Vista. Well. It doesn't suck.

In My Humble Opinion
41

Sorta. Since Apple switched to the Intel processors, you can get a bootleg copy of OSX and install it on cheaper hardware in an ugly case.

Apple doesn’t allow licensing of their OS because that is part of the problem that Windows has. It has to support every single wireless networking card from every single supplier and manufacturer, so it’s bloated with tons of drivers for things you’ll never need to use.

Apple controls both hardware and software. They know EXACTLY what graphics cards are going into their computers, so they make the software support ONLY that card, but support it very, very well. Same with networking cards, bluetooth, etc. Because they give you the hardware and software, they work seamlessly and wonderfully.

If they let any computer have OSX on it, they’d have the same issues Windows does… incompatible hardware, driver issues, security issues, etc., etc., etc.

42

I fail to see how a driver that you never use constitutes bloat, apart from the tiny amount of disk space its files may use (assuming the driver comes with Windows at all). Anyway, you’re saying OSX is better because you get less choice in hardware? Surely what you mean is that it’s a trade-off between stability and choice of hardware, with both being desirable.

43

SP2 rendered an earlier Windows (NT4 or 2000) pretty much useless. Crashes galore.

Instead of relying on numerology to determine if the service pack works, I recommend reading reviews on the matter.

Incidentally, I find this trick also works when picking car insurance. YMMV.

44

My point was more that the 3rd party sound card you got at your local computer store that comes with an entire CD of drivers that takes 20 minutes to install and throws a bunch of garbage into your system tray for volume management that I never needed or wanted but conflicts with the DVD burner software that also has a bunch of crap in my system tray that I never wanted… THAT is bloated.

I gave my buddy my old Windows XP computer after I got my Mac. A week or 2 later he was having problems and called me to look at it. He had about a billion items in the system tray. 2 separate icons for the DVD burner (both Windows and the burning software tried to intercept the blank DVD when inserted, too… that was fun), 3 or 4 for the KEYBOARD and MOUSE! Unbelievable! There’s really systray icons for keyboard and mouse? Shortcuts to configure tracking speed or hotkeys? REALLY?! Don’t even get me started on his 3rd party wireless card which didn’t use Windows’ system of finding and logging onto wireless networks… it came with its own “handy” program to do that, also located in the system tray right next to the system tray icon that showed his network status. Insane.

And yet, Windows supports all that stuff. It has to. Even though it bogged his computer down and made it totally annoying to use, it HAS to support it.

OSX? Nope. Because Apple controls hardware and software, it can say “yeah, that network card and its drivers are terrible and will be a headache for you. You’re not going to use that with our computers”. Which is fine, because everything you DO want is included by default.

Um, I said nothing of the sort. I said OSX is SIMPLE. Sure, my buddy with that XP computer had himself to blame for all the system tray garbage.

But my Mac? I don’t need a 3rd party wireless card because it’s built in. I don’t need a fancy keyboard because one came with my computer which works perfectly. My DVD burner came preinstalled and works with the DVD burning software my Mac came with. And if I lose this keyboard, any USB keyboard will plug in and work fine without drivers and without bogging my system down. My MacBook has bluetooth, wifi, a webcam, DVD and CD burner… and it all works without being intrusive and annoying. It all worked out of the box with the software that came installed, and my computer also didn’t come with bloatware like AOL and whatever the hell else they’re throwing on computers these days to make them cheaper. And for a Mac, virus protection and spyware detection software don’t exist, further making my computing experience pleasant and freeing up some much needed harddrive space and system memory.

OSX is better because it’s easier, simpler, more elegant, and WORKS. There’s a ton of reasons in this thread by myself and Merkwurdigliebe, none of which say it’s better because of fewer hardware choices.

45

Virus? In OS X? An obvious hoax… :stuck_out_tongue:

Something else OS X gets right - someone had mentioned the Dock. On my Mac, there’s an icon in the Dock that looks like a stamp for the Mail program. To start it, click it, and a small black triangle appears under it to signify that it’s running. If I get email, a little red dot with a number in it appears on the Mail icon. The number is the number of new messages waiting for me. No ghost windows come floating up to say I have mail. I also don’t have three icons for mail at the bottom of the screen. The clever multi-purpose Dock icon is it. When I’m done reading mail, I can close the Mail window and it disappears, even though the program is still running and checking however often for new mail, and if a new message arrives, the red dot appears on the Dock icon.

