molgrips – Member

You know you can turn off all the prettiness in W7 and it ends up looking like W2k. Or in W8 you can install classic shell of course.

Fine if it’s your own PC… But even then you’re paying for a gallon of polish and a box of bells and whistles. I’m a grumpy old man, I haven’t got time for that!

t annoys me that when I try to search for a tune 400 odd mail notifications obscure the search box.

I realise there’s probably a way of sorting it

Egh? Or use the search box in iTunes rather than using spotlight?

it’s more like Win2K with shinier window decorations

I think you can turn those off too? You looking at the options in the Performance control panel thing?

I often wonder how people manage to make such a dogs breakfast of their computers. From my admittedly limited experience of OSX I can only guess it’s because it does everything for you rather than giving you the freedom to configure as you please. Horses for courses though, personally I’ve never had a problem with Windows (running 7 pro very happily) and wouldn’t sacrifice adaptability for “convenience” at an over inflated price.

Sealed units are nothing but bother not to mention wasteful in the extreme. That we live in a culture where the notion of binning something just because one part that should easily be replaced has broken is acceptable is saddening. You pay enough for that box of mediocre optimised components so why not let you actually service or upgrade the damn thing?

can’t speak for win8 and installing shells on enterprise hardware, but W7 prettiness is entirely settings in the control panel
control panel is strange though
OSX one is better, but that was copied from erm I mean inspired by KDE from years ago, so maybe that’s why it feels intuitive.
Do the OSX versions of Office get all of those unintuitive ribbons and annoying full screen page for selecting print options?

it’s more like Win2K with shinier window decorations

I think you can turn those off too? You looking at the options in the Performance control panel thing?

*shrugs*

can’t find anything useful in control panel anyway

loathed w7 when I got this work lappy… fiddled around to turn off animated interactions and a few other things. now it’s usable, but since it’s enterprise lappy I do zero admin or anything. wouldn’t even know where to look for performance settings, even when I’m looking at the top level control panel window. never sussed out how to auto disable screensaver when doing powerpoint presentations etc. either. lots of options that look like they might do something but don’t.

I guess 99% of users won’t customise a single preference ever in the lifetime of a device.

edit: the w7 taskbar is alright. one of the few things that’s definitely better than Win2k/XP, especially when you have 20 windows open (which funnily enough, operates a little bit like OSX, or at least you can choose that option)

Control panel, select ‘large icons’ or ‘small icons’ from the drop down top right. Then go to Performance and Features or whatever it’s called (they are in alphabetical order) and there’s an ‘effects’ or similar link on the left. Uncheck everything except for ‘smooth screen fonts’

This adaptability thing of windows is something that, for most people, is completely pointless. I personally want a computer to be like a washing machine. Switch it on, do what I want to do on it, then switch it off. It has to be completely reliable, fast and stable and I want to use it without having to adapt anything from my end – reference to the comments about windows viruses being the operators fault – its like taking your brand new BMW in after its broken down and them turning to you and saying that the car broke because of the way you drive it, its your fault. I don’t think many people on here would stand for that as an excuse.

If you’re someone who enjoy’s geeking out for the sake of it, or someone who’s using a computer for very specific needs or uses then the adaptability is going to be useful – but for most its just an annoyance and over complicates something that should be simple.

strange place to choose a window decoration theme, especially when there’s a “change the theme” option under “personaliztion”

I often wonder how people manage to make such a dogs breakfast of their computers.

Heh, me too. I imagine someone wildly clicking on anything that pops up or flashes, kinda like they’re playing a game or something.

Try taking your BWM back to the dealer after 6 weeks with a burned out clutch… it really is possible if you drive it *that* badly 😉

strange place to choose a window decoration theme

Yeah, it’s not with all the other customisation options which is annoying.

As for the car analogy – as BEB says you can ruin a car in a few months by being stupid with it, and then we’d all be queueing up to tell the feckless driver it’s their own fault.

