I found out that if I want Windows 7 I have to start from scratch and reinstall everything. MAC has a commercial aimed right at people like me. Basically, "If you have to move everything anyway, why not move to a MAC?" I think that's pretty slick from a Marketing point of view.
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Nov. 2, 2009 10:15 a.m. pinchvalve UltraDork
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Nov. 2, 2009 10:16 a.m. Grtechguy UltraDork
My only question to that.....is why do so many MAC users dual boot to XP?
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Nov. 2, 2009 10:31 a.m. Marjorie Suddard General Manager
Because a lot of software companies are too lazy to support Mac. Quickbooks, for instance, is not available in a multiuser version for Mac. And their single-user version has some ugly history on the platform.
Margie
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Nov. 2, 2009 10:35 a.m. sachilles Reader
With the amount of garbage people have on computers, you are better off starting new anyway. Buy a usb hard drive and store the stuff you want and go from there.
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Nov. 2, 2009 10:43 a.m. aircooled SuperDork
Dual boot XP: It's the games man, the games.
I got one of the super cheap intro deals on Win7 so I went for it. It's nice, seems to run good, install was very quick (faster then XP I believe), the biggest plus... it's NOT Vista! (well actually it is, just a good version) The main complaints I have with it currently:
Can be very inconstant in "look" or presentation. There seems to be a random application of how things (control panels etc.) appear. Some are old style, some are new?!
Customizing the Documents folder is a bit of a pain (getting it to point to what you want it to). It really wants you to use the defaults, mine is still a bit goofy. Not even sure what the Libraries are at this point, I still need to look into those.
Application launching is actually a real pain in the butt for me. It is set up great if you only use a few applications, but I like to have quick access to many. The primary application access is either the main menu of the start menu (which might hold 10 or so) or along the lower menu bar (quick launch) and you really don't want to pile on there (the icons are a lot bigger than they used to be). The other quickest way (other than digging through the apps menu, or putting a crap load of icons on you desktop) is to type the name in the search field, it will work great, but not exactly quick access.
My favorite solution is RocketDock, which adds a very Mac like menu bar with very good and quick access to lots of things. Unfortunately there is not 64bit version yet, but I will add it when there is.
There seems to be a fair amount of good stuff though. It has a good backup system which is nice. My general synopsis is that is is probably a better beginner system then it used to be (not sure if in general it is still as good as the Mac) but experienced users may suffer a bit. I think the Mac caters to both better.
...now I am off to see if I can get Snow Leopard to install on my PC...
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Nov. 2, 2009 11:49 a.m. JetMech New Reader
That's Microsoft for ya: fix what ain't broke, only to find that the "fix" did indeed break something! What was wrong with XP?
I once made the mistake of buying a laptop with Windows ME. Biggest piece of E36 M3 ever. When I finally got rid of that laptop, it was running some form of Linux.
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Nov. 2, 2009 12:02 p.m. Giant Purple Snorklewacker Dork
Yike! I just went a build a Macbook online... $2785 for the features I would want. Went to Newegg and found a PC with more of everything in a good brand name for $1499 with a 100% fire/drop/drown 1yr warranty.
I was hoping for less of a marketing gap - $1k+ is a big tag diff for a pretty case... the wifey really does like to fit in at art parties. I'll have to get some apple stickers to put over the Lenovo emblems.
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Nov. 2, 2009 12:11 p.m. Kia_racer New Reader
I have never understood why people dis on Vista. I bought my laptop 2 years ago and I haven't had problem one with the OS. XP OTOH gave me nothing but fits and crashes.
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Nov. 2, 2009 12:14 p.m. pigeon HalfDork
It pains me to say it but Snow Leopard sucks. It broke Safari on my MacMini and screwed up Mail for a while. It's not any faster or much smaller. Leopard was better IMO and still runs awesome on my Dell Mini9.
I have a friend in the IT security business who got an early copy of Vista SP7 and he loves it. I intend to install it on my older laptop that's currently running Vista Ultimate and see if its worth the fuss.
Yes Macs are pricey buy look at refurbished units from the online Apple store to save some pretty good coin. Something else to keep in mind is Macs are much more efficient in using resources so processors and memory requirement aren't comparable to Windows PCs. Look for benchmarks to see what you really need.
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Nov. 2, 2009 12:39 p.m. JetMech New Reader
Kia_racer wrote:
My experience was completely opposite yours. All problems I've had with XP have been traced back to my errors and negligence, but I never did figure out why Vista misbehaved.I have never understood why people dis on Vista. I bought my laptop 2 years ago and I haven't had problem one with the OS. XP OTOH gave me nothing but fits and crashes.
