I used Windows XP today--Now I have a Headache!

[Frisco]

It's been a while since I had to use a PC (Thank God!), but today I went over my friends house to help her making a VCD. It was a nightmare! First off the program I tried to make the VCD in was atrocious! It came with the Sony digital camera she got. It had all these weird icons that I had no idea what they were for--no label and icons didn't represent their function. And then I could only drag one photo in at a time. I gave up and downloaded another program which was better, but the XP experience sucked!

I burned a few picture CDs through the finder and everytime I received to strange dialogue boxes. The wording was so confusing I didn't know whether to click yes or no.

This is only a year old HP, with a pretty decent processor, but the system was so unresponsive. I could only do a one or two things at once--forget about multitasking! Everything was so slow and rough compared to OS X. Scrolling Sucked! Pop up messages everywhere, alert type messages in the taskbar popping up and weird 3rd party stuff that installed itself in the finder Windows. I felt like I had no control over Windows--it controlled me and my behavior! Windows is just so bloated, disorganized, overwhelming--it's just plain SLOPPY!

I really forgot how good OS X is. I started to take it for granted, but after ten minutes with Windows I quickly remembered and wish I was on a Mac.

Thanks for listening.

 

[TDT]

Once you get better at using an operating system, you will feel in 'more control' as time goes on. Here, for example, is when I began with OSX. When I first turned on OSX, I felt somewhat confused. If it wasn't for my Linux knowledge, I would have been in real trouble. It took me about 13 hours to actually understand this OS fairly well.

*shrug* It's all personal preference. I use Linux (Gentoo), Windows XP, Windows .net Server, and Mac OSX. I like them all fairly well.

 

[janey]

AHHHH NOOO
please do not tell me you are overexaggerating everything you said, because honestly IMHO Windows is not a bad OS at all.
Yeah, OS X and Gentoo and FreeBSD are awesome, but Windows is equally nice. Just wish it were a little different, then i'd be happy

 

[RandomDeadHead]

I have to agree with Frisco on this one, I just got finished building a gaming pc for my son's birthday, and it was a nightmare. Puting the components in the ugly box, and connecting everything properly was extremely easy, even setting the bios and overclocking the moble athlon proc was easy. But installing and configuring Windows sucked. Figuring out wich of the four drivers to install for the graphics card was very confusing to say the least.

One thing I can say about windows is that it doesn't crash nearly as much as I thought it would. He has had it for a week now and the only time it crashed whas when we were overclocking it, but that was our fault for clocking it too high. I was thinking that it would crash constantly, someone give Bill a cookie.

 

[Mav451]

"pretty decent processor" - that could be anything. Was it a celeron? Athlon? Pentium? Barton? We have no idea what it was. For all we know, it could be a Celeron 2.0ghz, god forbid, which performs even worse than a 5-year old AMD Thunderbird that run on 100Mhz FSBs.

Scrolling sucked? This is a video driver issue. If you don't have the right driver, it will not interact with DirectX9 (or 8.1, if they didn't upgrade), and thus you have your sluggish scrolling--well sluggish anything.

I don't believe that Windows controlled your behavior. What a blatant blanket statement for your trouble. It is your BIAS, your lack of knowledge and experience that controlled you. Please, enough of the stereotypes and bigotry. It really makes me sick.

*I am really suprised you burned through "finder". I don't know anyone who uses the default Windows software to burn--when Nero or Roxio SHOULD have come with the burner, and are FAR superior alternatives.*

That decision alone serves as a metaphor for your knowledge--and it taints what little factual information you have posted as your "experience".

 

[mikepctp]

The facts posted could be the actual experience based on the level of knowledge.

To summarize my opinion; to configure and operate a Mac, one does not need to be a rocket scientist. The computer comes fully equipped and ready to run "reliably" with an OS designed to run on that computer. One does not need to know all the intricacies of computer hardware, software and 3rd-party stuff to optimize a smooth, powerful computer. This is what the Mac was designed to do and has been since the beginning.

