Worst Windows Experience that forced YOU to switch?

[Chone]

Hello all

Well I've been with Macs for my entire life and I bought a PC to play games (I just got sick of the lack of games in Macs), I started with Windows 2000 and thats where I learned all of the "donts" of Windows, then with WinXP, it was very easy keeping it well, if you know what you are doing you can make Windows XP work like a charm. Now I'm a hardware enthusiast and love building PCs, the kind of love you don't get with Macs. I still own 3 Macs and just one PC but I love my PC just as much as my Mac, it just that I love them for different reasons.

No need to make the switch when you can experience the best of both worlds

 

[JAT]

Are you allowed to post here if you've been using Macs since 1984?

I was forced into a Win98 box moving to my current job 7 years ago. Windows crashed almost daily and wouldn't select programs properly. I mean, I would have several programs open, and it would randomly select a different one if I closed one of them, not the last one, not the next one, not the alphabetical next one, who knows what it did. Or it would select nothing, not even the desktop, and the keyboard became useless. (other than CtrlAltDel) Love that, a useless keyboard on a PC. Win2K solved the crashing, dropped it to monthly, but the select app mess still existed. WinXP doesn't crash unless there is a driver conflict, and the select is slightly better. But it is so frickin' ugly I had to redesign the look back to something like Win2K. Can't burn a CD to save my life, either.

I've bought 3 computers myself this decade. Of course, they all say Mac. I still need to get a MBP or similar. If I do, my IT guy might find me working on it instead of this Dell stupidity.

 

[bst]

blue screen of death

I loved macs way back when....had one since 6th grade...one of the first kids on the block to use a home computer to do my reports (others went to the few computers in the "PC lab")..... Used mac laptops in college and grad school (one was black and white and then upgraded to color screen)....

well, got married, and my then mac laptop couldn't upgrade the modem, and my spouse insisted on getting a Windows box..so we got a gateway back in 1997 with Win 98SE...and never upgraded the OS all these years later...
Well, I finally got sick and tired when even with IE updates still had bad surfing experiences....then my spoouse tried to delete unwanted and old software...by doing so we lost our files (.dll, etc) that supported basic functions....we had to manually shut off our box when we 'shutdown', on startup most times the computer had to go through the 'scanning disc for errors'...not to mention it started to slow down and couldn't handle opening more than a few programs at a time....and then it wouldn't let me use Firefox, one day it just decided to not open it, and never let me use it again...even though i downloaded a new firefox upgrade.....
well i just did it and got a new mac, with a new ipod and printer to boot.(used the edu discount)....
So far, works GREAT I am back in love!!!! BTW, I am now wirless with my laptop!!! I've entered the 21st century

 

[Benjamindaines]

I've always used Macs but I have a slightly entertaining story about how I helped my friend switch. I was over his apartment and brought my laptop, turns out he was trying to hop on his neighbour's wireless internet (I didn't know it at the time though). So I sat down at his kitchen table and announced "I'm going to check my email real quick", from the other room I get a "good luck". So I open Internet Connect and Im on his neighbour's connection in all of 20 seconds. My friend walks over and sees me on the internet and is like "WHAT HOW DID YOU DO THAT" I just told him I pressed connect. Then's when he tells me he's been trying to get on for weeks and shows me his mess of a PC setup with this huge wireless antenna sticking out the back. 3 weeks later he had an iMac and his building went free access to all tenants

 

[Jimmieboy]

Haha. I've been forced to use windows for too long.

 

[Jimmieboy]

Haha. I've been forced to use windows for too long.

Okay to start with I had a computer that needed windows to be re-installed at least every two days. I don't have that one anymore

Logging on and then having to restart straight away

Installing a firewall - Had my computer so slow it took about 20 minutes to start up.

Installing windows defender, anti-spy ware and antivirus solutions - Causes the system to die.

Registry errors

Not being able to install/uninstall items.

Enough has been said.

 

[ZoomZoomZoom]

Windows XP teletubby mode.

Unforgivable.

 

[the kid 05]

3 years with the comp im on now (still waiting for my Mac Pro was sapposta be here yesterday....) but any who...3 years no problems untill two weeks ago when my cousin came over and used it while i was at work...need less to say i think i got all of the 144000 viruses...oh boy was i irritated threw my mouse threw my wall and then pulled it out only to look for a new computer and my friend said apple was going to be releaseing the Mac Pro soon so i waited..and still am for my MP

xp <---xtra poop

OS X <--- Oh S***

 

[hedonism bot]

I used 98SE way too long - until March of last year actually (what can I say - I was a VERY poor college student). I knew what not to download, what sites not to browse, never used IE, P2P, etc. But, then, one day, seemingly with no reason, I started getting all these crazy .dll errors. So...I graduated and got another computer - a Hewlett-Packard which I immediately upgraded to XP Pro. There are a couple things that annoy me - specifically the bloatware (ARGH!) and the annoying update manager - but, really, XP never bothered me and I had no complaints about the build of the HP (actually, having been fortunate enough to previously only use IBM products, Apple's build quality was the only disappointing thing about the switch for me - but nothing compares to a ThinkPad anyway).

