Windows 10 is rough, I'm kind of regretting this.

[roxics]

Still running my 2017 MacBook Pro with Monterey, but sadly my 2012 Mac Mini died on me this past February. Which was my main desktop for work. But it was getting long in the tooth anyway and I need to replace it. For years I've been thinking about just building another PC. I used to build them from 1998-2010 before switching all my personal machines to Mac. My work machine at the office was still Windows until 2018. But I haven't really used a Window machine since leaving that position. I've been on mac for work and pleasure. But my girlfriend is a PC gamer and I've helped her upgrade her machine a couple years ago and have had the itch to build one myself. Mostly because I'm tired of Apple baking everything in. Not allowing any user hardware upgrades anymore.

My girlfriend's old PC parts were up in the attic and I realized I only needed a power supply and SSD to get it up and running. It's also a 2012 i7 just like my old Mac Mini. Except you can upgrade more parts on it, which I plan to do. Swapping out the motherboard, ram, and CPU. But for the time being I installed Windows 10 on it and have been using it for the past few days, getting everything situated. Hoping to make it my new work PC.

But man is it rough. I feel like I went from a modern car to an old 80s clunker. I mean the switch from MacOS to Windows 10. The hardware performance feels fine. It's the OS that is the problem. It's all the niceties about MacOS that you immediately notice are gone. Even something as simple as just right clicking on a highlighted word to get the definition.
The Finder alone is worth the entry price of the Apple hardware. Spring loaded folders, column view, multiple file renaming at once, Quicklook, Automator, remembering the last folder you were just in, a clean left panel, the ability to see both and image preview and details in the right panel at once. Windows 10 only lets you do one or the other. Let's not even mention Mission Control, hot corners, the dock, Screenshot. Things that really make usability nice on MacOS.
Windows feels very claustrophobic to me now. I was able to set my middle mouse button on my Logitech mouse to pop up Task View, but it's a poor excuse for Mission Control since it doesn't show you all your open windows. So I switched that button to launch alt-tab instead, and while it shows all open windows, you have to be really quick to select one before it disappears. Very annoying.

I wanted cheap hardware I could upgrade myself. I didn't want to have to pay $200 more for an extra 8GB of ram on a new Mac Mini and be stuck with only that amount for the rest of the machines life. Not when I can pay $80 for 32GB on a PC, which I can swap out and upgrade at any time.

I hate being stuck in this dilemma of either cheap easily upgradable hardware with an inferior OS or expensive non-upgradable hardware with a superior OS. I really wish there was a middle ground solution were we could get the best of both. Apple used to at least offer the ability to upgrade certain components to an extent. My 2012 Mac Mini was a perfect example of that. I think I paid $800 for that machine in 2013 and I upgraded the ram myself to 16GBs (the max). Upgraded the HDD to an SSD, and there was even room in there for a second HDD or SSD. That machine even had a built in SD card reader, firewire 800 port, HDMI, ethernet, four USB 3 ports, a headphone and a mic jack, and a display port. Not the anemic port selection modern Minis have.

I miss those days.

 

[wonderings]

I know the feeling. I have used Mac for work in print and design for 20 years. After. merging my family business with a larger company, they switched us to Windows about 2 years ago. That only lasted a year for me, it was such a headache trying to navigate the OS when used to Mac OS. Windows feels like you have to do it their way and only their way, on a Mac I feel like I can navigate how I want in various ways. I switched back about a year ago, I was constantly pulling out my M1 Max to just get things done when little issues would come up and it took me more time to get IT to resolve something or when I just got too frustrated. Going back to a Mac is like using a hot knife through butter.

 

[LiE_]

Windows 11 is really good these days and gets out of the way. As someone who uses both macOS and Window 11, I can easily go between the 2 and not have any issues.

It's been a while since I've used Window 10.

 

[lcseds]

I know the feeling. I have used Mac for work in print and design for 20 years. After. merging my family business with a larger company, they switched us to Windows about 2 years ago. That only lasted a year for me, it was such a headache trying to navigate the OS when used to Mac OS. Windows feels like you have to do it their way and only their way, on a Mac I feel like I can navigate how I want in various ways. I switched back about a year ago, I was constantly pulling out my M1 Max to just get things done when little issues would come up and it took me more time to get IT to resolve something or when I just got too frustrated. Going back to a Mac is like using a hot knife through butter.

