How can anyone like an OS that does this? (or, why I love OS X)

[ChrisH3677]

Windows and those rotten looping error messages!!!!

In Windows XP you STILL get an error if you take out a disc that it wants back.

Message says....

Disc Inserterd (D:\): {appname} - Wrong volume

The wrong volume is in the drive. Please insert volume {volume name} into drive D:

Cancel Try Again Continue
​

I don't want to. I've finished with that disc. just let me cancel. Nope. Clicking any of the buttons simply loops back to this message. grrrrr!

And then there's the looping GPF...

I hate these looping messages. You can't tell me Win XP is so good if it still has this problem.

I have had to rebuild my Mac from scratch twice in 6 weeks - yet that doesn't even annoy me 1/100th as much as infinitely looping error messages.

Plus I just had to burn 3 CDs on this 2.8Ghz Pentium, 512Mb RAM Windozzze... do you think I could do anything else for that half hour? Na!

I switched 14 mths ago and, despite having discovered it is not perfect, I still consider it one of the best decisions of my life.

I'm glad Apple didn't win the computer wars - coz Steve is an even bigger monopolist than Bill - but sometimes I do kinda wish they did.

So what would the world be like if Apple had've won? For one, we wouldn't have all these competing standards everytime a new technology comes out... And we'd all love *little* Microsoft chugging out its apps, it's OSes a distant bad memory... We'd probably even wish Steve could be more like Bill!

 

[russed]

i agree those messages are annoying. i had compleatly forgotten about them! os x just wont let you have the cd if it still needs it.

im sure if apple had won the war with microsoft a long time ago everyone would hate apple and love microsoft. microsoft would have to be innovating and thus be producing the better products. but thats not the case so lets love apple!

 

[AmigoMac]

I personally don't use to talk on conditionals,

What if..

what would ...

But my point in this case is simple:

We would be using NEXT OS and bashing apple, because apple forgot the main idea from Jobs and Woz, MS would be a small player programming for the big companies and trying to catch crowd from Linux.
The big cake would have been, in order, Apple, NEXT, SUN or Linux, Linux or SUN, MS, x-BSD ... it's only a theory but to debate on that is a waste of time...

BTW, offices would be using Mac OS 9.8 and we would have Next OS Panther, and other group would have Windows challenger...No XBOX in the stores, no virus, people trying to hack on Mac os 9.8 and we would write on Nextrumors.com

again, a waste of time!

 

[bubbamac]

... despite having discovered it [OSX] is not perfect, I still consider it one of the best decisions of my life...

It's difficult explaining this to windows users, and some Mac users. It's NOT perfect. I know that. But it's a damm sight better than the alternative.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Windows and those rotten looping error messages!!!!

In Windows XP you STILL get an error if you take out a disc that it wants back.

Message says....

Disc Inserterd (D:\): {appname} - Wrong volume

The wrong volume is in the drive. Please insert volume {volume name} into drive D:

Cancel Try Again Continue
​

I don't want to. I've finished with that disc. just let me cancel. Nope. Clicking any of the buttons simply loops back to this message. grrrrr!

<snip>

If you click Cancel about 20 times, the message will eventually go away. It's highly annoying though. That's the only looping Windows error I've gotten.

 

[earthtoandy]

my favorite error message is one i get everytime i start up. a cannot find a file blah blah for this program i uninstalled ages ago. I have tried in vein to find why it is still trying to load this damn program at startup. windows makes my days painful I have been macless recently and am dying. i cant wait to get my mac (hurry up on those powerbooks boys!)

 

[macfreek57]

...

I'm glad Apple didn't win the computer wars - coz Steve is an even bigger monopolist than Bill

...

that's a very good point!
i think the world in general (or the computing world anyway) would be a happier place, but the mac os would not be the wonderful gloriousness that it is today because it would be over-bloated and because apple would be a differnt company (they probably wouldn't have steve back, because they would not have gone through the Dark Ages of the mid 90's).

 

[ChrisH3677]

This is a real watershed for me. I finally truly understand the difference between OS X and Win Anything. I'd heard it so many times but now I understand. And I know you all've heard it too and probably already understand.

Windows is invasive and as they say "gets in your way". This example of it pestering me with errors demonstrates that.

