OS X vs XP

[jxyama]

Originally posted by aafuss1

And XP's Add/Remove control panel is better than the 98 one-eay to add and remove software (centrallised unlike Mac OS x with its various types of application installs).

i don't really care about commenting on personal preference, and aafuss1 made a number of valid points about XP, but i have to comment on this.

OS X, as far as i know, has three types of installs. icon type, where you just drag an item, package type you have to unpack and ones using installer program. the last one is getting rarer, i believe, as most apps are now packaged into one icon for easy install and easy deletion.

i'm not sure if centralized app install is a good thing or not. for one, windows require modification of registry and dll collection, so app install has to be centralized. i don't know about XP, but for this very reason of system level modifications on every install, app removal is hardly ever complete on prev. versions of windows. we all know that you cannot simply drag a file or folder with an app to trash in windows to remove the application. this is another reason windows become "weird" over time because system files are being modified every time you install anything.

 

[sparky76]

I use XP and Mac OS X at home and Win2000Pro at work.
Don't believe anyone who says XP is slow - it does eat far more resources than previous Win versions, but new hardware is more than fast enough to handle it. Definitely needs 512MB to be comfortable, though.
OS X I am fairly new to. There is some learning curve, but nothing too tricky, and then it is certainly easier to use everyday.
For example, every time I reboot the XP machine (rarely) I have to reconfigure the connection to my wireless router, whereas with the Mac, it is ready and configured automatically.
If you want to play games, the PC is miles better, but for everyday use, I turn without exception to the Mac.

 

[benixau]

one thing alot of people leave out: menu bar.

I was recently on two weeks holiday from school (win2K network). This means that i am on my mac for two weeks and only my mac.
when i got back to school i realised how useful it was to be able to move the mouse to the same spot on the screen every time and have the relevant menus there.

it is one of the ideas that makes macos more logical to use. no nesecarily easier, but logical (which for all but the most insanse people translates to easier).

 

[whawho]

Originally posted by Macnewbie1
I do care about Office apps (which are also available). Is there any difference in responsiveness, stability of Office X as compared to Office XP.......I use Office XP a lot and it is really important. Also, any word on Macromedia apps....are they stable on macs.

I use both Office and Macromedia Studio at work and I would say honestly that Office (for me) tends to have more problems on Macs than on windows. Seems like there are more crashes with word etc, than I would have using office on windows. But since I only use office for word, the occasional spread sheet and power point docs this really doesn't bother me. Office runs OK.

Macromedia Studio runs about the same on Macs. I use Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash and Freehand on a regular basis and I can honestly say it runs about the same on both platforms I really haven't had any problems using Macromedia programs on my mac.

 

[dcb]

My experience with OSX is quite different than everyone elses I suppose. Applications unexpectantly quit ALL OF THE TIME, especially FLASH MX. I have to repair permissions on a bi-weekly basis and I have had to reinstall OSX every month...all of this at the recommendation of Apple Care. It runs a lot slower than XP and if I get brazen enough to shut down the computer, I might as well take a nap to wait for it to boot...especially if I connect to the network.

With all of that said and done, I don't like XP either. I don't use it, but at my office, we have two machines operating XP and it seems as if connections to the network printer fail on a weekly basis. (I hate having to re-Add the same printer over and over again). I prefer 2000.

With OSX, your investment is disk warrior because it requires so much maintenance to keep it running smoothly

With XP, your investment is an anti-virus, for obvious reasons.

 

[whawho]

Originally posted by dcb
My experience with OSX is quite different than everyone elses I suppose. Applications unexpectantly quit ALL OF THE TIME, especially FLASH MX. I have to repair permissions on a bi-weekly basis and I have had to reinstall OSX every month...all of this at the recommendation of Apple Care. It runs a lot slower than XP and if I get brazen enough to shut down the computer, I might as well take a nap to wait for it to boot...especially if I connect to the network.

With all of that said and done, I don't like XP either. I don't use it, but at my office, we have two machines operating XP and it seems as if connections to the network printer fail on a weekly basis. (I hate having to re-Add the same printer over and over again). I prefer 2000.