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Nov. 2, 2009 12:45 p.m. Josh HalfDork
Saying Snow Leopard sucks because it broke stuff on your bodged install of OSX onto a completely unsupported collection of hardware is hardly being fair. I am still on 10.5.6 on my OSX Mini9 (and my mom's and dad's) and don't plan to switch anytime soon, and certainly not without going on the dell osx forums and making sure any issues have been documented and fixed. You can't expect updates to just work in that sort of situation.
I still havent upgraded to Snow Leopard on my MBP yet, but everyone I talk to that has is favorably impressed by it. I'll probably pick up the disc and try it sometime in the next few weeks.
+1 on the refurb Macs. Especially now that the lowest end laptops now have a graphics setup that doesnt completely suck. The sub 1k machines you can pretty much always find on there are actually pretty darn powerful, especially running OSX. I paid about 6-700 off the original price of my MBP in the refurb section last january, but the current Macbook is pretty nearly a match for my machine for 3-500 less than I spent.
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Nov. 2, 2009 12:56 p.m. pigeon HalfDork
No, I said SL screwed up my perfectly good, 100% Apple hardware Mac Mini running (IIRC) 10.5.8 before the upgrade to SL/10.6.1. My Mini9 hackintosh is still on 10.5.6 also and runs better than any other computer in the house, and there's a total of 5 that see daily use with a mix of XP, Vista and OS X on them.
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Nov. 2, 2009 1:07 p.m. Josh HalfDork
pigeon wrote:
No, I said SL screwed up my perfectly good, 100% Apple hardware Mac Mini running (IIRC) 10.5.8 before the upgrade to SL/10.6.1.
Oh. I thought that whole sentence referred to the same computer. I still haven't tried it on any of the real Macs around here (the G4 Mini can't run it, and my Dad will wait a few months before he upgrades to a new OS on his Unibody MBP to avoid potential early issues. I don't use Mail, and split between Safari and Firefox anyway, so your experience makes me slightly wary of Snow Leopard, but not enough to avoid it entirely. My friend with a Unibody Macbook was singing its praises to me just the other day, he's had no issues.
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Nov. 2, 2009 2:59 p.m. Giant Purple Snorklewacker Dork
pigeon wrote:
Macs are much more efficient in using resources so processors and memory requirement aren't comparable to Windows PCs.
They are both top quality Intel Pro Duo laptops with the same FSB, etc... Apple no longer uses its own RISC processors (so, its really a PC too). The difference is the OS and the packaging (the one with the apple on it comes with considerably less... smaller slower disk, less vid capability, etc)
It is better at some things and worse at others. I havent seen numbers yet for 64 bit Win 7 but I bet it isn't enough to justify $1100 and still have to buy a bunch of extras that come standard on the PC.
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Nov. 2, 2009 3:14 p.m. GlennS HalfDork
JetMech wrote:
That's Microsoft for ya: fix what ain't broke, only to find that the "fix" did indeed break something! What was wrong with XP?
I’ve been told that Windows XP doesn’t fully support dual or quad core processors. They need to a new operating system to work with the new hardware.
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Nov. 2, 2009 3:17 p.m. JetMech New Reader
GlennS wrote:
I understand the words, but not the meaning. Probably due to what I use a computer for: surfing the Internet, word processing, and occasionally playing games that were released seven years or so ago.JetMech wrote:
That's Microsoft for ya: fix what ain't broke, only to find that the "fix" did indeed break something! What was wrong with XP?
I’ve been told that Windows XP doesn’t fully support dual or quad core processors. They need to a new operating system to work with the new hardware.
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Nov. 2, 2009 4:08 p.m. Scott Lear Club Editor
Put me in the camp that found Vista to be pretty decent, and I'm liking 7 even more. I'm not a Mac guy primarily because I like the hands-on nature of a Wintel machine, and I've grown to really enjoy building my own systems. Software compatibility is a big one too. Also, Apple's hardware pricing makes me physically angry. If you're gonna charge some poor sap $1000 for more RAM, it had better be a LOT more, not 4GB more.
OSX is a slick operating system, but it's not devoid of bugs--I encounter them regularly here at work. I am looking forward to trading out this ancient PowerPC Pro for a much more recent iMac, only downside is lack of internal drive space, but we deal with a lot of external drives anyway.
I did a fresh install of Win 7 on my home machine, didnt' take me very long at all to DL fresh Win-7 drivers and transfer over my personal stuff from a backup drive.
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Nov. 2, 2009 4:11 p.m. carguy123 Dork
I'll tell ya why I use XP on my Mac too, it's cause I can!
I have one specialty business program that uses Windoze so I must either have a separate PC or just run it on my Mac. Man that's great!
