Flip Flopping between macOS and Windows

[Steve Adams]

Just ordered the new bottom case for my laptop. Yay, no cracks soon. Back to fighting condition. ha ha. That's the one good thing about my laptop currently. I can get any part I need for it and fix it myself. A macbook and most current model higher end laptops I cannot do that.

 

[IvyKing]

I've been using a work provided Dell laptop which is frequently reminding me why I have an MBP as my personal laptop. One annoyance is that the trackpad gets into weird states where it starts treating all attempts at clicking to be a right click and would often then refuse any attempt at moving the cursor. The trackpad on my 2009 MBP was still working reliably when I retired it in 2019, while the Dell was issued last fall.

 

[pshufd]

I'm going back to the Windows desktop for one or two monitors. Three monitors on the Studio shows the problem where windows go to the wrong place. This is really annoying for trading where I expect each Window to be in the same place as when I left it. This isn't a problem that I've had with Windows.

I have heard of it happening to other people but it's obviously not a problem with only one monitor. I suspect that it has to do with how fast the monitors wake up from sleep. So one or two may wake up and the third takes longer so it thinks it only has two and changes the layout.

 

[leemkule]

I've been using a work provided Dell laptop which is frequently reminding me why I have an MBP as my personal laptop. One annoyance is that the trackpad gets into weird states where it starts treating all attempts at clicking to be a right click and would often then refuse any attempt at moving the cursor. The trackpad on my 2009 MBP was still working reliably when I retired it in 2019, while the Dell was issued last fall.

Yeah nobody has made a trackpads on the pc side (that I’ve tried) that comes anywhere close to the MacBook one.

I still can’t believe that they sell pc laptops that cost several thousand pounds that still have a mechanical trackpad.

 

[leemkule]

I'm going back to the Windows desktop for one or two monitors. Three monitors on the Studio shows the problem where windows go to the wrong place. This is really annoying for trading where I expect each Window to be in the same place as when I left it. This isn't a problem that I've had with Windows.

I have heard of it happening to other people but it's obviously not a problem with only one monitor. I suspect that it has to do with how fast the monitors wake up from sleep. So one or two may wake up and the third takes longer so it thinks it only has two and changes the layout.

It’s annoying how window management is so broken on Mac OS. One area where windows is way better.

 

[pshufd]

Yeah nobody has made a trackpads on the pc side (that I’ve tried) that comes anywhere close to the MacBook one.

I still can’t believe that they sell pc laptops that cost several thousand pounds that still have a mechanical trackpad.

Haptic is a luxury good.

The Thinkpad X1 Carbon 14 has the haptic as an option. But the deeply discounted versions usually don't offer the haptic. So if you want it, you have to pay a much higher price on the overall laptop.

The thing missing on MacBooks is 1 kg or less 14 inch laptops.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Haptic is a luxury good.

The Thinkpad X1 Carbon 14 has the haptic as an option. But the deeply discounted versions usually don't offer the haptic. So if you want it, you have to pay a much higher price on the overall laptop.

The thing missing on MacBooks is 1 kg or less 14 inch laptops.

That's why the Steam Deck has two. 😉

The very very expensive Surface Pro Flex Keyboard has it too.

 

[Steve Adams]

Logitech MX3 mouse also has haptics as well.

 

[pshufd]

I was going to try out Tahoe on my M1 Max Studio and asked DeepSeek about it and it warned me of problems with external SSDs. Since I have two attached permanently and one that I use to move files around and a big HDD for Time Machine, I thought about testing it on my M1 Pro MacBook Pro. The problem seems to be more of an issue on the M1 generation processors.

Doing it on my MacBook Pro wouldn't risk any external drives outside what I'd use as the boot drive but this really has me wondering if I should bother with Tahoe at all unless I upgrade to an M4 Studio.

 

[Steve Adams]

I would just wait and move directly to GG.

 

[maflynn]

I would just wait and move directly to GG.

Sound advise, at this point. I think with GG in beta, and coming out in a few months, its not worth the work effort

 

[leemkule]

Haptic is a luxury good.