With OSX, your investment is disk warrior because it requires so much maintenance to keep it running smoothly

With XP, your investment is an anti-virus, for obvious reasons.

I have to ask... do you run a lot of haxies on your Mac or any kind of Themeing hacks? Reason I ask is because I have been running Jaguar on my Mac for well over 8 months without the problems you speak of. Not saying that your aren't having these problems I just don't think it's the norm. If you are running a lot of hacks then that might be the reason you're having a lot of problems... Flash MX for me never quits unexpectantly ...

 

[dcb]

Originally posted by whawho
I have to ask... do you run a lot of haxies on your Mac or any kind of Themeing hacks? Reason I ask is because I have been running Jaguar on my Mac for well over 8 months without the problems you speak of. Not saying that your aren't having these problems I just don't think it's the norm. If you are running a lot of hacks then that might be the reason you're having a lot of problems... Flash MX for me never quits unexpectantly ...

No hacks. As a matter of fact, I am scared to install anything. We (applecare and myself) are trying to see if it could be a hardware issue...I just got my iBook back 10 minutes ago with a new hard drive, so we will see if that is the issue.

Maybe it was a hardware issue! Been using my iBook for a while and everything I wrote is no longer true! I'll give it a few days, then we will see.

 

[breadboy]

I've been using computers since kindergarden (I'm 19 now) and have used lots of computers. From the Apple 2e and early LCII and

III's on up through pc's running dos win 3.11, 95,98, me (which is quite honestly the worst operating system ever created), 2k,

and currently xp. I haven't had much experience in the way of apple's for quite awhile now, but here are the reasons that I think

Windows XP and PC's in general are the best choice (bear in mind that I mean the best choice for me, not necessarily for the

person who disagrees with me )

First let me get my system specs out there so you have something to compare all this too:

Athlon 2700+
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
Corsiar 333 DDR 2 x 512
Ati Radeon 9700 Pro
Adaptec 39160 SCSI
Segate 18.4 gig 15000 rpm 3.6 ms
Western Digital 80 gig 8 mb cache
Audigy 2 Platinum ex
Vantec 470 watt Power supply
Windows XP Pro

Allright onto the good stuff

1. Windows XP is fast
My normal boot up time (after bios and scsi bootup) is about 32 seconds. As I have it loaded after login it takes about 20-30

seconds to get it to a regular operating mode, (after alllllll of my start up programs are loaded) but as soon as the start bar

appears at about 5-10 seconds its pretty much usable even if the processor is being taxed by loading programs a bit.

If you add that all up that's about 60 seconds to a complete running system with a ton of programs loaded (including windows

blinds which skins the windows and the start bar, and norton which isn't exact optimized for speed), and that is hard to beat.

2. Windows XP is customizable
My biggest complaint with the mac has always been the complete lack of customization. I can't speak for OSX as much (although I'm

fairly sure it hasn't deaviated from the course of earlier operating systems) but earlier systems had about as much customizing

potential as a IIe (only kidding, they have slighty more than a IIe) With XP I can literally change everything from the way it

starts up to the way it looks (with windows blinds I can make it look and run like beOS, OSX, Linux, etc.) and feels down to the

very heart of it. Yeah it's not linux, but its closer than any mac OS i've ever used. I love being able to mess with individual

drivers, system files, registry files, etc. I can turn off and on pretty much any function in services (part of the reason my pc

starts so quickly), and the list goes on and on. One of the biggest complaints I hear on the apple commercials is that things

don't run nice and pretty ( my pc won't work with my digital camera, my pc has a blue screen that pops up, my pc crashes all the

time, etc), but this is purely a lack of skill with windows. If you want to pick up a computer and learn it any not know anything

about it, mac still wins, but if you want to customize like crazy (and not jump off the linux bridge) XP wins.

3. Windows XP runs more software
Boy this one is big. Apple has office now, but that still doesn't make up for the thousands of programs you miss by using a mac.