I'd used my girlfriend's brother's iBook and liked it, but it was Jaguar on a 500 mhz G3 and it just seemed kinda pokey - but the Intel Mac changed all that for me. I went into CompUSA (no Apple stores here), played around, read a whole bunch of reviews and articles about switching (had a few compability concerns) and then placed my online order.

But, ya know, maybe it's all Hewlett-Packard's fault - at the time, HP & Apple were all buddy-buddy, so, rather than my old standby Winamp, I started using the pre-loaded iTunes program (does iTunes count as bloatware?). I remember being surprised by the sophistication of Apple software. By just how simple and logical everything was - the ease of making playlists, syncing with my Shuffle, the whole drag & drop thing. I don't thing it was the whole settling with "it just works" thing, 'cause Windows worked for me. It was that it worked so well.

 

[n8236]

None. I switched because I wanted to expand my knowledge of OSs.

 

[Mac Rules]

My worst experiences being my having to reinstall Windows nearly every other month, then watching my resources getting hogged by Norton Anti-virus, AVG Anti-Virus, Norton Firewall, Windows Defender, Spybot, and finally Ad-Aware. I spend at least 2-3 hours per week scanning for everything, then defragging etc IT BORES THE CRAP OUTTA ME!!! I pend more time maintaing it then actually getting work done!

Also, my first PC was in fact a Samsung laptop which worked fine for the first year, then all of a sudden it started being really, really slow on startup. So I sen ti back to comets, and they replaced the RAM and some other things, and guess what...not fixed, so I sent it back only to receive it unfixed each time 5 times in 6months. When I say fixed, I mean they actually did nothing as written on the return summary!
Unfortunatly, a small accident with a cup of coffee meant that it no longer worked and I was covered by warranty and got my desktop.....unfortunatly Comet doesn't do Apple computers...

Oh well....

Cheers

 

[cwedl]

i got sick of windows shortly after using OS X and seeing how much better things could be. i knew it was for me immediately. when it was time for a laptop i got a powerbook. now i have an iMac too.
i'll try to keep that windows machine going the best that i can but i don't think i'll buy another PC in this decade. i can't say the same about macs... they are always welcome here.

Same, but I did spend a bit of time researching first almost 6 months, I joined here and asked questions etc.

 

[squirrelonfire]

stupid hidden drop down menus

Im sick and tired of having to go to hidden menu to get things done. Like in Windows explorer, I have to go to folder options just to change some setting.
Yet why the hell everything is in the Start menu, why can't they be spread out on a bar like Apple? It's so retarded.
Plus Windows is so unreliable, 1 day it's workign fine, the next day I turned it on, my Search feature doesn't work. I was like "what did i do."
I love WIndows b/c it's my hack box.
I love Mac b/c it's my personal computer.

 

[rtharper]

Using cygwin. Worst idea of my life.

Trying to compile AuCTeX in cygwin, second worst idea of my life.

Oh, and the fact that you can have a printer driver correctly installed, a post script file, but unless you have a !@#$%^& postscript VIEWER installed, you can't print, because you can't STREAM A FILE DIRECTLY TO A PRINTER. GAAAAAAAAAAH.

PS I'm still waiting to switch because there's no Merom MBP yet =(

 

[slabbius]

worst experience ever....????

can't really say there was one in particular that caused me to switch.... macs are just better

 

[Shadow]

Worst Windows Experience....

Well, it would have to be a few days ago. I was backing up all the stuff from my MacBook onto my XP machine (bad idea #1). I used OS X's FTP access-its very good. I made sure that all my stuff was on the XP machine, and as it was late I went to bed. I shut down the XP machine (bad idea #2), but not the MacBook as I planned to use it in bed. As it shut down it made that XP error sound thing. Thinking nothing of it, I went to bed. The next day, I turned the XP machine on to make sure everything was alright. On bootup I was greeted with a BSoD. Having no idea what was going on (and getting extremley annoyed) I rebooted again (bad idea #3). This time, the machine booted, but XP had decided to delete every single one of my files. Zip. All gone. And it wasnt just my stuff on the machine-its got years of family photos on). I had no idea what to do. I rushed downstairs to inform the family what had happened, and when they came upstairs, we were greeted with the almighty BSoD. During reboot Windows refused to boot at all. Not actually having a XP disk around, I simply "borrowed" one from a friend (bad idea #4). The machine refused to boot of the CD. Ugh. The machine is now sitting on the desk, not doing anything at all.