A PC may (arguably) be more tweakable and have many more options but it generally isn't configured to it's optimum by most users and most computer users are average users. A Mac has always done so almost by default.

 

[cwedl]

I have to use both Mac OSX and Windows XP, I prefer Mac OSX, but windows isn't that bad. I certainly wouldn't use it for any task that would require alot of the systems resources because Windows XP in all fairness probably would freeze.

 

[Roger1]

I just built a pc a couple of months ago with an AMD processor (Duron 2300, I think) with 128MB DDR RAM. It runs XP, and it is very slow. I upped the RAM to 256MB and now it's a considerably better.

 

[Nny]

I burned a few picture CDs through the finder

Wow.... how's you do that on an XP box?

(p.s. it's called explorer)

 

[Dunepilot]

Xp

Frisco does seem to be overstating the difficulty working with XP because he doesn't know the OS, but at the same time, my experience of it has been that I'm not nearly nearly as productive (nor for that matter, able to enjoy myself working) as I would be with OS X.

A lot of the Xp drivers for really basic things like USB mice are surprisingly archaic - I have been surprised to see the 'new hardware found' dialogue coming up when a mouse is plugged into a horrible (less than a year old) Tosh laptop we have where I work. Networking with Xp Home is dog slow. Half-decent use of a network is not really beyond the use of most home users these days, so why do you have to upgrade to XP Pro to get what is hardly an advanced feature to work properly? There are a half-dozen other gripes I could go into, but at least XP is better than Windows 98 that I have on my main work machine. God, how I miss spring-loaded folders!

 

[live4ever]

It funny you should mention trying to make a VCD because I haven't found any software for for OSX that compares to Nero Vision Express for authoring VCDs.

Also Windows isn't that bad becasue I'm still using a 7 year old IBM 350mhz PII running 2000 for making complex VCDs (I just do all the encoding and burning on my Mac).

 

[Mav451]

..The facts posted could be the actual experience based on the level of knowledge...

If that's the case...then should I also base my experience with an OS, with Macs, entirely on a single experience and stereotype it as such?

The 2.0G5s in university the computer lab tend to freeze and crash a lot more than my PC. I even found Safari and sometimes even Finder to just stop and freeze on me, while deleting .plist for Safari (along with its copy) helped alleviate the problem, the Finder crashes are unavoidable. However, do you see me saying that all Macs are like this? Of course not. It would be horribly naive to make such a statement. After all, a computer lab is a shared resource by all students.

There is something called "spin" used by the media and the newspaper industry specifically. It can make/break a story that may or may not have originally started based on "facts".

 

[radhak]

It funny you should mention trying to make a VCD because I haven't found any software for for OSX that compares to Nero Vision Express for authoring VCDs.

To repeat this question, what do you all use to create VCDs on OSX?

 

[Horrortaxi]

Frisco does seem to be overstating the difficulty working with XP because he doesn't know the OS

I used to be a really good Windows user and I knew the OS. Frisco's experience sounds perfectly believable. It's stuff like that that got me to switch in the first place. It's stuff like that which makes me dread the thought of having to use Windows. It's stuff like that which makes me loathe having to use Windows for anything other than web surfing. It's not ignorance on my part. I can make Windows behave if I have to. I just have no motivation to do so since I can get the same result on my Mac without the headaches. Life is too short for that kind of aggravation.

 

[mactastic]

I'm using Windows right now, and my head doesn't hurt. Of course I miss Expose terribly but all in all everything works about as well as it does on my TiBook. No crashes, no blue screen of death. The only frustrating part is that I can't get around as easily in Windows as I can on my Mac. But that's my problem, not the OS. It took a long time and a lot of tips to get as good at using OS X as I am. Maybe in a year or two I'll be as good at Windows.

Sure would be nice if AutoCad ran on OS X though...

 

[rueyeet]

Sounds to me that Frisco's friend doesn't have one of those "properly maintained installations" of Windows that we keep hearing about.