Here is a list of programs I use that arn't available for Mac:

Guitar Pro
Line 6 Guitar Port software
MYIE2
Media Center 9
BayCheck Pro
DFX 6
GetRight
The Object Desktop suite of tools (windows blinds, desktop x, etc)
Sound Forge 6
Tweak XP pro (yes I know this is a pc customization tool, but boy if apple had an equivilant to this for basic tweaking)
Shooting Star
Win RAR
Nero 6
Win ISO
Exact Audio Copy
DisKeeper 8.0 Pro

And all of these are just from browsing my start menu. Mac's have some good stuff, but with such a small market share the

incentive to create programs doesn't seem to be there for a good deal of software developers.

4. Windows XP is stable
I have had my windows xp systems crash before (and I reinstall the OS every once and awhile, usually on a whim), but rarely. I can

say without reservation that this system is very very stable. I do remember back in the old days of win 95 though where you had to restart several times before things would really start working, and I can say that XP is nothing like that. The Kernal is based on NT versus ME and earlier which ran on good old DOS. If stability is a concern, I can tell you that with XP, and fairly new hardware its not much of a worry.

5. Windows XP has a better Internet experience.
I can tell you this, I have used regular IE, Opera, Firebird, and MYIE2, and MYIE2 makes such a difference that it propels the pc (the only OS you can run it on) to the best browsing OS.

MYIE2 is IE on something strong to say the least. It uses IE as a rendering engine (ensureing 100% page compatibility unlike firebird, the next in line), but from there its a totally different experience. You can use mouse gestures, alias, the address bar works as a google bar, as well as a search bar (ex. if I type in "eb car" it searches ebay for the word car, if i type in "we 98765" it searches weather.com for the zip code 98765) and its all customizable. The program has popup and ad blocking built in, translation services built in as well, not to mention some of my favorite custom features (display linkage url, enable right click, text highlighter, up a directory, view link source, a recently closed tab button to go back to any of the last 20 or so pages you browsed, and view source which shows the source of all the frames and anything else in a webpage.) I can't stress enough how great this browser really is, its faster and more compatible than Firebird, and of course outshines all the others biggies (IE,Mozilla,Opera).

In this case its pretty easy for me to say that XP wins in this regard, just because mac doesnt have the the program ported to it.

6. Windows and PC's arnt going anywhere.

Mac's are some interesting stuff and one day way off in the future, I might own one. Now however, with all of a 2.3 or so percent share of the market Mac's arn't doing too well. Apple with its new OSX Jag and G5 out looks like it might do something cool in the forseeable future, but honestly it's future in this market is somewhat in doubt. 2.3 percent is a very very very small market share. You could make the best product in the world, and if only 2.3 percent of people buy it, it doesn't matter how wonderful it was.

Factor in these few snippits

1. Apple is loseing the educational market (This is really, really going to hurt)
2. Apple isn't doing that wondefully in performance when compared with the PC. (look at all the commotion with the g5 performance)
3. People can get Pc's running windows xp for a much cheaper price than they can buy a Mac running OSX
4. Windows is becomming easier and easier to use.
5. Microsoft (love them or hate them) devotes almost all of their attention to Pc related software
6. Apple has been losing their market share for some years now (down to 2.3 percent last I heard)

Things just arn't looking that much up for Apple in general in regards to their computer line (Ipod is another story )


Alright so after all of this, I use a PC because its compatible, stable, customizable,not going to die, and several other things. Wether this fits you or not however is for you to decide.

 

[dcb]

Wow, you sure did write a novel there! You make some valid points....but check your stats. I think you might be mistaken about some of Apple's marketshare. The thread below talks about that.

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37202

The biggest thing I would disagree with you about is Apple's future, Eventhough I have been called a troll, I will say that Apple isn't going anywhere...but that is another discussion in itself.

 

[breadboy]

as far as the stats i read the 2.3 percent mabye a month or 2 ago, so it isnt that dated. It was from a news source too so I would take that over apple As far as education, I've heard parents are really complaining that kids are using mac's when almost everyone has a pc and schools are starting to think it over. If Apple loses the Education market (which it probably will eventually because pc's are much cheaper) it looks pretty much like a nail in the coffin.