OS X really does just get out of the road and let me work.




I feel like Luke the first time he used The Force!

 

[jared_kipe]

Yeah, the only think that mac os pesters us with is if you unplug a disk or microdrive without ejecting it first... stupid unix

 

[slooksterPSV]

You know what, the first day I had Win98, I crashed it and/or a program on it. On Mac OS X, I have yet to crash the OS, I mean yeah programs have failed to start, but thats because the Software Updater had to close them to update them (I started them as soon as it was closing them) so yeah. OS X has so much stability. WinBlows has like 1% chance your computer will run.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Windows and those rotten looping error messages!!!!

In Windows XP you STILL get an error if you take out a disc that it wants back.

Keeping in mind that it’s not the OS that wants it back it’s either the program that uses the disk or Windows Installer...Which, OK, that TECHNICALLY is apart of the OS.

Message says....

Disc Inserterd (D:\): {appname} - Wrong volume

The wrong volume is in the drive. Please insert volume {volume name} into drive D:

Cancel Try Again Continue
​

I don't want to. I've finished with that disc. just let me cancel. Nope. Clicking any of the buttons simply loops back to this message. grrrrr!

Simple. Solution....Put the CD back in the drive and let it finish. You might be finished with the disk. Doesn’t mean the program or MSI is finished.

And then there's the looping GPF...

Its a break in the program. You are removing the media before it’s finished with it. It would be similar to removing a CD say Adobe Photoshop on OS X with its 60% installed. What happens when you do that?
Windows has a ton of annoyances but you can't fault it when you are jumping the gun with removing the CD before its finished doing its business. *shrugs* whatever.

Might I ask what CD and app this was??

 

[SiliconAddict]

my favorite error message is one i get everytime i start up. a cannot find a file blah blah for this program i uninstalled ages ago. I have tried in vein to find why it is still trying to load this damn program at startup. windows makes my days painful I have been macless recently and am dying. i cant wait to get my mac (hurry up on those powerbooks boys!)

Arrrrggghhh. Windows Registry. The bane of my existence. I've heard multiple computer science professors state that the registry is the single worst idea in the history of computer science and I believe it.


What OS? If XP.......START -> RUN -> MSCONFIG.EXE. Click OK. You should be smart enough to figure it out from there.

 

[SiliconAddict]

You know what, the first day I had Win98, I crashed it and/or a program on it. On Mac OS X, I have yet to crash the OS, I mean yeah programs have failed to start, but thats because the Software Updater had to close them to update them (I started them as soon as it was closing them) so yeah. OS X has so much stability. WinBlows has like 1% chance your computer will run.

If you want to compare OS’s DO NOT compare 9x to OS X. It would be like comparing Windows XP to OS 7.0 or something. 9x is the worst line of OS’s ever to grace planet Earth. So much so that when we went to 98 at work I kept having reoccurring dreams of me chasing the developers of 98 around the Redmond campus with a broken 98 CD and slashing them to death. Suffice it to say the week we migrated I worked about 70+ hours that week. I didn’t get overtime. Two weeks later after constant reboots from our users.

(I am NOT kidding. Average reboot for the user. 3 times a day. 9x’s memory management could NOT handle the larger image management system we use in the office.)

we moved to 2000 even though it was only released 2 months prior. It was like night and day. Whoever created the 9x core should be tied up and shot, pref by me.

 

[sebisworld]

Microsoft Access is also a really nice program. Basically, if you open a database that's on the network and you unplug the network while the db is open, it pops up error message after error message. So, after like an hour you have to close 200 alerts saying that there was a network error. As if one wasn't enough....

 

[davecuse]

I just think the most unfortunate naming schema from Billy and the boys is Microsoft Works, because clearly it doesn't.

 

[kettle]

I'm glad Apple didn't win the computer wars - coz Steve is an even bigger monopolist than Bill - but sometimes I do kinda wish they did.

So what would the world be like if Apple had've won? For one, we wouldn't have all these competing standards everytime a new technology comes out... And we'd all love *little* Microsoft chugging out its apps, it's OSes a distant bad memory... We'd probably even wish Steve could be more like Bill!

It's about people doing their best work whilst under pressure.