And to think I refused an iMac G5 when I bought the XP machine from PC World 3 years ago.....

 

[Mikael]

Worst Windows Experience....

Well, it would have to be a few days ago. I was backing up all the stuff from my MacBook onto my XP machine (bad idea #1). I used OS X's FTP access-its very good. I made sure that all my stuff was on the XP machine, and as it was late I went to bed. I shut down the XP machine (bad idea #2), but not the MacBook as I planned to use it in bed. As it shut down it made that XP error sound thing. Thinking nothing of it, I went to bed. The next day, I turned the XP machine on to make sure everything was alright. On bootup I was greeted with a BSoD. Having no idea what was going on (and getting extremley annoyed) I rebooted again (bad idea #3). This time, the machine booted, but XP had decided to delete every single one of my files. Zip. All gone. And it wasnt just my stuff on the machine-its got years of family photos on). I had no idea what to do. I rushed downstairs to inform the family what had happened, and when they came upstairs, we were greeted with the almighty BSoD. During reboot Windows refused to boot at all. Not actually having a XP disk around, I simply "borrowed" one from a friend (bad idea #4). The machine refused to boot of the CD. Ugh. The machine is now sitting on the desk, not doing anything at all.

And to think I refused an iMac G5 when I bought the XP machine from PC World 3 years ago.....

Just so you know, all your files are very likely to be recoverable by simply installing the drive in another machine and using an "undelete" program. The files aren't really gone until they're overwritten, which isn't likely to have happened. My friend (or possibly Windows) screwed up a while ago and he also thought that all files were lost. Luckily I was able to restore all but 10 photos.

 

[Shadow]

Just so you know, all your files are very likely to be recoverable by simply installing the drive in another machine and using an "undelete" program. The files aren't really gone until they're overwritten, which isn't likely to have happened. My friend (or possibly Windows) screwed up a while ago and he also thought that all files were lost. Luckily I was able to restore all but 10 photos.

Thanks for the help, but I have no access to another PC (or rather, a person that will let me tinker with theirs ).

 

[Clydefrog]

ah man where to start. Probably the one i can think of most is reformatting and reinstalling windows every 3 months due to registry errors and just common slow downs. Also, running SPybot Search and Destroy, AdAware, and defraging every week

 

[dsnort]

1. Windows Messenger on original XP= endless spam pop-ups

2. "XXYYZZ Program Has Performed An Illegal Action and Will Shut Down...."

3."New Hardware Found"-"Insert Installation Disk"

4. "Your Search Returned 0 Results"

5. Push power button, go make dinner while computer boots up.

6. "12 Spyware Infections found"

7. "System Restore Unavailable, file XXYYZZ.dll cannot be found"

8. " Disk Defragmentation underway, estimated time left 22 hrs and 46 mins"

9. Realizing my fingers had the CTRL+ALT+DEL combo memorized

EDIT:
Thought of a couple of more favorites

10. Opening IE to find out my homepage had been mysteriously reset to some never before seen search engine, apparently owned by the makers of Viagra.

11. "This Appplication is Not Windows Certified, Are You Sure You Want to Continue?"

12. " Windows Cannot Communicate With The Printer, Please Check Your Cable Connnections". Well, it was there two minutes ago, where do ya think it went? (Fixed with a reboot)

 

[jlewis2k1]

how about having to do a clean install like every 2 weeks cause of either spyware and adware or the files get corrupted some how.

 

[CoMpX]

I had been annoyed with Windows for a while, but what finally pushed me over the edge was the fact that I had to reinstall Windows 3 times in one week due to corruption.

 

[jlewis2k1]

I had been annoyed with Windows for a while, but what finally pushed me over the edge was the fact that I had to reinstall Windows 3 times in one week due to corruption.

thats a nightmere ... i wonder how my mum's computer is. everytime, i go to visit there something wrong with her computer...(she doesnt pay attention to what is being installed)

 

[luminosity]

i hadn't thought about it in awhile, but the startup stuff is something i most assuredly don't miss. i was having registery trouble from time to time, and i obviously don't have to deal with that anymore.

i'd say it was my brother's ibook experience that got me to switch, but there are a myriad of things i'm glad i don't have to deal with anymore.

 

[chewy5000]

Windows rebooted (but without the 'shutting down' buisness, just straight to black) constantly, usually after 2-3 minutes of being turned on. I realised that it was automatic update doing it, but then realised that it was ALL microsoft updates.

I also had a problem were windows blocked the internet connection.

I haven't switched to Mac, BUT I REALLY REALLY WANT TO (i'm 14, my parents have the final say. i want a mac for my school laptop, but the IT dudes say you have to use windows, BootCamp is my saviour)