As far as Apples future, its in doubt if they don't do better than its new g5. They have to get that 3 ghz version out really fast if they want to keep up on amd and intel who aparently are going to dig the trench even deeper with their 64 bit offerings

 

[jayb2000]

it just works

I have OS X running on an old 400mhz G3 with 512mb ram versus a almost new Compaq laptop with P4 2ghz and 512mb ram running XP

Now, the XP system is obviously faster, its 3 years newer, but I use the iMac for everything except a few games and work.

I have been using computers for 20 years, from Apple ][e to Digital mainframes, HP-UX, Sun Solaris, a Mac Plus running system 6, NT, 98, blah blah blah.

If you want to use it as a personal computer, for surfing the web, digital photography, music, etc. get the mac, it will cause you far less frustration (just buy a 2 button mouse, that does drive me nuts). But in the past year or so of running the iMac, I have never had to fix permissions, restore the system, recover a lost document, etc. It just works.

For those that pointed out the "features" of XP, including system rollback, auto-recover, etc. Maybe if MS put some of their 45+ BILLION into development on the software in the first place, they would not need those features!!

If you want to do gaming, then get a PC or PlayStation/xBox/cube, etc.

 

[rebelberg21]

yeah, the good old marketshare number again.....

actually every month Apple's Marketshare goes down....maybe it's a count down?

I think the projected marketshare at the end of the year is -4.0.....lol

Forget that marketshare stuff....or at least don't worry about it.....it's not what people make it out to be.....

Markeshare doesn't give you an accurate figure of current user %, it's only the percent of the market in a fiscal year.

So we won't see an accurate marketshare # again till Feb or so.

And the SUPPOSED low marketshare # hasn't effected the stock at all...not lately at least.....it's gone from $12-over $23 today......

Bottom line: Pc's aren't going anywhere granted....but neither is APPLE......


Side note...Window's blinds suck IMHO....my friend with XP Pro has used the OS X theme on it....and does not feel like OS X at all.....by no means a replacement for it

 

[dcb]

Originally posted by rebelberg21
So we won't see an accurate marketshare # again till Feb or so.

And the SUPPOSED low marketshare # hasn't effected the stock at all...not lately at least.....it's gone from $12-over $23 today......

You are not saying that the apple stocks went up $11 today alone are you? A stock going up 11 dollars over the course of a decade or two really isn't all that impressive.

 

[rebelberg21]

the stock went up from $12-23 over the past few months.....

it had dropped to $12 sometime early in spring.....

and it's bouncing back up......

 

[AtlantaGuy]

Apple Store at The Streets at Southpoint

Macnewbie1 -

Talk is good... doing is better. Please consider investing some time hanging out at the Apple Store just minutes from you if you haven't already. I've never found the people there to be stereotypical pushy salesmen or overbearing Mac zealots. Its a very low key environment, but one I trust you'll find incredibly helpful as you consider your options.

http://www.apple.com/retail/southpoint/

 

[HasanDaddy]

The Mac stores are EXCELLENT places to try out any software/hardware and the support there is TOP NOTCH --- best salesmen in the world!

as far as people who are constantly having applications unexpectedly quit, I suggest downloading the updates --- not just OS X updates, but updates to the specific software itself, to prevent such things

 

[jxyama]

off topic, for the future...

Originally posted by dcb
You are not saying that the apple stocks went up $11 today alone are you? A stock going up 11 dollars over the course of a decade or two really isn't all that impressive.

if you care, you have to remember that stocks split. so don't judge by the share price alone, esp. if you are looking at a long horizon like a decade.

 

[dcb]

Still off topic...sorry poster

I just wanted that post to be clarified. You will find that I like to make sure people don't give false or misleading information. (And no I don't think rebelberg was trying to mislead anyone!) And you are right jxyama. Thanks

 

[breadboy]

Originally posted by rebelberg21
yeah, the good old marketshare number again.....

actually every month Apple's Marketshare goes down....maybe it's a count down?

I think the projected marketshare at the end of the year is -4.0.....lol

Forget that marketshare stuff....or at least don't worry about it.....it's not what people make it out to be.....

