all comes down to software and there is quitea bit of software that PC uses have that you can not get for a mac.

 

[dsnort]

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.....

You may be right, but, Apple has already been down that road. Almost reached oblivion on that road in the mid 90's. And now even Dell is looking to de-emphasize low cost systems in their marketing strategy!

Link below gives some interesting insight, as well as other info.

http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20060809011851

 

[jaxstate]

Software, that's why I still use Windows.

 

[LoveMacMini]

Because it just works. For me it works magically. I haven't gotten a virus since the mid 90's, yet to get spyware, I must be a miracle worker!

Why use Ferrari's? Toyota's do the same thing.

Why use an axe? A chain saw is faster.

Why use a fork? Chopsticks are more traditional.

Why wear pants? Shorts are better in the summer.

 

[dsnort]

It all comes down to software and there is quitea bit of software that PC uses have that you can not get for a mac.

This is true. When I "switched", I had to decide if I could live without this software, or find mac compatible substitutes. Luckily, I am not an engineer! However, with the intel switch, bootcamp, parallels, the transgaming compiling engine, and some of the things going on with Wine, and the fact that Apple is the fastest growing segment of the computer market, there is hope that the software companies that are "Windows Only" will begin to see their way towards adapting their apps to Mac. And that's a good thing. For us and them.

 

[Dane D.]

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

I do use PCs at work, MS InterDev, PageMaker, Acrobat, Acrobat Distiller, Office, Thunderbird, Opera, SeaMonkey, Firefox all on XP. These are relatively new computers with 512MB RAM or more, P4 cpu, and mid-size HDs.

dsnort:
All I know is that since I switched to Mac OS, I spend more time doing things with my computer, and less time doing things to my computer.

This is what I mean. Thank you for saying it.

Project:
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.

I have in my sig. my home computers. Never had one hardware problem (changed the battery in all), never a problem with the OS or apps. The eMac and G3 run 24/7, no sleep for me don't like the wait for wakeup. Bottom line, I can be smug about Macs because in the end they just work.

 

[timswim78]

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.

I use Linux, OS X, and Windows XP at home because each one of them has its nice points. Here are some of the home benefits of Windows. The work list would be even longer.

For home:
- More printers and other peripherals work with Windows than OS X.
- There are more choices for software available on Windows than on OS X.
- Generally, a computer from Dell, Emachines, or a homebuilt are more configureable than Apple computers. You have to spend $2000+ to get a Mac that allows you to switch optical drives, add a second hard disk, or plug in a new video card.
- People don't won't their hardware dictated to them. Even the least expensive Windows PC's have built-in memory card readers or have the ability to have them inexpensively added.
- Front Row is a joke when compared to Windows Media Center. People want to record their television shows on their computer. Even if Front Row allowed video recording, you would have to buy a clunky external tv tuner to get the signal. (Whereas you can just pop a TV tuner into the PCI slot on most Windows boxes.)


Just some off of the top of my head.

 

[dsnort]

I have in my sig. my home computers.

Nice collection. I'm envious!

 

[hulugu]

...The recent conference Jobs introduces the HIGHEST OF HIGHEST END MACS...who is this targeting when it's the big announcement of the day?

The answer's in the title of the conference, World Wide Developers Conference .

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).

Price is widely overstated and value counts too. What do you mean by productivity software?
As for support, apple.com/support is valuable, the Genius bars in the stores are pretty good, and there are many small companies offering support as well.

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.

Huh? The OS should be able to keep memory management and other problems from happening, so the worst that happens is a buggy program crashes. Windows, however, does have this problem.

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

Some PC users are total idiots and you know it (and to be fair, there are Mac users who turn their machine off by pulling the power plug out), but many just didn't know they had a choice or were too afraid of being 'different' from their neighbors that they keep buying a dodgy platform that they hate. Mac users should be more gracious about this, but PC fans can be annoying and have a knee-jerk reaction to the Mac as a toy.

...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?

I agree, both platforms are useful, but I find that much of what is being done on a PC is dealing with viruses and installing update drivers and rebooting the machine. I find that people have $1000+ PCs and are getting $100 of value from it because doing cool things is too hard for them, and the day-to-day headaches from Windows makes the computer a problem rather than a solution. Some people get fabulous value from Windows, and I consider them to be some kind of witch-doctor playing with dark forces.

I can make a Mac rock'n'roll, I can build wireless networks in minutes, web-documents and videos in mere hours, I can make the Mac speak thunder and lightning.

Meanwhile the PC keeps demanding that I "clean the desktop of unused icons."

One of the things I think is interesting, is the problem isn't really the hardware which ranges from cheap crap to impressive stuff, but Windows. Windows is badly designed, poorly implemented, and kludgy as all get out.

But, that's just my opinion.

 

[jhu]

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.

so no games, ms office, or other business uses? in that case, you might as well ask why we don't all use windows 95 or mac os 7.

