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Why I love my MBP and OSX

mikethebigo

mikethebigo

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 25, 2009
2,433
1,597
I just had to help my father upgrade his Dell Latitude from Windows XP to Windows 7. What a nightmare. He would have never been able to do it if I wasn't around to help out.

Never again Microsoft, never again.
 
yeah sure is hard to put in the disk and hit upgrade

unless you are stealing it...which you probably are...
 
my dad and a lot of other people probably wouldn't be able to figure it out on osx either.. just sayin

it doesn't matter what OS you give them, computers just don't get along with some.. maybe Ipad OS would be good for these people if you didn't need a computer to go along with it..
 
neondrgns said:
yeah sure is hard to put in the disk and hit upgrade

unless you are stealing it...which you probably are...
Click to expand...

I work in tech support, the amount of calls we had from customers having issues trying to upgrade to 7, both using as an upgrade disk and using it as a clean install. Took me about 2 hours on the phone with one guy to get it sorted.

So don't be so harsh and too quick to jump to conclusions dude.
 
runebinder said:
I work in tech support, the amount of calls we had from customers having issues trying to upgrade to 7, both using as an upgrade disk and using it as a clean install. Took me about 2 hours on the phone with one guy to get it sorted.

So don't be so harsh and too quick to jump to conclusions dude.
Click to expand...

using an upgrade disk to clean install without a prior installation is a violation of the user agreement dude
 
neondrgns said:
yeah sure is hard to put in the disk and hit upgrade

unless you are stealing it...which you probably are...
Click to expand...

Actually upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 requires a clean install even though it is an upgrade.

Probably be best for you to know what you are talking about prior to posting.
 
brand said:
Actually upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 requires a clean install even though it is an upgrade.

Probably be best for you to know what you are talking about prior to posting.
Click to expand...

Beat me to it
 
brand said:
Actually upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 requires a clean install even though it is an upgrade.

Probably be best for you to know what you are talking about prior to posting.
Click to expand...

yeah sorry about how this adds 1 extra step

instead of hitting upgrade you press custom install, and choose the default c drive and hit next
 
mikethebigo said:
I just had to help my father upgrade his Dell Latitude from Windows XP to Windows 7. What a nightmare. He would have never been able to do it if I wasn't around to help out.

Never again Microsoft, never again.
Click to expand...

ok, feel free to spend 500-1k extra on a machine to avoid a process only needed once ever few years :rolleyes:
 
rawd said:
Having to wipe out your entire OS to upgrade.

Windows 7 was my idea.
Click to expand...

actually ive upgraded many machines from Vista to 7 without any problem at all, works very nice, saves all my files and programs and runs 100 times better after its finished :)

But yeah like the previous poster said, don't expect to have an easy upgrade from an OS thats 9 years old...
 
hypermog said:
Windows XP was released on October 25, 2001. The nearest Mac OS Release was version 10.1, "Puma", on September 25, 2001. Can you upgrade from 10.1 to 10.6 without formatting? I honestly don't know.
Click to expand...

can a machine with puma even run snow leopard.. that is the question. I don't believe it can since G4 and G5's can't even do it and those were made until 2006.


at least win 7 will run on a 10 year or older computer.. that's pretty cool
 
I like macosx and apple products in general because it makes life much easier. With windows, if you did a clean install, you would have to search for all the drivers. (not that its hard, but that its a pain and time consuming). I also use to have a 2.4 ghz Dell xps m1330 with windows 7 and my 2.26 ghz mbp runs quicker than the XPS. A pet peeve of mine is when pressing the volume buttons on the XPS sometimes it would respond slow or not respond at all and the software would malfunction and not show me the volume going down/up! With my MBP, it responds quickly, precisely, and it shows you the volume going down/up. I love the physical appearance of all their products also. I don't think I'll ever go back to Windows as my personal computer unless I have to for a career or something but boot camp will solve that. :D
 
mikethebigo said:
I just had to help my father upgrade his Dell Latitude from Windows XP to Windows 7. What a nightmare. He would have never been able to do it if I wasn't around to help out.