Markeshare doesn't give you an accurate figure of current user %, it's only the percent of the market in a fiscal year.

So we won't see an accurate marketshare # again till Feb or so.

And the SUPPOSED low marketshare # hasn't effected the stock at all...not lately at least.....it's gone from $12-over $23 today......

Bottom line: Pc's aren't going anywhere granted....but neither is APPLE......


Side note...Window's blinds suck IMHO....my friend with XP Pro has used the OS X theme on it....and does not feel like OS X at all.....by no means a replacement for it

As far as the market share, yeah that can go up and down, but apples falling out with education is going to hit them very very hard. The less than stunning G5 as well could turn out to be a bit of a flop, depending on if they can bring the 3 ghz (and if it preforms well) really fast.

As for windows blinds, you have to buy the whole object desktop pack to make it really work, windows blinds just skins the interface, other programs in the suite make it operate like a real osx machine. Also there are (many) different versions of osx so check around on the wincustomization site.

 

[mim]

Originally posted by breadboy
As far as the market share, yeah that can go up and down, but apples falling out with education is going to hit them very very hard. The less than stunning G5 as well could turn out to be a bit of a flop, depending on if they can bring the 3 ghz (and if it preforms well) really fast.

As for windows blinds, you have to buy the whole object desktop pack to make it really work, windows blinds just skins the interface, other programs in the suite make it operate like a real osx machine. Also there are (many) different versions of osx so check around on the wincustomization site.

This market share thing is a doozy just stay away from it, please.

Fact: The number of Mac's sold keeps going up.
Fact: Dump pc boxes used as cash registers, google chache machines, door stops, etc are counted in "marketshare". This means very little to someone - for example - who is developing a 3d shockwave like rendere, or a sound editing program, or a digital picture viewer, or a....you get the idea. It also should mean very little to anyone using their computer as a creative or learning tool. Mac's do not lack at all for any kind decent everyday use software.

Also, I don't want this to sound like a flame - but the OSX window mods don't act anything at all like the real OSX. For the benifit of the original poster this should be made quite clear.

If you really want to mod and tinker, then the Mac is still your best platform. Get a copy of Yellowdog linux - you can run OSX and Linux at the same time! Mod a KDE desktop to your heart's contect, and still burn DVD's. Or if you want to tinker like a network hacker, you can dual boot with a *bsd - they easliy configure to suit your mac hardware. But you don't even need these - forget customising the pretty icons and go right to the heart of the matter - get into darwin and play around in there. There's so much more to life than editing icons!

 

[aafuss1]

XP has a integrated ipSec client which OSX may have one-see http://www.tomshardware.com/network/20030904/index.html
Also XP can download updated setup files-that include the latest fixes and updates during its setup process-Mac OS X's installer doesn't have this, you must download updates/fixes through Software update after the install.
Does Mac OS X let you have pictures as folder icons, like XPc an do?

XP has a files and transfer settings wizard-which Mac OS X doesn't have, yet. It allows you to transfer files and settings from one computer to the new installed copy of XP.
See:http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/windowsxp.asp for a detailled look at XP
and http://www.apple.com/macosx for information about OSX

 

[mmmbop]

macnewbie1 -

There's a review of the pre-release version of Macromedia Studio MX 2004 over at http://www.macuser.co.uk which by all accounts brings improvements to stability and responsiveness across all the apps.

I'm writing this post on a Windows NT4 (work) machine. An old OS and it really shows. Using it makes me want to weep incessantly. I find XP's interface too busy.

MARK

 

[twentyeight7]

Originally posted by acj
Changing a startup disc is not a common task. Connecting two PC's took ME about a minute at work. First time I tried.

now i would concider my self a windows power user i know all the ins and outs of xp but networking sucks in XP. it took FOREVER to hook up my 4 computers. 1 of each xp,2000,98,linux one setting would work then it would bump off the last computer i set up fit must have taking me about 4-5 hours to get everything going and about once a month now i need to turn all my computers off at the same time and reboot the network because it gets so bogged down and it just stops working all togeather

I CANT WAIT FOR MY G5 TO COME THEN I WONT HAVE TO DEAL WITH WINDOWS NETWORKING

Chris

 

[Bluefusion]

I'll share my thoughts.. admittedly I'm a bit biased as I've owned Macs since I was 6 years old, but my school has hundreds of PCs which I use daily, so I do have quite a bit of experience with both systems.