I run VM Fusionware so that I run both operating systems at the same time with no apparent hit in performance. I can switch back and forth and more importantly I can keep all the internet and email on my Mac side for the ultimate in safety.
I still have to do all those crazy everyother day upgrades to this or that that seem to come in and it still requires tons more work on the Windoze side than does the Mac.
And yes the Mac does store and do things more efficiently than XP. It takes a lot more space to do the same thing so if you are Mac alone you can use smaller hard drives. I, need large amounts of space because I'm doing both.
One really, really cool thing with running Xp this way is that I have it set up to take a snapshot of the XP periodically and if I ever have a problem I just revert to a previous snap shot and look for the PC problem. It really saves time.
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Nov. 2, 2009 4:16 p.m. ReverendDexter HalfDork
JetMech wrote:
That's Microsoft for ya: fix what ain't broke, only to find that the "fix" did indeed break something! What was wrong with XP?
The same thing that was wrong with Windows 98 when it was replaced by XP, and DOS/Win 3.1 when it was replaced by Win95; it doesn't support the new hardware, specifically the large amounts of hard disk space and RAM that we have these days.
A computer has to be able to find stuff in memory; it does this via addressing. Basically, if you think in terms of addresses on your street, if you only use 3 numbers, you can only have 1000 houses with unique addresses. By going to 4 digit addresses, you can have 10,000 houses, 5 digits gets you 100,000, etc, etc.
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Nov. 2, 2009 4:50 p.m. Toyman01 HalfDork
I don't understand all the problems people have with computers. Our desktop is an old Compaq running windows something. You turn it on and it works. Most of the time is stays on for months at a time. The only problem we have had is a virus once, and a power supply fail. My last laptop was a Acer($500). It ran for 4-5 years. Never had a problem with Windows XP on it. The mother board in it finally failed probably from being dropped. Replaced with a Sony running Vista($800), it has run flawlessly since new. Typing this on a eee($250) netbook running XP. Runs flawlessly. Until I have major problems with PC computers, I can't imagine paying more for a Mac. The only people I really hear complaining about the Windows platform and PC computers are Mac owners and a lot of them are running Windows on their Macs because no one makes programs for Macs. Go figure.
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Nov. 2, 2009 4:53 p.m. EricM HalfDork
MacVs. Windows. I ignore both (exept at work were I am forced to use Windows) I use Linux at home. I have a Linux DVR system, a server and a laptop. I can get to anythign from anywhere. I have my RHCE in addition to my CISSP ( work as a Data Security Analyst).
Free yourselves.
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Nov. 2, 2009 5:02 p.m. Buzz Killington Reader
does your Linux DVR let you record TV shows?
that's why i have a mac.
Toyman...your experience sounds more typical of a mac owner than a PC owner. works every time, very low maintenance, lasts a long time. shrug every IT person i knw has Macs at home b/c they don't want to fix computers at work AND at home...they just want something that works.
if you're into building and customizing your own kickass system, go for a PC. if you want a box that works reliably, a mac might be a good choice. do you want a new WRX or would you rather build a '98 Impreza with a worked STi swap?
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: I was hoping for less of a marketing gap - $1k+ is a big tag diff for a pretty case...
and higher-quality components. a 1975 toyota and a 1975 mercedes would both get you where you were going when they were new, but only one of those hasn't been reduced to rust and salvage parts by now.
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Nov. 2, 2009 5:08 p.m. Keith PowerDork
Hate to tell you, but Toyman's experience is similar to mine. My PCs (all XP, I never saw any added value to Vista) simply work. I know, it's an uncool thing to have happen and I apologize. I thought about hackintoshing the netbook but there's absolutely no reason to do so.
I do agree that the "if you're doing all that, why not get a Mac?" marketing spin is a thing of beauty.
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Nov. 2, 2009 5:09 p.m. Toyman01 HalfDork
Buzz Killington wrote:
Toyman...your experience sounds more typical of a mac owner than a PC owner. works every time, very low maintenance, lasts a long time. shrug every IT person i knw has Macs at home b/c they don't want to fix computers at work AND at home...they just want something that works.
Maybe it's because I don't ask much of them. Internet surfing, word processing and Quick Books is about it for me. I got over the games years ago.
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Nov. 2, 2009 6:02 p.m. carguy123 Dork
Toyman01 you're showing your ignorance when you say they don't make the programs for the Mac. What they don't make for the Mac and don't need are all those pocketbook draining little programs to do things the Windoze operating system won't do on it's own, but are standard on the Mac.
Mac people don't need to spend thousands on all those little necessities and also don't have to spend nearly as much of their time making sure things work right. I've worked with both for decades, why do you think I've grown to love the Macs?
The ONLY reason I have to run the Windoze is one proprietary, governmental business program that no one is allowed to work around.