It’s a bit like saying ‘I want my house to be just tidy! I don’t want to have to go around putting things away and hoovering up and stuff!’

I often wonder how people manage to make such a dogs breakfast of their computers

A few minutes with my MIL is all you need.

For example click on something and then start moving the mouse just a fraction before releasing the button and the click turns into a drag

Oh! (releases button, important file is now no longer where it was. But where’s it gone? In that folder somewhere…

etc etc

Microsoft overcomplicate things that should be simple

it was my reflex hardcoded key+mouse combos that I’d got so used to in XP that were worst. W7 introduces tiny delays to look pretty at the expense of responsiveness.

.. that can be turned off…

… if you cba to search high and low in settings … 😉

not an issue on OSX / Mac. The late Steve Jobs decides when a Macbook might not be new enough to be responsive enough, then makes it impossible to upgrade.

although my w7 one was a core-i5 jobby, so not exactly a budget slow machine

which I think is just bloody stupid; why should I have to hit three keys just to log onto my chuffing computer at work.

It’s actually a decent security measure to prevent logon spoofing. Relatively elegant, I think.

Sealed units are nothing but bother not to mention wasteful in the extreme. That we live in a culture where the notion of binning something just because one part that should easily be replaced has broken is acceptable is saddening. You pay enough for that box of mediocre optimised components so why not let you actually service or upgrade the damn thing?

Assuming this is aimed at Mac Mini / iMac – the only things I’ve changed during the ‘useful lifetime’ (around 7 years) of each of mine has been HDD and RAM, both of which are straightforward enough with care (OK, 27 screws on the Macbook Pro was a PITA). The same is true with most integrated Win7 based systems I’ve used from Lenovo.

Frankly after a day BASHing around servers and clouds, the last thing I feel like doing when I get home is swapping out a motherboard or something. I suppose if your a gamer there’s a reason to get an adaptable desktop, but thats about it.

not an issue on OSX / Mac. The late Steve Jobs decides when a Macbook might not be new enough to be responsive enough, then makes it impossible to upgrade.

Not sure how differnet this is from say EoL on XP, where you won’t get an further security patches. Everything has a lifespan (though I’ll agree Apple do tend to over accelerate it.. I reckon my Core2 MBP would run Mavericks just fine with a bit of tweaking).

Since Vista, Windows has become better at running on older hardware rather than worse.

@Biking, I am a computer scientist/programmer by background, built my first computer with a soldering iron and programmed it in hexadecimal machine code, 1975-ish. I also wrote compilers and did quite a lot of low level work too. My first work computer ran Concurrent CPM – a DEC operating system which could run 4 programmes at once, this was back in ’84 I recall, light years ahead of DOS so Gates bought CCPM and binned it. Microsoft had to base its OS on DOS as it was the exclusivity agreements on DOS which where the companies raison-d’etre. I point this out as it shows the foundations of Windows, it’s genesis and why it’s fundamentally so poor. I know there are many others here with more expertise but I do have an inkling of what I am speaking about.

Microsoft is a terrible software platform.

You might have a lot of experience, but that experience seems to have ended at the first version of Windows XP – which came out in 2001. The current version of Windows is not based on DOS: it’s not the “foundations of Windows”.

Why do you say it’s “a terrible software platform”?

True dat.

By adaptability I mean the ability to easily swap EVERY component without the possibility of having to remove a tonne of glue (only going by what was said in a previous post). For all the environmental ethics you see on here it really does beggar belief that people accept this sort of thing.

Things is, with Windows you are commiting to the OS only whereas with Mac you have to take the whole package and then you’re stuck with it. Don’t get me wrong, it has its advantages but a decently specced Windows PC will be cheaper and easier to upgrade should you need to.

The thing about a Windows licence costing £200 is true enough but they do offer upgrades for significantly less whilst 8 to 8.1 was free (as 8.2 is expected to be). The cost difference for a brand new licence is a red herring anyway, you will still be paying that cost in the Mac tax if not more.