Seriously, though...You might consider running a spyware detector on her system at the very least; that could be the reason for the pop-ups, taskbar alerts, and self-installing "wierd 3rd-party" stuff you mention, which can also hog system memory and slow everything down. If she's got Kazaa on there, this is a real probability.

I do agree that the dialogs and error messages in Windows leave something to be desired...sometimes even the tech support guys have clearly had no idea what they're about. And the bundled software that comes with Windows peripherals generally sucks hugely, unless they've actually given you something decent and well-known. Generally you should only install the drivers and just forget the bundled crap.

But other than that, Windows isn't always THAT bad...

 

[edesignuk]

It was a nightmare! First off the program I tried to make the VCD in was atrocious! It came with the Sony digital camera she got. It had all these weird icons that I had no idea what they were for--no label and icons didn't represent their function. And then I could only drag one photo in at a time.

How exactly is this a Windows problem?

I gave up and downloaded another program which was better

Bravo!

I burned a few picture CDs through the finder and everytime I received to strange dialogue boxes. The wording was so confusing I didn't know whether to click yes or no.

It's called "Explorer", you'd have a hard time using the "Finder" in Windows As for the CD writing, true enough it's not the greatest, though in my experiance does work. But hell, that's what Nero's for!!!

This is only a year old HP, with a pretty decent processor, but the system was so unresponsive. I could only do a one or two things at once--forget about multitasking! Everything was so slow and rough compared to OS X. Scrolling Sucked!

A year old cheap arse Duron/Celeron? Memory? This will make a big difference, just like OS X (actually it's not quite a bad as OS X in this respect), XP likes memory!

Pop up messages everywhere, alert type messages in the taskbar popping up and weird 3rd party stuff that installed itself in the finder Windows.

Things don't just magically install themselves. At some time your mate has said yes to some dodgy 3rd party supposed IE plugin without readng it properly. Or has been downloading heaps of freeware which as we all know is free for a reason.

I felt like I had no control over Windows--it controlled me and my behavior! Windows is just so bloated, disorganized, overwhelming--it's just plain SLOPPY!

It really isn't hard to "control" Windows, what are you talking about?

I wouldn't mind your complaints, that is if you actually had one. But this is all just ignorance IMO. Of course you may not know your way around at first, but who does with an OS they never use? That's still not to say that is as bad as you would have people believe.

 

[coolsoldier]

I do agree that the dialogs and error messages in Windows leave something to be desired...sometimes even the tech support guys have clearly had no idea what they're about.

Did you ever use OS 9? I can't count the number of times OS 9 game me messages like "The operation could not be completed because an error of type-10 occurred". Not only can you not understand it, but there's not even a message there to try to understand. At least with windows, a "General Protection Fault" or "Invalid Page Fault" actually says something about what the error is.

OS X is much better about this than OS 9, but EXEC_BAD_ACCESS is still not a useful message.

 

[7on]

I had headaches all the time when I had a PC. Thought it was homework though. However, upon getting my Mac the headaches disappeared quickly.

I didn't even run my XP box to the internet and I still had headaches. Didn't have many problems and my pentium 3 800Mhz with a Geforce 3 runs all the games I had on it smoothly (disregarding recent games prolly, because I haven't use my pentium 3 for a while. XP is definitely more nerve racking than Windows and switching to the Mac added at least 10 years to my life.

 

[Frisco]

"pretty decent processor" - that could be anything. Was it a celeron? Athlon? Pentium? Barton? We have no idea what it was. For all we know, it could be a Celeron 2.0ghz, god forbid, which performs even worse than a 5-year old AMD Thunderbird that run on 100Mhz FSBs.

Scrolling sucked? This is a video driver issue. If you don't have the right driver, it will not interact with DirectX9 (or 8.1, if they didn't upgrade), and thus you have your sluggish scrolling--well sluggish anything.

I don't believe that Windows controlled your behavior. What a blatant blanket statement for your trouble. It is your BIAS, your lack of knowledge and experience that controlled you. Please, enough of the stereotypes and bigotry. It really makes me sick.