Never again Microsoft, never again.
Click to expand...

There, there, its all over. Just close your eyes and think about fairies, unicorn and puppies. Let the horror die by itself. I've been in hell for 12 years before 2007, I know what its like... :)
 
neondrgns said:
yeah sure is hard to put in the disk and hit upgrade

unless you are stealing it...which you probably are...
Click to expand...

Didn't think I'd have to explain myself but maybe this will help show what the problem is.

1. You can't just put the disk in with XP. I just got a dialogue box saying this is not compatible with this version on windows, and told me to boot from the CD. My dad would have NO IDEA how to boot from a CD, as dells do not automatically do that.

2. The backup program in XP is a remnant from Windows 2000 and is a piece of ****. Windows has a new program for backing up files for the transition, and it is also a piece of ****. Manually finding all of my dad's files and copying them was not fun (you cannot simply copy the entire C drive, it just gives an error, you can't even copy the entire documents folder since the system is using some of the files)

3. The windows installer is unintuitive for those not tech savvy, you need to select the correct HD partition and format it yourself

4. Drivers are a gigantic pain in the ass. Dell does not "officially" support windows 7 for my dad's model, so we had to use vista drivers (again, he wouldn't even know where to look in the first place, or what drivers to install). Each driver must be downloaded and installed manually, and for some drivers like the touchpad i had to find them through google searches because dell did not offer a 64 bit driver AT ALL. The driver issue is a giiiiant pain in the ass

5. Windows update ran once. Then it ran again. Then again. Each time asking to reboot.

6. Windows defender and norton antivirus don't get along, but if i disable windows defender, it gives popups about the computer not being secure which bothers my dad

7. The entire process would be IMPOSSIBLE for him if I was not there to help.

And it was a legal, purchased copy, thank you very much. As others have stated, you cannot upgrade xp to 7 without upgrading to vista first.
 
squeeks said:
ok, feel free to spend 500-1k extra on a machine to avoid a process only needed once ever few years :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Believe me, upgrading the OS is just one of my MANY issues with windows. Is 7 a step in the right direction? Yes. Will i be sticking with OSX? Yes.
 
In my experience installing windows 7 is a piece of cake. Much easier than the previous generations of windows.

It's OK if you find it difficult. Tech support people have to make a living too. I don't think installing OS X is any easier though. You just have to do it less often.

IMO everybody should keep their files organized, so that when they need a newer os perform a clean install and restore your files from some external storage.
 
neondrgns said:
using an upgrade disk to clean install without a prior installation is a violation of the user agreement dude
Click to expand...

You really do have blinkers on don't you, what's the obssession to assume that we're talking about installing illegally.

All the customer machines I deal with have windows pre installed, and as I was saying some were throwing up errors trying the upgrade and the clean install route.

You know what they say about when you assume?
 
mikethebigo said:
I just had to help my father upgrade his Dell Latitude from Windows XP to Windows 7. What a nightmare. He would have never been able to do it if I wasn't around to help out.

Never again Microsoft, never again.
Click to expand...

As others have pointed out - Win XP is 9 years old. Apple doesn't even support its own 5 year old PowerPC hardware anymore.

Tell you what - I just bought my mother a Macbook - she lives a couple of countries away so I had to help her by phone. She didn't realise the whole trackpad was a button, so was stuck for 2 hours trying to get further from the 'register your name' startup screen. Then she had put her country as Belgium (where she lives) - which changes keyboard layout to AZERTY automatically (I made sure I ordered her a QWERTY keyboard). I had to do some googling to find out how to change that - she would never have been able to figure that out herself.

Going to XP to Win 7 isn't that hard with the settings transfer wizard - it's not trivial but Microsoft have really improved the process, considering that the majority of people buy a new computer instead of upgrading the OS and that there are such an amazing variety of HW and setups to support - not to mention the part customised Windows versions which some OEMs (Dell, HP etc) bundle with their systems.
 
Why not buy your dad a Mac? Don't be selfishing out yo :D got my dad a Mac Mini, just couldn't see him waste his time with freezes and crap.
 
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