On this XP box at work, I’ve got an Outlook icon in the quick launch section to start the program, then I’ll have a taskbar item for the running program, then in the “tray” there’s yet another icon whose sole point in life appears to be reminding me that Outlook is running, even though it’s plainly visible in the taskbar. OS X does it all in one icon, why does Windows need three?

46

I’m a Mac user primarily, especially at home, where I pamper my Powerbook G4. At work I use both Macs and PCs, but am a little more comfortable on a Mac, probably because my first computer was a Mac. This out of the way, I have to say that I have never understood the almost religious reverence for anything Mac and outright, knee-jerk hostility for anything Microsoft-based. Yes, yes, I know this is nothing new. I’ve been dealing with Mac fanatics since my Mac forum days on CompuServe when I was in college, but let me tell ya, it’s getting a little old.

Both the Apple and Microsoft operating system’s abilities and features have converged greatly since the bad old days of Windows 2.0, 3.0, 3.1 and 3.11 when Macs were so far superior to Windows that to compare them would be akin to comparing modern man to Neanderthals. However, the Windows OS may never work exactly as the Apple OS does, and I find it ridiculous, not to mention spurious, that this is something to complain about. It seems to me as close as both operating systems become functionally and visually (and Vista and the upcoming OSX Leopard are the closest yet) the differences are still distinct enough that certain types of users will be drawn to the Mac while other types will be drawn to Wintel computers. It also seems to me that the closer both operating systems become functionally and visually, the louder and more boisterous are the cries, accusations, and inane nitpicks from Mac fanatics.

I can’t believe some of you are actually complaining about the Windows OS and apps asking you to confirm an action before performing it. I guess you don’t remember the disastrous days of versions before Win95 where users were inadvertently, permanently trashing files and programs they later realized they needed, and generally mucking up the performance and even access to their computers through ignorance. Microsoft didn’t decide to add this feature to upset its users. There’s a purpose for it. And as others have said, if you don’t like it turn it off.

I actually like Vista much better than XP. As a matter of fact I never liked XP. It “felt” too much like a toy to me. Unlike others, I didn’t have any problem having Vista see my AT&T wireless router and connect to the Internet. Vista won’t make me a full-time Windows user, but I actually think it’s pretty sweet. Don’t get me wrong, Vista has some real issues, which I’m sure will be resolved with SP releases. The OS starting up 10 seconds slower than OSX is a nitpick, not a real issue, as are many of the negative comments I’ve read in this thread

Bottom line for me is if you love your Mac, fine, use it, but I truly don’t understand what benefit you derive from denigrating something you’ve already decided you will never willingly use, much less embrace?

47

Uh-huh. And I’d be willing to wager if it were the reverse and it was OSX Mail (an inadequate mail program, by the way. I prefer Entourage) that provided the ghosted pop-up, which actually displays useful information about the delivered correspondence without forcing the user to maximize the mail client, Mac fanatics would complain about how useless it was for Windows to simply show the number of items received in the task bar.

48

For me this could possibly be biggest reason not to upgrade. Im a student and my PC is in my bedroom. At night I like to hit standby on XP, everything goes quiet and I can sleep, I wake up give the mouse a wriggle and can read the news before dashing off to uni.

I tried a Vista release candidate, went through the same routine, but sleep didnt do the same as standby. Everything was whirring away, theres no chance I was getting to sleep so had to shut down.

I suppose I could wake up early so I have time to boot up in the morning but thats just silly.

49

I wasn’t picking on that part, and when it works, it is almost useful for me. At work, I often get north of 200 non-spam emails a day, so a lot of the time, it just gives up under the flood and says something like “you’ve got new messages.”

What I was complaining about was the part about how email on my XP box needs three icons at the bottom of my screen, vs the all-in-one Dock icon.

50

Three questions:

  1. is VISTA virus-proof?
  2. does it offer 10 jillion combinations of screensavrs, fonts, desktops? ( I REALLYneeded purple wingdings in 25 size font)
  3. will it turn itself off reliably? Or do you still have to watch it?
51

Amen!

I strongly suspect that the Mac fans’ (increasingly pedantic) critcisms are driven in large part by a need to justify spending way too much money on a computer.

52

I’ve managed, on XP and not as a computer kind of guy, to make two brands talk.

53

A MacBook starts at $1100 and includes a webcam, bluetooth, wifi, firewire, CD burner, DVD player, Core 2 Duo processor, and remote control. In addition, it has a wonderful array of software to organize music, movies, and photos. In addition, right out of the box, you can create music using GarageBand, photo slide shows, DVDs, and edit movies with iMovie. Just try to find a similar deal on a PC laptop.

