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Switching from PC to Mac was easier than going back after 6 years

whg

whg

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 2, 2012
236
153
Switzerland
I see a lot of questions about switching from Mac and OS X to PC and Windows 10. I did this, and discovered some unexpected issues.

When I switched from PC to Mac about 6 years ago, I had all my Windows needs covered by Bootcamp and Parallels. Now I went back to Windows because I got disappointed by Apple's recent moves, and my work place is mostly Windows oriented anyways.

The funny thing I found out is that switching back to PC is not that smooth, and this has nothing to do with Windows in the first place. It turned out that I developped over the years several applications with X-Code that are very OS X specific (such as some MEX functions for MATLAB).

Unfortunately, there is no Parallels equivalent on the Windows side, or I'm not aware of it. I used VMware in the past, but don't know if it would work with OS X, at least not legally.

Now I have the choice to go back to Mac or port the OS X specific stuff back to Windows. The latter options looks better to me right now, as I already like my Surface Pro 4 too much.
 
Personally I've found going back to Windows very difficult. It's not that I would need to run OSX as such, but to be able to manage my photos from iCloud Photos and download a copy in the way I had it all organised can ONLY be done on the Mac Photos app .. since I don't really have access to a Mac they've sort of screwed me over. So difficult, but in this case not MS's fault..
 
Have you looked at Virtual Box?

I believe with a little effort you can get MacOS running in it..
 
Aside the initial learning curve of Windows 10, pretty much seamless nor missing too much from Apple's side. Once you break out of Apple's walled garden, you'll find a whole new world exists, however the decisions are all yours...

Q-6
[doublepost=1497772892][/doublepost]
SB-MBP said:
Personally I've found going back to Windows very difficult. It's not that I would need to run OSX as such, but to be able to manage my photos from iCloud Photos and download a copy in the way I had it all organised can ONLY be done on the Mac Photos app .. since I don't really have access to a Mac they've sort of screwed me over. So difficult, but in this case not MS's fault..
Click to expand...

That's how Apple operates, the intention is to lock the user in it's ecosystem, force the purchase of ever more Apple hardware and services...

Q-6
 
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SB-MBP said:
Personally I've found going back to Windows very difficult. It's not that I would need to run OSX as such, but to be able to manage my photos from iCloud Photos and download a copy in the way I had it all organised can ONLY be done on the Mac Photos app .. since I don't really have access to a Mac they've sort of screwed me over. So difficult, but in this case not MS's fault..
Click to expand...
Yeah the photos thing is bothering me - I haven't switched to Windows for my primary computer yet, but will be replacing my Mac mini within the year. Aside from organisational issues, have you used the Windows 10 Photos app? I haven't seen it in person, but I was looking for a Windows alternative to Apple's Photos and the built-in Windows app seemed more or less equivalent.

I did look at Google Photos but I don't like the fact it is cloud-only. I want a local library with cloud access (which Windows Photos seems to do with OneDrive, if I understand correctly).
 
zen said:
Yeah the photos thing is bothering me - I haven't switched to Windows for my primary computer yet, but will be replacing my Mac mini within the year. Aside from organisational issues, have you used the Windows 10 Photos app? I haven't seen it in person, but I was looking for a Windows alternative to Apple's Photos and the built-in Windows app seemed more or less equivalent.

I did look at Google Photos but I don't like the fact it is cloud-only. I want a local library with cloud access (which Windows Photos seems to do with OneDrive, if I understand correctly).
Click to expand...
I highly recommend Lightroom for photo management. You can still buy a license, but this is well hidden at Adobe's web site. Lightroom catalogs are compatible between OS X and Windows.

I recently looked again into Apple's Photos app when I learned about Affinity Photo for the iPad. While this seems to be a very powerful tool (with some teething problems), one must still use Photos to import images from the camera. And here the pain with the iPad's protected file system starts big time. Does anybody know an easy way of putting a developed image back to Photos?

My iPad Pro 12.9 (2015) is such a beautiful piece of technology, but seems so useless for simple stuff such as managing photos (or I'm just too stupid).
 
whg said:
I highly recommend Lightroom for photo management. You can still buy a license, but this is well hidden at Adobe's web site. Lightroom catalogs are compatible between OS X and Windows.

I recently looked again into Apple's Photos app when I learned about Affinity Photo for the iPad. While this seems to be a very powerful tool (with some teething problems), one must still use Photos to import images from the camera. And here the pain with the iPad's protected file system starts big time. Does anybody know an easy way of putting a developed image back to Photos?

My iPad Pro 12.9 (2015) is such a beautiful piece of technology, but seems so useless for simple stuff such as managing photos (or I'm just too stupid).
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about Lightroom. But is it a monthly subscription, forever?

raqball said:
Have to looked at this? I've not used it but it looks like it would do the trick for syncing iCloud photos ect from an iOS device to PC and vise versa..

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204283
Click to expand...

Cool - must look into this. Seems that photos in the Windows Pictures library are your local storage, and it keeps iCloud updated. So you have local storage, but not local organisation? Not that that is necessary if you use the iCloud web interface anyway, I guess.
 
zen said:
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about Lightroom. But is it a monthly subscription, forever?
Click to expand...
When I bought mine, a permanent license version was still available (version 6), but it was not easy to find this on Adobe's web site. The question is, of course, when will they switch this to subscription only?
 
whg said:
When I bought mine, a permanent license version was still available (version 6), but it was not easy to find this on Adobe's web site. The question is, of course, when will they switch this to subscription only?
Click to expand...
Yeah true. I hate this new world of subscription software!
 
raqball said:
Have to looked at this? I've not used it but it looks like it would do the trick for syncing iCloud photos ect from an iOS device to PC and vise versa..