The main thing about the Mac OS is that you ALWAYS have felt completely in control of your system. OS X extends this to such a degree that even a brief stint with Windows is really kind of awful. No viruses, nothing short of a few minor app crashes (very few), and NO WIZARDS to "help" you... the Mac OS takes care of itself, and lets you do what you want to do.

Basically, with the Macintosh you can tell that the system was designed from the beginning to be useable and to make sense to anyone who used it. Even tasks you've never done before follow pretty standard rules and so you can usually figure out quite easily how to do something. On the other hand, Windows was (and still is, regardless of what people say about XP) rooted in an arcane, ridiculous system called DOS (just because it's a standard doesn't mean it's a good one!). XP has shed most of DOS itself, but the mindset of that hideous black and white OS is still buried in there. Things just don't make sense in XP the way they do in OS X, because the system was first designed to be used by total geeks and THEN redesigned to make some sense to newbies. It's a dramatic contrast, really... Apple has always made the Mac system "for the rest of us" and never needed crap piled on to "help" new users... while every version of Windows gets "friendlier" and more intrusive.

Add to that the Palladium/TPCA/DRM situation in Microsoft's products, and compare it to Apple's DRM at the iTunes music store--everyone gets what they want, and no one feels like a criminal. In nearly every aspect of building an operating system, Apple seems to be able to prove time and time again that they can do it BETTER than Microsoft--it just requires a little bit of THINKING (not just ripping off other companies' ideas).

There are so many minor niceties to the Mac OS that it just feels much more mature, much more evolved in every aspect. Things like not having to type in full URLs if they end in .com (apple/G5, etc), being able to drag and drop documents from any program's open window without having to first find the original (via Proxy icons built into titlebars), being able to quickly and easily view multiple programs' progress or current tasks at the same time (through the overlapping window nature of the Mac OS, something that Windows implicitly goes against), and having everything just WORK...

Mac OS X 10.3 (I'm "testing" it) is so close to the perfect operating system that I simply can't imagine what more I would want to change. It's honestly that good.

There are so many reasons to use a Mac, but the best way, as has been said, is to wait until Panther comes out and play with it on a G5. If the system doesn't speak for itself, use Windows... but you'll be missing out on something unbelievable.

 

[Bluefusion]

Originally posted by aafuss1
XP has a integrated ipSec client which OSX may have one-see http://www.tomshardware.com/network/20030904/index.html
Also XP can download updated setup files-that include the latest fixes and updates during its setup process-Mac OS X's installer doesn't have this, you must download updates/fixes through Software update after the install.
Does Mac OS X let you have pictures as folder icons, like XPc an do?

XP has a files and transfer settings wizard-which Mac OS X doesn't have, yet. It allows you to transfer files and settings from one computer to the new installed copy of XP.
See:http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/windowsxp.asp for a detailled look at XP
and http://www.apple.com/macosx for information about OSX

So the fact that XP can download its 30 updated files during install is a difference from Apple's OS downloading 2 or 3 files (or less) AFTER the install? Yeah, it's a difference... fewer files!

And unlike Windows, the Mac updates are seldom required and almost never imperative.... try going three months without updating Windows!

"Files and Settings Transfer Wizard"? Go to ~/Library/Preferences/ on the old system, and drag it to ~/Library Preferences/ on the new. There's your "Wizard" on the Mac OS. Having a dedicated Wizard to perform what amounts to a simple task on the Mac should not in any way be construed as a feature!

Pictures as folder icons? ANY FREAKING IMAGE YOU WANT can be pasted on an icon--any icon, anywhere, even critical system files. The system doesn't care. Mac OS has been able to do this since System 7. That's Windows 3.11 era.

Please don't mess with things you don't know about.. it's just not a good idea.

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