There is also the Linux question.

Not sure how differnet this is from say EoL on XP, where you won’t get an further security patches.

M$ EoL the OS, but you could upgrade to a newer OS
Apple EoL the hardware (and I guess eventually the OS too)

Only thing missing from mine to go past Snow Leopard is multitouch on the trackpad, and Apple purposefully restricting GPU drivers or something.
Vista may have been a bit of a pig, but it should run W7, does run latest Linux, and probably would run W8 (assuming M$ haven’t crippled anything relating to secureboot or something).

Don’t bother having one with less than 6G

Utter, utter twaddle – our office runs entirely on MacBook Airs and Pros, all shipped with 4G Ram (apart from one from the refurb store that was meant to be 4G but was actually 8G). It makes absolutely no discernible difference to performance and they all get hammered all day every day running multiple applications.

M$ EoL the OS

THIRTEEN YEARS after it came out…

THIRTEEN YEARS after it came out…

They’d have EOLed it earlier if they could have done, though – I’m not sure that W7 will get the same long term love…

Mine shipped with Tiger.
From Tiger release date to Tiger EoL for updates was about 4 and a half years.
From purchase date to date of first OS release that is not allowed on that model was about 5 years.

Some might say that’s a very long time for support. Other Mac users state that the quality is so good they’re using 10yr old hardware. Yes you can but it will be old OS version, that will be lacking new features, and blocks ability to use certain newer software too (true for OSX+Win).
And my eeePC yup. still going, while the Macbook has sat in the cupboard for over 2 years.

A computer is a computer, Mac’s are a liable to **** up as any other computer(I’ve pulled apart plenty in my time), it’s pretty much the same hardware anyhow.

The OS is ok but hardly radically different, the only thing that is really different that I wish I had on my pc is expose, and the way you drag and drop on a Mac.

Unless you have specific software or hardware that needs one or the other then is 6 and half a dozen.(this is where linux stil fails to compete)

Win7 is losing mainstream (ie. feature) support from 31/01/15 along with server 2008. It’ll still be supported with security fixes and such until 2020 which is plenty of time for Win9 (or even 10) to come out.

By comparison, not even LTS Ubuntu releases last that long.

We’re still running with XP at work, sigh…

@Biking, I am a computer scientist/programmer by background, built my first computer with a soldering iron and programmed it in hexadecimal machine code, 1975-ish. I also wrote compilers and did quite a lot of low level work too. My first work computer ran Concurrent CPM – a DEC operating system which could run 4 programmes at once, this was back in ’84 I recall, light years ahead of DOS so Gates bought CCPM and binned it. Microsoft had to base its OS on DOS as it was the exclusivity agreements on DOS which where the companies raison-d’etre. I point this out as it shows the foundations of Windows, it’s genesis and why it’s fundamentally so poor. I know there are many others here with more expertise but I do have an inkling of what I am speaking about.

Microsoft is a terrible software platform.

I am not doubting your programming skills or your soldering skills. And this isn’t really a discussion on who is right and who is wrong, but your understanding of the origins of MS are a bit skewed. The MS raison d’etre was not DOS. MS was always originally the provider of the BASIC compiler for the IBM PC. The OS was a side deal based on the fact that Bill Gates and Paul Allen took a punt on being able to provide an OS as the founder and owner of the original company they had chosen was too busy flying his plane to meet the IMB execs. So Gary Kildal missed out and MS lucked out. And as Mogrim pointed out your knowledge of the Windows OS also seems to have stopped at the late 90’s. It has moved on quite a lot from there. Perhaps you should use your obvious intelligence to make a reasoned investigation and base your decision on experience and knowledge of the current version of Windows. It may be a revelation to you and will help you not to sound ignorant – thus giving greater credence to your views.

I wouldn’t compare ubuntu LTS release/support times with anything.
Nothing prevents you from doing another LTS upgrade and getting another however many years support.