 

[hulugu]

so no games, ms office, or other business uses? in that case, you might as well ask why we don't all use windows 95 or mac os 7.

Photoshop, Illustrator...HD Video...

Businesses could probably survive on Windows 95 if they still had to (some still are), but the creative types need the power and UI goodness of the newest software. Unless, we're going back to woodcuts and film, in which case never mind.

Games drive hardware, but business users? Not unless you're including servers.

 

[jhu]

Photoshop, Illustrator...HD Video...

Businesses could probably survive on Windows 95 if they still had to (some still are), but the creative types need the power and UI goodness of the newest software. Unless, we're going back to woodcuts and film, in which case never mind.

well sure, but depending on where you work, that is also considered "business use."

 

[solvs]

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.

I agree. I'd never say Macs were perfect, believe me, but for a lot of things most people do they are a lot better (IMO). You don't need to know how your car works to drive it, nor your other electronics like TVs and toasters. Sure, computers are more complicated, and you do need to change the oil in your car or put gas in it, as well as know how to use a Tivo or VCR to record something. But as an IT person I am constantly amazed at the issues we have with Microsoft software. Especially Windows. And people just put up with it. That's always my argument though, if it was good, you wouldn't really need to be that smart to use it, it would just work.

Besides, I do this professionally and I still run into weird things that don't make any sense, so even if you know what you're doing, you can still have issues.

Thats my point, Windows is non-intuitive.

I'm not disagreeing, just pointing it out.

 

[btopro]

Thank you Project

Thank you project for finally saying the things I was looking for. It's not that I have a problem with OSX (I haven't fully used it for a long period of time so I can't claim to that) it's that I have a problem w/ the fanboys of Apple (I don't know any XP fanboys... it gets the job done, not wonderful).

Also, Dell's arn't crap, (I used to have a Dell and my parents own their 2nd one now) it's the fact that you can get really low end dells which have really low end parts but... they are really cheap. I've seen cpu w/ monitor for 300 before on their site. XP doesn't run as smoothly as OSX but I don't think it's a crippling experience by any means. Yea, my computer crashed today when the wireless card I have (Media Center PCs + wireless connections = hokey) cut out and then crashed the VPN software that I was using with dreamweaver (which then crashed) but that's a lot of different software interacting and I have a bad wireless card. You have a Mac OS, built JUST for a Mac with Airport Mac wireless products, designed for and on Mac only hardware.... If Microsoft designed their own computers I would be a bit pissed if it didn't work perfectly.

The main point of my comments were really just to stir people up and get them talking about it (and smug mac fanboys annoy the hell out of me). As i've said I'm going to get a MacBook in the near future and run both Operating systems.

 

[Dane D.]

jhu:
so no games, ms office, or other business uses? in that case, you might as well ask why we don't all use windows 95 or mac os 7.

I was trying rule out games and Office because than it becomes a discussion of those two. I could still use System 7, I have an old PowerPC 7100 sitting at work in a closet with Photoshop 2.5, Illustrator v5, QuarkXPress 3.3 and other graphic software. I could install new battery, larger HD, RAM and find a way to tap into my network, no problem producing work, just damn slow.

I just visited my brother tonight, he finally made the leap from Win98 to XPPro for his home computer. This took place Sat., Aug. 5, 4 days later he wants to go back to 98. He calls it bloatware. So far he has spent Sat., Sun., Monday and Tuesday night 'tweaking' the system. He is a diehard Windows person, can't stand XP. And he has been using 'PCs' since early 80's.

btopro:
As i've said I'm going to get a MacBook in the near future and run both Operating systems.

I hope you enjoy the MacBook, my plans are to wait until another generation of Mac Pros are released. And bite my tongue when having to use the PCs at work. A little background, I have been using Macs since the IIcx days, so I know a little bit about them. Never once did a PC enter my mind as a possible home computer, looking at Win 3.1, 95 and 98,; my mind and stomach couldn't take it.

 

[Timepass]

see for me some software that runs only on windows is Autocad and microstation (both PC only) and some scheduling software that I have to run. Plus some cost estimating software. None of which a mac verson is out that is even REMOTILY up to par with the windows versons (if any even exist it so weak that it is worthless) but then again it high end stuff and fall under pro level software and when we get there we are in a different ball park than you average everyday user.

 

[Mav451]

Never once did a PC enter my mind as a possible home computer, looking at Win 3.1, 95 and 98,; my mind and stomach couldn't take it.

Haha, the very reason my friend switched was b/c he was BSODing like crazy on his Win98 machine. The reason I never fully switched (Apple on the desktop) is b/c I wasn't experiencing the same problems he had. He had an old, aged Pentium 1 Intel box, while I had just gotten a high-end AMD Thunderbird box from a local mom-and-pop. I was running 98SE and didn't experience any problems.