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204283
Click to expand...
Thank you, but I was aware of the iCloud option (even for Windows). The catch for me is this: I thought about upgrading my iPad to the new version with 512GB storage for my vacation photos. iCloud would cost me an additional monthly fee for more than 5GB.

My question was, how can I move my photos around on the iPad without using the Cloud and an additional PC/Macbook on vacation.
 
zen said:
Yeah the photos thing is bothering me - I haven't switched to Windows for my primary computer yet, but will be replacing my Mac mini within the year. Aside from organisational issues, have you used the Windows 10 Photos app? I haven't seen it in person, but I was looking for a Windows alternative to Apple's Photos and the built-in Windows app seemed more or less equivalent.

I did look at Google Photos but I don't like the fact it is cloud-only. I want a local library with cloud access (which Windows Photos seems to do with OneDrive, if I understand correctly).
Click to expand...

Well, the Windows 10 Photos app is promising. And IF they fix the unusable state it's in now, I'd give it another go.

Great for viewing, scrolling through your photos.

Here's the issue: I have a folder in my Pictures folder called 'Photo Library' - it's home to all my photos of friends, family, places and things. Then I have e.g. 'Minecraft Screenshots' folder.. now, in Photos Preferences I go and tick my 'Photo Library' folder ONLY. It detects and shows other 'picture' folders, handy. But I uncheck 'Minecraft Screenshots'. YET, they're all still there... mixed in.

Some minor lacking features are you can't edit / change metadata. Or re-organise as far as I can tell.

and yeah, I steer clear of cloud services and subscription services too. Sadly I think only more apps will go that way.
 
SB-MBP said:
Here's the issue: I have a folder in my Pictures folder called 'Photo Library' - it's home to all my photos of friends, family, places and things. Then I have e.g. 'Minecraft Screenshots' folder.. now, in Photos Preferences I go and tick my 'Photo Library' folder ONLY. It detects and shows other 'picture' folders, handy. But I uncheck 'Minecraft Screenshots'. YET, they're all still there... mixed in.

Some minor lacking features are you can't edit / change metadata. Or re-organise as far as I can tell.
Click to expand...
This is one of the biggest beefs I have with the Photos app in Windows, it's nowhere near as organized or comprehensive as Photos on macOS and you also can't link it with iTunes if you want to sync photos on your devices. It's worse with an iPod Classic since it will only sync photos through folders or through Photoshop Elements IIRC.
 
ApolloBoy said:
This is one of the biggest beefs I have with the Photos app in Windows, it's nowhere near as organized or comprehensive as Photos on macOS and you also can't link it with iTunes if you want to sync photos on your devices. It's worse with an iPod Classic since it will only sync photos through folders or through Photoshop Elements IIRC.
Click to expand...

I'm glad I'm not the only one!

And don't get me wrong, I thought Photos sort of sucked compared to the late iPhoto. iPhoto was the only app where I really loved how I was able to organise my photos. I miss it!

Photos is the best on the market atm. Being a now Windows 10 user, sadly, I can only reflect on how well it worked.
 
whg said:
Thank you, but I was aware of the iCloud option (even for Windows). The catch for me is this: I thought about upgrading my iPad to the new version with 512GB storage for my vacation photos. iCloud would cost me an additional monthly fee for more than 5GB.

My question was, how can I move my photos around on the iPad without using the Cloud and an additional PC/Macbook on vacation.
Click to expand...

Do you have an office subscription? I believe that comes with 1TB of free storage per user.. Might be worth a shot to see if you can auto sync photos from iOS to OneDrive... I don't have nor use an iOS device so I can't say if this will work for you.
 
SB-MBP said:
Photos is the best on the market atm. Being a now Windows 10 user, sadly, I can only reflect on how well it worked.
Click to expand...
Have you tried the Windows iCloud thing? I assume with that, even if your Pictures library is nothing more than a folder of photos, the iCloud Photos UI is about the same as the Mac app version?
 
zen said:
Have you tried the Windows iCloud thing? I assume with that, even if your Pictures library is nothing more than a folder of photos, the iCloud Photos UI is about the same as the Mac app version?
Click to expand...

Yeah I've tried it buy sync issues and the whole 'Nothing is happening' is commonly experienced. And when it does work, yeah, just a folder annoyingly placed inside the Windows file system which is only able to organise by year.

I do get the feeling Apple made this just to be that 'glass of ice water in hell' Lol. It's not a great ongoing, enjoyable experience as it is on the Mac
 
So what are Windows users using to manage their photos? There are a great deal more of them than there are Apple users! There must be a good solution.
 
zen said:
So what are Windows users using to manage their photos? There are a great deal more of them than there are Apple users! There must be a good solution.
Click to expand...

I'd really love to know. I'm on Windows 10 now on a ThinkPad and currently I've a misorganised mess of Photos on iCloud Photo Library and I'd like to locally store them in a similar fashion to Photos on the Mac but can't find decent software.

Literally organisation, Don't care for editing three too much!

Please share Windows pro users?
 
DigiKam looks interesting. Aftershot Pro looks more like an editor than an organiser?
 
zen said:
DigiKam looks interesting. Aftershot Pro looks more like an editor than an organiser?
Click to expand...

It's a bit of both..the only reason I'll cheer it a bit is its good commercial software for Linux. digiKam is KDE's default photo manager I don't use it much since I GTK guy but my kid likes it a bunch.
 
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