*I am really suprised you burned through "finder". I don't know anyone who uses the default Windows software to burn--when Nero or Roxio SHOULD have come with the burner, and are FAR superior alternatives.*

That decision alone serves as a metaphor for your knowledge--and it taints what little factual information you have posted as your "experience".

Okay maybe a bit of exaggeration, but I felt very frustrated after using XP. Sorry if I offended anyone.

My friends computer has 384 MB of Ram. Maybe it needs some more. She has a 1 year old compact with an AMD Processor--sorry don't know anymore specs. I do know if definitely isn't top of the line, so I am sure that had a lot to do with it.

I also apologize for referring to the 'Explorer" as the "Finder."

Why didn't I burn in Nero or Roxio? Well she doesn't have these programs, but even if she did it's much easier in OS X to burn a CD through the Finder than to have to use 3rd party software. Pop in a CD, drag your files to the CD and click burn. It wasn't so hard in Windows--just got some weird error messages.

Any way sorry if I offended anyone. Thanks for all your replies!

 

[PowerMacMan]

"I used Windows XP today--Now I have a Headache!"



-I use Windows XP EVERYDAY-

That explains why I have a migrane everyday ...

-And it's telling me that I NEED A Mac...

 

[janey]

"I used Windows XP today--Now I have a Headache!"
-I use Windows XP EVERYDAY-
That explains why I have a migrane everyday ...
-And it's telling me that I NEED A Mac...

Ahh. I can say the same about my Mac...
Maybe using a Mac is the reason why I have a headache.
Maybe using a Mac is the reason why I have so many mood swings.
Maybe using a Mac is the reason why my eyesight is screwed up.
Maybe using a Mac is the reason why I cannot do this or that.
Maybe using a Mac is the reason why I get teased every single day.

Blah Blah Blah blah blah.

 

[amin]

I've been using my XP desktop (HP Athlon XP 1600) for significantly longer than I've been using my Rev A 12" PB, and I do find most things more challenging on the XP desktop. For example, it took my longer to figure out how to use Nero than it took me to fingure out Toast. Perhaps this is because Nero has more options, but they aren't options I need or even want. Speedwise, I can't say I notice a difference between the two systems (which have about the same RAM - 512 on the desktop, 640 on the PB). XP comes with a lot of small nuisances. For example Internet Explorer, which as far as I can tell cannot be uninstalled (and even worse, is a pain to reinstall if it becomes corrupt) defaults to automatic script debugging. Every time I would go to my own family site, it would ask me to debug, but then I couldn't actually figure out how to make this happen or even what it meant. Finally I did a Google search and realized that I could disable this default "feature" under the "Advanced" options. There are also waaay too many automatic updates that require a restart. Overall though, XP is fine by me. Sure beats the heck out of Windows 98!

 

[thatwendigo]

Ahh. I can say the same about my Mac...
Maybe using a Mac is the reason why I have a headache.
Maybe using a Mac is the reason why I have so many mood swings.
Maybe using a Mac is the reason why my eyesight is screwed up.
Maybe using a Mac is the reason why I cannot do this or that.
Maybe using a Mac is the reason why I get teased every single day.

Blah Blah Blah blah blah.

Way to put down others' preferences, Uber. While many of us might be able to wade our way through tasks in Windows (I can, but I hate to do it because it keeps getting me asked to repair others' machines), there is a vast number of users out there who don't know more than point and click.

Say what you want to about Windows, I've never seen OS X deteriorate, spontaneously break, or do any of the other things that the other side is famous for. Use Windows if you like, but it's perfectly valid for someone to say, "I like my computer to work, and my only experience with Windows has been for it to refuse to do so." Maybe you and the other naysayers could help them learn, rather than insulting them, hmm?

After all... I find it ironic when mac users are the ones fixing Windows PCs. It's why I keep doing it.

 

[iBunny]

I used windows my entire life... never even touched a mac before ( well Apple IIe back in the day ) so i dunno

but im gonna get a new iBook... so hopefully i like OSX....