My experience from 98SE to XP has been uneventful. No glaring BSODs, viruses, or the other standard list of complaints. Other than some quirkiness with XP vanilla, going to XP SP1 and SP2 Integrated were pretty seamless, and again, uneventful. Simply, I don't see a reason to go to OSX fully (on the desktop).

And yes, I know you didn't ask for it--but gaming is a plenty good reason that I stay PC for now. Internet browsing is not much different at all, considering I'm on FF. Music? I use iTunes...no difference there

 

[Mav451]

I just visited my brother tonight, he finally made the leap from Win98 to XPPro for his home computer. This took place Sat., Aug. 5, 4 days later he wants to go back to 98. He calls it bloatware. So far he has spent Sat., Sun., Monday and Tuesday night 'tweaking' the system. He is a diehard Windows person, can't stand XP. And he has been using 'PCs' since early 80's.

Heh, I too went through the same stage, when I went from 98SE to XP vanilla back in 2003 (which is arguably very late adoption). I believed that by running some registry tweak + stopping specific services, etc. etc. that it'd make a big difference.

I really doesn't. Provided he isn't running on 384MB of RAM or less, the tweaks aren't absolutely necessary--and if his hardware sucks...classic theme it is, AKA "Windows 2000".

 

[btopro]

XP does have too many things running by default that you have to tweak away but that's also not an XP issue, it's typically the manufactorer that you buy it from (dell and hp both put so much worthless garbage on there that runs in the background from the onset. who needs auto updating virus software anyway? )

I'm also waiting for another itteration to get the Macbook. Looking to get the following when it's available:
Black Macbook
2 ghrtz core 2 duo
2 gigs ram

I don't partitularly care about the rest of the settings, especially since I have 440 gigs of storage in the PC i'm using currently. Has anyone gotten a mac and bought ram from another company? I don't plan on bying a 400 dollar 2x1 gig sticks when I can get them on new egg or else where for around 200 (667 DDR2 sticks)

 

[dsnort]

see for me some software that runs only on windows is Autocad and microstation (both PC only) and some scheduling software that I have to run. Plus some cost estimating software. None of which a mac verson is out that is even REMOTILY up to par with the windows versons (if any even exist it so weak that it is worthless) but then again it high end stuff and fall under pro level software and when we get there we are in a different ball park than you average everyday user.

Yes, this is very high end stuff, definitely PC only at this time. My hope is that with the new Bootcamp and Parallels capability, some users at this high end will buy MacPros and run Win on them. And as they get some exposure to MacOS, begin to ask Autodesk, "why don't you write this for mac, so I don't have to buy Windows"?

 

[FadeToBlack]

Has anyone gotten a mac and bought ram from another company? I don't plan on bying a 400 dollar 2x1 gig sticks when I can get them on new egg or else where for around 200 (667 DDR2 sticks)

I recommend Other World Computing (macsales.com) for RAM. When I got RAM for my old eMac and Power Mac, I got it from them and never had a problem. Right now, they have 2GB (2x1GB) sticks for $217.99. This is for the MacBook, BTW.

 

[Lollypop]

XP does have too many things running by default that you have to tweak away but that's also not an XP issue, it's typically the manufactorer that you buy it from (dell and hp both put so much worthless garbage on there that runs in the background from the onset. who needs auto updating virus software anyway? )

I'm also waiting for another itteration to get the Macbook. Looking to get the following when it's available:
Black Macbook
2 ghrtz core 2 duo
2 gigs ram

I don't partitularly care about the rest of the settings, especially since I have 440 gigs of storage in the PC i'm using currently. Has anyone gotten a mac and bought ram from another company? I don't plan on bying a 400 dollar 2x1 gig sticks when I can get them on new egg or else where for around 200 (667 DDR2 sticks)

Ive always used stock memory for all my macs, while I know i shouldnt apple has come a long way with this particular issue, and now that they use intel chipsets all memory that works on that chipset should work on the mac as well.

I started with dos 6.22, went windows 3.11, windows 95, 98, 2000 and then XP before I went Mac (10.3), while i agree 100% that macs are a bit more expensive and that apple should have a midrange Im 100% happy with using the Mac exclusively at home (work gets dictated to me unfortunately).

If MS were to ever build their own PC, then we can compare MS and apple more directly, but untill then the fact that apple does the entire thing (OS< hardware and most software) is their advantage, and thats what i use the mac for, I want to do things with my mac, not to it, but because of the unix underpinnings if im in a kinky mood and want to start doing things to it, I can.

For me it was about options, and as shoked as a lot of windows and linux people are, the mac does offer a lot of options. Windows gives me a lot of software, but all the stuff I do in windows, I can do on the mac as well.

 

[zephead]

I use Windows because I can't afford a MacBook (as of yet) , but as soon as I get enough, I'm ditching Windows faster than you can say "[insert app here] is not responding."

 

[btopro]

I just hope CS:source works with Bootcamp. If it does im more then set.