I could have put 6.06 Dapper Drake LTS on both my macbook and eeePC, just hit the update button for 8.04 Hardy Heron LTS, same again for 10.04 Lucid Lynx (ran those 2 for much of their life on both machine), and then again for 12.04 (skipped that, cos I didn’t like unity), and funnily enough, I’ve just put Linux Mint on this time (which is Ubuntu 14.04 with a different GUI and different branding), which gives me support until April 2019, which would make both machines over a decade old.

If I’d put Arch Linux on, on day 1, it would have just been daily/weekly updates forever, since it has no concept of defined snapshots and support periods. I could have done one install, still be on that install, and support runs out when I deem the laptop no longer usable.

@biking, noted on the development points. I am speaking based upon my experiences and understanding which I said above is not as up to date not least as I’ve left the MS world forever in terms of personal purchases.

My experience with Macs is the OS is much more stable and easy (and cheap/free) to upgrade so you are always on the latest version. MS just lurches from moderate success to disaster. My work PC hangs up regularly even running nothing more complex than IE, Outlook, Word

I used a Mac in the early 90s and that was unreliable, slow, and prone to viruses. The Macs of today are built on the same foundation so obviously they are going to be the same. Also I had a laptop running Ubuntu that kept crashing. Macs are basically Unix, so I would expect the same from a Mac too. Simple common sense.

Haven’t crashed a Linux/Ubuntu machine since I stopped hacking kernels a very long time ago (possibly before I even swapped to Ubuntu).
My macbook crashed (properly – OS panic) maybe 2-3 times.
XP PC did the same (DLL conflict somewhere).
Win2k was alright.
Win7 not crashed it yet, but Adobe has some massive memory leak.
Win95 crashed more times than a demolition derby. Escom (remember them?) said it must be cache memory fault, but refused to replace it before they went bankrupt. Linux on that PC (when Linux really was early beta quality) worked perfectly. Zero crashes / kernel panics. Glad Escom went bust – those machines never did have cache memory, and quoted the in CPU cache as the cache, so it couldn’t be that and must be Win95 that was rubbish.

I used a Mac in the early 90s and that was unreliable, slow, and prone to viruses. The Macs of today are built on the same foundation so obviously they are going to be the same.

The only obvious thing is that you are obviously wrong. And I have *never* heard of any Mac being prone to viruses (I have been using Macs almost exclusively since January 1991 )

Here you go, a list of Mac viruses – hardly shows a ‘prone’ system…

The Macs of today are built on the same foundation

100% incorrect. With OSX (?) they threw the old one out and started a new OS based on Unix, so it’s far better.

They even use different hardware now too.

MS just lurches from moderate success to disaster

Disagree with that. Commercialy, it’s a rampant success of course – and since 7 it’s been pretty damn good. 8 is good but people are just bitching about it because it’s different and 5 minutes learning is FAR too much for busy busy people.

I was comparing to Unbuntu LTS support (which is of more use to users who are reliant on a certain feature) as opposed to upgrade frequency. I’m well aware of how often they update (though you must have lucked out as 12.04 to 12.10 was nothing but a pain in Lubuntu and basically needed a full reinstall).

I used a Mac in the early 90s and that was unreliable, slow, and prone to viruses. The Macs of today are built on the same foundation so obviously they are going to be the same. Also I had a laptop running Ubuntu that kept crashing. Macs are basically Unix, so I would expect the same from a Mac too. Simple common sense.

LOL!

If there’s any weak link on the malware getting on to the machine (OSX/Win/Linux/IOS/Android/Blackberry/…), it’s the animate object fondling the screen, clicking the keys, and complaining about a # key missing or a deficient number of buttons on the mouse

12.04 to 12.10

is a LTS to “testing” upgrade, not stable LTS to stable LTS.

I have *never* heard of any Mac being prone to viruses

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/11/24/apple-mac-malware-short-history/

http://mac-antivirus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/history-of-macintosh-viruses.html