The Thinkpad X1 Carbon 14 has the haptic as an option. But the deeply discounted versions usually don't offer the haptic. So if you want it, you have to pay a much higher price on the overall laptop.

The thing missing on MacBooks is 1 kg or less 14 inch laptops.

Yeah but for me it should be standard, x1 carbon 14 even in base spec is so expensive, no way they can’t just include a haptic trackpad in all of them if Apple can with the MacBook Air.

I would have considered buying one if it came with a haptic trackpad but I’m not paying that price without one.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Yeah but for me it should be standard, x1 carbon 14 even in base spec is so expensive, no way they can’t just include a haptic trackpad in all of them if Apple can with the MacBook Air.

I would have considered buying one if it came with a haptic trackpad but I’m not paying that price without one.

I have used all kinds of trackpads on windows and mac for a long, long time. About 5 years ago, the trackpads on windows got much better (as long as you don't care about haptic and you don't care about paying a little more for a good system).

For instance, I would say that my Surface Pro 9 has just as good a trackpad as my iPad Pro 12.9" with Magic Keyboard. And my Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 has just as good a trackpad as my Macbook Air M4. One thing I will say is I up the sensitivity on all my trackpads, and I also use "tap to click" on literally all of them, which is why I don't care about haptic. Personally I find haptic really weird feeling.

 

[pshufd]

I would just wait and move directly to GG.

My options are to upgrade (which means a long wait for hardware), upgrade to Studio 5 (who knows when you can get those), or do nothing. Do nothing looks like the right decision right now.

It will probably take until January 2027 to determine whether or not the bugs are fixed and what the new bugs are.

 

[pshufd]

I have used all kinds of trackpads on windows and mac for a long, long time. About 5 years ago, the trackpads on windows got much better (as long as you don't care about haptic and you don't care about paying a little more for a good system).

For instance, I would say that my Surface Pro 9 has just as good a trackpad as my iPad Pro 12.9" with Magic Keyboard. And my Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 has just as good a trackpad as my Macbook Air M4. One thing I will say is I up the sensitivity on all my trackpads, and I also use "tap to click" on literally all of them, which is why I don't care about haptic. Personally I find haptic really weird feeling.

The trackpad in my Yoga is great. If you never click it. It's only really clickable in the lower third of the trackpad. Tap to touch makes it quite usable but I do that on MacBooks too.

For trading, there is no substitute for a good mouse. You need precision as an error can be costly.

 

[pshufd]

Just found out about Samsung NVMe SSDs with firmware problems dying prematurely. The solution is to install Samsung Magician to update the firmware. These affect a variety of models.

My affected models are the 990 Pro, 990 EVO Plus and 990 EVO.

Just found out that you can't update the firmware via Magician on macOS. I will have to do the update on Windows.

Unfortunately my 4 TB drive is APFS. The 2 TB drive is ExFat so that shouldn't be a problem. I'll have to copy off the files, reformat to ExFat, update the firmware on Windows, move it back to macOS APFS, copy the files back on to it and then I should be good.

 

[Steve Adams]

I've been using a work provided Dell laptop which is frequently reminding me why I have an MBP as my personal laptop. One annoyance is that the trackpad gets into weird states where it starts treating all attempts at clicking to be a right click and would often then refuse any attempt at moving the cursor. The trackpad on my 2009 MBP was still working reliably when I retired it in 2019, while the Dell was issued last fall.

Ditch the dell drivers and use the drivers from the touchpad manufacturer. Makes a world of difference. I used to have the same wonky issues with many things on my dell. I removed the dell drivers and now use intel, synaptic, etc drivers instead of the dell supplied ones.

 

[Steve Adams]

I have used all kinds of trackpads on windows and mac for a long, long time. About 5 years ago, the trackpads on windows got much better (as long as you don't care about haptic and you don't care about paying a little more for a good system).