I want Microsoft to feel some pressure, I want them to feel the need to do something really special with the advantage they have. I predict that no one at Microsoft will see this possibility until they are on the brink of loosing it all.

As computer users the world deserves better than what we are getting. I can't wait till the pressure gets turned on for real.

I would love to use a Microsoft product if it was really going somewhere other than maintaining a stagnant pond filled with limited possibilities.

 

[Abstract]

I personally don't use to talk on conditionals,

What if..

what would ...

But my point in this case is simple:

We would be using NEXT OS and bashing apple, because apple forgot the main idea from Jobs and Woz, MS would be a small player programming for the big companies and trying to catch crowd from Linux.
The big cake would have been, in order, Apple, NEXT, SUN or Linux, Linux or SUN, MS, x-BSD ... it's only a theory but to debate on that is a waste of time...

BTW, offices would be using Mac OS 9.8 and we would have Next OS Panther, and other group would have Windows challenger...No XBOX in the stores, no virus, people trying to hack on Mac os 9.8 and we would write on Nextrumors.com

again, a waste of time!

And the world would have been completely covered with water, and we'd all live on boats and buoyant cities.

 

[AmigoMac]

And the world would have been completely covered with water, and we'd all live on boats and buoyant cities.

Hey! that means we would have better wireless transfer rates...
54 Mbps is a joke!

 

[SiliconAddict]

Hey! that means we would have better wireless transfer rates...
54 Mbps is a joke!

That's why Netgear's turbo mode rocks. 108mb/s The sucker is as fast if not faster then my Ethernet connection on my desktop.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Right on, but I'm still concerned about your statement of having to "rebuilt your Mac twice in six weeks." I presume you mean reformat the drive and reinstall the OS. I've never had to do this even once with OSX and I also don't remember having to do it in 15 years of Classic MacOS use. Beware of people who tell to you reinstall OSX to fix a problem -- it's almost never actually necessary!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Right on, but I'm still concerned about your statement of having to "rebuilt your Mac twice in six weeks." I presume you mean reformat the drive and reinstall the OS. I've never had to do this even once with OSX and I also don't remember having to do it in 15 years of Classic MacOS use. Beware of people who tell to you reinstall OSX to fix a problem -- it's almost never actually necessary!

Not quite true, IJ Reilly. What if you want to repartition your boot drive? Unless you have a clone of your HD, and the clone is no bigger than the size of the new boot partition, you MUST reinstall Mac OS X. (I do agree with you that this situation isn't very common at all.)

 

[cubist]

Another thing that drives me NUTS about Windows is how every little program can grab focus. You're trying to type in Word or Outlook, and every five seconds you have to reselect the window, because some stupid little background program grabs the focus. If I explicitly select a window, that window should stay selected come hell or high water. Computer systems should be designed around the concept that the user is God.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Another thing that drives me NUTS about Windows is how every little program can grab focus. You're trying to type in Word or Outlook, and every five seconds you have to reselect the window, because some stupid little background program grabs the focus. If I explicitly select a window, that window should stay selected come hell or high water. Computer systems should be designed around the concept that the user is God.

So how does OS X handle OS messages? IM messages? Appointment alerts? If it can't grab focus? I only have one application that is a PITA that acts like this. Lotus Sametime. I'm typing along and all of a sudden up pops a Sametime IM right when I hit enter. Very annoying but what is the alternative?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Another thing that drives me NUTS about Windows is how every little program can grab focus. You're trying to type in Word or Outlook, and every five seconds you have to reselect the window, because some stupid little background program grabs the focus. If I explicitly select a window, that window should stay selected come hell or high water. Computer systems should be designed around the concept that the user is God.

MS Office and IE are particularly bad about stealing the focus for no good reason. For example, if you launch IE, then go and do something else, IE will insist on being in front once whatever you have your home page set as finishes loading.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

So how does OS X handle OS messages? IM messages? Appointment alerts? If it can't grab focus? I only have one application that is a PITA that acts like this. Lotus Sametime. I'm typing along and all of a sudden up pops a Sametime IM right when I hit enter. Very annoying but what is the alternative?

Mac OS X has the systemwide overlay it can use to grab your attention. It can also bounce the dock icon of the application that wants attention frantically. A third method is spawning a floating window (a window that "floats" over all other windows).