Is Windows really that bad?

[kyle99]

Sorry, didn't really know where to put this. Mod can move if necessary.

I've been reading around the forums, and viewed quite a few threads from people that have switched from windows to os x. Nearly every one of these threads featured the OP stating about how absolutely awful windows is, and how it crashed all the time, was slow, buggy, etc. I used windows for 5 years, and I never experienced any consistent bugs, and for the most part, always worked perfect for me. Granted, I own a 17" MBP and I love it to death, but do you guys think that the mac community has a biased and overexagerated view on windows and it's so called problems?

 

[miles01110]

do you guys think that the mac community has a biased and overexagerated view on windows and it's so called problems?

For the most part. Running Windows really isn't that difficult.

 

[Hellhammer]

If you're running Vista on 1.6GHz single core AMD with 1GB RAM, sure it's slow but if you had a decent PC with W7, it would be very fast. The reason can usually found between the chair and keyboard

 

[Cromulent]

If you're running Vista on 1.6GHz single core AMD with 1GB RAM, sure it's slow but if you had a decent PC with W7, it would be very fast. The reason can usually found between the chair and keyboard

Damn it! I always knew my desk was to blame.

 

[foranor]

Sorry, didn't really know where to put this. Mod can move if necessary.

I've been reading around the forums, and viewed quite a few threads from people that have switched from windows to os x. Nearly every one of these threads featured the OP stating about how absolutely awful windows is, and how it crashed all the time, was slow, buggy, etc. I used windows for 5 years, and I never experienced any consistent bugs, and for the most part, always worked perfect for me. Granted, I own a 17" MBP and I love it to death, but do you guys think that the mac community has a biased and overexagerated view on windows and it's so called problems?

I think it is a matter of perspective. You have problems, you'll be vocal about them and find a reason to switch. You have no problems, you either don't switch or you switch for different reasons and don't go boasting about "Using OSX now because I never had a problem with W7!"

 

[DoFoT9]

.... but do you guys think that the mac community has a biased and overexagerated view on windows and it's so called problems?

performance of Windows is pretty bad, the experience is sloppy, the GUI is ugly to use and i get constant freezes - but the majority of users in business use it, so the majority of home users will always use it. win7 is slightly better, but there is still a long way to go.

talking server side, 2008 is becomming pretty popular and seems to be holding up well. i think it looks quite nice!

Damn it! I always knew my desk was to blame.

somebody is in denial

 

[R94N]

I just don't like the experience when using Windows XP as much as Mac OS X, and as for Windows 7, it's good but there are many features in there that have blatantly been taken from the Mac, but as a result it's made Windows better.

 

[DoFoT9]

I just don't like the experience when using Windows XP as much as Mac OS X, and as for Windows 7, it's good but there are many features in there that have blatantly been taken from the Mac, but as a result it's made Windows better.

well come on, lets be honest here - apple hasnt exactly been holy either!

 

[R94N]

well come on, lets be honest here - apple hasnt exactly been holy either!

Yeah, I know, but my point is that I find the experience on OS X better than XP, as a direct comparison (regardless of the other Windows versions), so that's why I use a Mac.

 

[DoFoT9]

Yeah, I know, but my point is that I find the experience on OS X better than XP, as a direct comparison (regardless of the other Windows versions), so that's why I use a Mac.

completely agree! i use xp daily at work. cannot stand it, recently there have been freezes for all the workers computers - some as long as 30 seconds! ive never found that with any macs ive worked with!

 

[ytk]

I find Windows pretty painful to use, and I've been using it for close to two decades. But in my opinion there are only two kinds of operating system: Unix, and toys. If it doesn't support bash, grep, sed, find, xargs, ruby, and emacs pretty much out of the box, I don't really want to have to use it to do any serious work. And no, I'm not a programmer by trade, but once you're comfortable with the Unix command line there's really no substitute for a surprising number of tasks. I regularly write scripts to automate the bulk of repetitive tasks in all sorts of different programs using just those tools (well, okay, I finally broke down and switched to TextMate instead of Emacs, and AppleScript often comes in real handy as well).

But yeah, if you don't keep Terminal permanently on your dock, you should just shut up and go play Call of Duty some more.

 

[xi mezmerize ix]

Damn it! I always knew my desk was to blame.

haha nice

 

[Mr. McMac]

I'm mostly a mac user, but I still own a couple of PC's. I've been a PC user since Windows 3.1 (yes 3.1 was horrid, and so was windows me). But XP and 7 have been reliable for me. I have no complaints. So yes, some mac users tend to exaggerate how bad the windows experience is..

 

[frunkis54]

I never really had a problem with any of my windows computers. 1 day around 3 years ago i wanted to learn a different OS/computer so i decided to buy my first iMac and loved using so much i haven't looked back at windows since execpt for the ones i use at work.

 

[haravikk]

I dunno; I find Windows requires a bit of work to keep it running smoothly, specifically Windows XP. After installing a few programs on Windows XP it really does go downhill from there unless you're really careful and do maintenance now and then to clear out unneeded stuff, I mean it's amazing how quickly you can accumulate crap all running at once Windows as everything seems to want to be a service.

Windows 7 does a lot better on that front, but it's really not worth the cost of upgrading the OS except to just get it bundled with a new machine; but a lot of the time people just don't need a new machine, an OS update will do just fine.


I used to have that ingrained irrational hatred of all things Windows, I'm still hardly a fan but I think I've sobered on the old unfounded rage, but for some people who just aren't used to maintaining and keeping a system happy, the switch to OS X can be a huge breath of fresh-air.

 

[darkplanets]

TBH, I never really minded windows at all, until lately.

The overall OS setup is just... bleh. It's never really bothered me before, but I find its just not very efficient and can be a PITA to get certain things done. Not that OSX doesn't have its fair share of issues in this regard, its just that I find Windows worse.

The overall OS experience for windows is decent at best, with one exception being W7.

I think the experience that attenuated my dislike for windows was a revitalization of one of my fathers old laptops. It was a Thinkpad T43, which as you know, is old and slow as dirt. Initially I made it a hackintosh, which actually ran rather nicely, but he wanted XP so I went and did that...

What an annoyance. I hate all of the custom drivers, and how I had to install them all manually (about 40)... then, after getting everything working, I realized that after all of the upgrades, the laptop ran even slower than before.

Just my experience. W7 is nice though.