They obviously don’t offer a bargain-basement $600 laptop, but feature-per-dollar, I bet the Mac is better than the PC equivalent. The “Mac-Tax” has essentially disappeared.

54

See, here’s the crux of the matter. OSX is indeed simpler. Simpler however isn’t always better. For any person’s given needs, simpler might indeed be better, but as a rule the two are not synonyms.

As you’ve rightly stated, Apples’ business model has dictated that it control the hardware that it’s systems use and therefore have complete control over the development of drivers and software to capitalize on them. This makes their products inherently more stable and easier to add and subtract components or peripherals. Macs and OSX are very simple and streamlined. However they are also very limited due to these same policies. For many users this might be ideal, it certainly makes it much less likely a user will damage their system out of ignorance.

For other users limitations are simply a deal breaker. Not having ready access to the underpinnings of the OS makes fine tuning and in many cases troubleshooting altogether impossible. All the issues you and others have raised are a direct consequence of the PCs scalability. It needs to have several layers of dialog boxes to prevent users from making serious mistakes. However the extensibility of the Microsoft OS requires that users have access to these sensitive areas.

Basically it’s a “pick your poison” situation. Do you want to be severely limited in your choices of hardware and software, or do you want to be very susceptible to user error and third party software/hardware issues? Personally, I’m a power user and cautious about what I add to my PC so the versatility I gain is a huge advantage. For many other people who have narrower interests and needs and a more casual understanding of computers the restrictions of a Mac are the perfect security blanket and it’s one-stop-shopping mindset is ideal.

The PC was originally created as a business machine. That environment requires it to support an almost infinite assortment of custom hardware and software combinations and the complexity, user maintenance and perceived vulnerability that XP/Vista have are a direct result of that fact. The fact that Microsoft was successful in putting it’s operating system in the hands of so many beginners and casual home users, which it wasn’t originally intended, is the cause of the significant issues.

Personally, I think Microsoft should develop a completely different OS for home users. Make it restrictive and optimized for a small subset of media and internet specific tasks. Reduce the massive bloat in the OS by eliminating all the support for common business requirements like IIS, databases, network administraton and god know what else. To date they’ve basically just created “Home” versions that are simply handcuffed versions of the full suite. As a result they contain all the bloat and all the downsides of such an extensible OS without it’s benefits. So long as MS continues to distribute a do-it-all OS to every level of user ability and need they are going to alienate users who value simplicity above all else.

Just my $0.02.

55

Um, you can get a decent Media Center PC for <$850 with all those options. Probably with more HD space than an Apple.
You might have to buy a webcam.

56

Where at?

57

While you are able to access the internet, go to the the site for the maker of your wireless adapter, since odds are that they’ve got some sort of user-to-user support forums. Via a knowledgeable user I found out how to install those beta drivers, and am now posting from my new computer :slight_smile: Complete PITA compared to setting up a wireless connection for XP, though.

It was weird trying to buy a computer last week, wasn’t it? I wanted an HP and everyone in the state was out of them. Like you, I asked over the weekend about buying one - I actually asked if I could pay for it Sunday and pick it up yesterday - but I was told they weren’t allow to sell them in advance, even if you didn’t take possession of it until the release day. No pre-orders?!

58

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834147341

There’s just one example. Yeah, you might have to spring for a $20 webcam, but to imply that there’s no Mac-Tax is just a blatant lie. Note that’s a 15.4" screen as opposed to the 13" one on your cheapest MacBook.

59

If the mark of a good OS is access to sensitive, changeable areas, then you absolutely want to go with OSX all the way.

Every version of OSX has had its source code released by Apple under the Darwin moniker. Need to tweak something? Just go reprogram it yourself.

60

From what I can tell that doesn’t include FireWire (very important for those wanting to make home movies, or, like me, edit videos for Podcasting and whatever else). It also doesn’t include a line-in for recording audio for the same types of projects. It also doesn’t include Bluetooth for synching to my phone or peripherals like a mouse, keyboard, modem, etc. And of course the webcam. Oh yeah, and remote control. After you pay for all that stuff (which is available as USB or an expansion slot) you’d be up to close to $1100, if not over it. To run a system with XP, a 6 year old OS. Add another hundred at least for Vista, the latest and greatest.

Then you’re back to dealing with peripherals, driver issues, etc. Like I said, EVERYTHING is built into my Mac. I got a great value.