For instance, I would say that my Surface Pro 9 has just as good a trackpad as my iPad Pro 12.9" with Magic Keyboard. And my Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 has just as good a trackpad as my Macbook Air M4. One thing I will say is I up the sensitivity on all my trackpads, and I also use "tap to click" on literally all of them, which is why I don't care about haptic. Personally I find haptic really weird feeling.

I, like you, use touch to click. I can't remember the last time i physically clicked my touchpad. Oh, yes I do, it was in jump+ when I was demoing a mac. ha ha. I hope that can be set up on mac too.

 

[leemkule]

I have used all kinds of trackpads on windows and mac for a long, long time. About 5 years ago, the trackpads on windows got much better (as long as you don't care about haptic and you don't care about paying a little more for a good system).

For instance, I would say that my Surface Pro 9 has just as good a trackpad as my iPad Pro 12.9" with Magic Keyboard. And my Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 has just as good a trackpad as my Macbook Air M4. One thing I will say is I up the sensitivity on all my trackpads, and I also use "tap to click" on literally all of them, which is why I don't care about haptic. Personally I find haptic really weird feeling.

That's actually a good point.

I use tap to click as well, clearly I'm more bothered about the principal rather than anything else.

 

[pshufd]

I figured out the start/stop on media players.

Lenovo Vantage has can determine if you're watching the video and there's a mode where it turns it off if you're not looking at the laptop. I often have a video while doing the dishes so it will stop until I look at the laptop. I turned the mode off so that's an issue solved but I'm curious as to why it just started a few weeks ago.

It's possible that it didn't work before and Windows update did something that turned it on.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I figured out the start/stop on media players.

Lenovo Vantage has can determine if you're watching the video and there's a mode where it turns it off if you're not looking at the laptop. I often have a video while doing the dishes so it will stop until I look at the laptop. I turned the mode off so that's an issue solved but I'm curious as to why it just started a few weeks ago.

It's possible that it didn't work before and Windows update did something that turned it on.

See, crap like this is so annoying. Like who wants that? It’s like adaptive brightness on Windows. Was anyone asking for this crap feature? Or USB ports going into sleep mode. WHY? Stuff like this is what makes people think Windows is bloated and go to Linux or Mac.

 

[pshufd]

See, crap like this is so annoying. Like who wants that? It’s like adaptive brightness on Windows. Was anyone asking for this crap feature? Or USB ports going into sleep mode. WHY? Stuff like this is what makes people think Windows is bloated and go to Linux or Mac.

These settings are all available from Vantage but it can take quite a while to learn them all. This stuff is actually a feature with Aura-branded laptops and I think that it's provided by Intel. I don't know if it is Lenovo-only.

I can't imagine why this feature would be useful myself. They have another interesting option where the screen fuzzes if someone walks up behind you and looks at your laptop for privacy.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

These settings are all available from Vantage but it can take quite a while to learn them all. This stuff is actually a feature with Aura-branded laptops and I think that it's provided by Intel. I don't know if it is Lenovo-only.

I can't imagine why this feature would be useful myself. They have another interesting option where the screen fuzzes if someone walks up behind you and looks at your laptop for privacy.

Man, I have a Lenovo Legion 7 Pro and I haven't even looked at all that stuff LOL. I'll definitely disable it all.

 

[maflynn]

Man, I have a Lenovo Legion 7 Pro and I haven't even looked at all that stuff LOL. I'll definitely disable it all.

I long considered vantage as bloatware. It was more trouble then it's worth imo. I've owned a number of thinkpads and I love their laptops, but overall their app, not so much.

 

[pshufd]

I long considered vantage as bloatware. It was more trouble then it's worth imo. I've owned a number of thinkpads and I love their laptops, but overall their app, not so much.

I've found that it works well and does what you tell it to. It's just that the sheer volume of options provided can be overwhelming. I think that there are broken things in Windows which means that a Vantage function may not work but, if Microsoft fixes it, it starts to work.

I am back to macOS + Windows 11 + macOS on my desktop and things are running smoothly today. I wouldn't mind upgrading the Studio and Windows system but there isn't an immediate need to do so.