Windows feels like you have to do it their way and Mac sets you free? More often than not, it's the other way around IMO. Win 11 is pretty decent.

 

[JSchwage]

Just wanted to point this out, but Windows 10 was released almost ten years ago. You're much better off with Windows 11 from a modern experience perspective. Whether or not that hardware can run Windows 11 is another thing, but there's a lot of guides online to get Windows 11 running on unsupported hardware.

Regardless, even compared to Windows 11, I agree that macOS seems like a much more polished operating system.

 

[wonderings]

Windows feels like you have to do it their way and Mac sets you free? More often than not, it's the other way around IMO. Win 11 is pretty decent.

Windows 11 feels the same to me for file handling and folders. I love using column on a Mac, but have the freedom to navigate folders in various ways whereas in Windows you do it the one way and that is it.

I don't mind Windows 11 and it is what I use for my gaming PC, but actually using it for production at work I found it to be a nightmare.

 

[vladi]

Consider yourself lucky that you didn't have to use early Mac OS X/9/8/7 which didn't support full screen apps. You ran Photoshop and palettes and panels would be all over your desktop floating and acting like each is separate window. PSD image window had to be manually dragged to fill the desktop area between the toolbars and panels. Every single time. In order for your desktop not to interrupt with the image you are working on it had to be set to neutral gray with fewer icons on it as possible. My favorite part was minimizing the PSD file but all panels and tools are still on the screen while you are looking at the desktop. Such nonsense. Anyway, they introduced unified app window or something in like 2005 or so.

 

[ozreth]

I have no real allegience to Apple as a brand and would really enjoy building a PC, or giving a Samsung phone a try etc. But we all know what these operating systems are like. It only takes a day or two with them, as OP experienced, to understand how clunky they are. If anything, I do have an allegience to MacOS and, to a lesser extent, iOS.

I've been a Mac user since 2006 and on this forum nearly as long and see endless cycles of Apple users falling into the "its too expensive, nothing new and exciting is coming out, x or y software is more bang for your buck" etc. etc. But then and now the truth is that the operating systems of these devices are what you pay for, and it's worth it outside of some edge cases of people who truly require Windows for this or that. I wish this weren't the case, but it is. Windows 11 is an improvement but lets not lead people to take a chance on it, if they weren't happy with Windows 10, 11 won't do it for them.

Outside of a vocal minority on forums with niche issues, "it just works" is still entirely true.

 

[ozreth]

Just wanted to come back and add that I had to use Windows 10 last night and I was in my desktop settings and clicked "How to change the settings of your taskbar" (paraphrasing, I don't recall the actual menu item) and instead of taking me to an in-menu window with the options to change my taskbar settings, it opened my web browser to a page on the Microsoft website showing me in far too many steps how to achieve this. None of your settings menus should ever direct you to a help center article.

Little annoyances like this which show the extremely dated underbelly of Windows are countless and from what I've seen Windows 11 doesn't solve these structural issues.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

Windows 11 is really good these days and gets out of the way. As someone who uses both macOS and Window 11, I can easily go between the 2 and not have any issues.

It's been a while since I've used Window 10.

LMAO win11 gets out of the way. It's more invasive than a burgeoning cancerous growth deep inside the colon.

 

[LiE_]

LMAO win11 gets out of the way. It's more invasive than a burgeoning cancerous growth deep inside the colon.

When I’m doing my work, I don’t find the same. Are you constantly in the OS settings or something?

 

[pshufd]

I use Windows 10 for two specific programs and macOS for other stuff so I don't need the bells and whistles as I have them on macOS. Yes, Windows 10 feels old. But I far prefer it to Windows 11. I will be dragged kicking and screaming into Windows 11 though. I don't have any choice on virtual machines on Apple Silicon.

My Windows desktop is new enough to upgrade to W11 and it bugs me about it on a regular basis. But I'm holding out for another year.

 

[dmr727]

I've settled into a "no longer makes me want to throw my PC out the window" sort of relationship with Windows 11, but I only use it for Excel and Steam.

Steam already runs well enough under Linux that I'm tempted to switch full time, but I have a spreadsheet that doesn't translate well to any of the non-Microsoft options, so until I get off my butt to rework that, I've been holding off. One day!