My Month With XP.

[themacko]

I converted from a Windows user to a Mac user in August of 2001. I got myself an iBook 500 after my PC was stolen out of my dorm room at the end of the previous semester.

I used that iBook the entire school year and I loved. I vowed I would never go back to a PC as my personal computer. We all know the reasons why.

Anyway, as this Spring semester came to a close I decided that I needed more from my computer. More hard drive space, a cd burner and a faster graphics card for Wolfenstein. So I sold my iBook in preperation of getting an iMac at the end of this summer.

I am now living back with my folks while I wait for my friends lease's to end (we're getting a place together) and I have been using my father's Gateway PC with Windows XP for the past month and a half.

It wasn't much of a problem at first .. then the little annoyances started. Internet Explorer crashes and wants to send an 'error report' at least once a day. The entire machine crashes once a week, on at least one occasion it crashed on me four times in twenty minutes. I went completely ape and almost threw the monitor out the window.

Norton Anti-Virus and Firewall continually bothered me about protective maintenance. Not to mention, if I had more than 5 programs open at once (ie; WinAmp, Word, Explorer, Acrobat and AIM) the computer seemed to grind to a hault.

This is not a slow computer, either. In fact, it is a rather new Pentium 4 1.4 GHz with 256 mb ram.

To top it all off, over the weekend his computer literally died. It began re-starting itself w/o any warning and loosing all sorts of data. It has now been at our local 'Gateway Country' store for 3 days with no light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

In conclusion, when I get my new computer in about a month, it will definately NOT be a PC. I actually concidered one when my father almost got me a Sony VAIO laptop .. but I would rather spend my own money on a computer that would work the way I wanted it to, than get a free XP box.

I am actually quite bored in between summer classes today, so feel free not to respond. Just thought I'd take part in the whole 'switch' thing that's going on. I guess I can call this, www.apple.com/stay.

[xaqintosh]

I think I speak for the entire Mac OS X community when I tell you that I feel sincerely sorry for you about your entire MONTH havbing to use nothing but Windows, and I am grateful it wasn't me

edit: ok, some of the Mac OS X community

[~~NeYo~~]

hmmm, i'm sorry to Hear of your Misfortune with XP, and the PC! Personally, i share a Very Different View, all except one thing! ever since early Whistler BETA's, there was Some Conflict between Nvidia GPU's or Namely the Detonator Drivers, and XP! almost everytime i load a Game, requiring 3D hardware Accelertion, XP will lock up, and after insisting XP doesn't Just Restart, but Give me a BSOD, i came to the conclusion that it was the Nvidia / XP relation ... the term "nv4_disp.dll" was the cause for ALL BSOD's! this is something i have Found VERY annoying, as its been around for over a year, with no fix from either M$ Nor any set of Detonator's from Nvidia!

However, besides this little Mishap, which occurs merely randomly. i can honestly say, XP Works pretty much a charm!
As you all know, my XP has had Considerable vital System Files hacked, and So forth, but it remains to work Perfectly, alongside a good 10 or More Apps, which add Eye Candy or mac like Objects to the Computer, totalling, 300mb or so RAM in use, on idle! i do have 768B inside, which seems to help Considerably!

Despite the praise i have for Microsoft's BEST OS, i to, am planning to move to Mac, for a few reasons, and Should get my iBook (500) back real soon! (We started alike, "themacko" ).

NeYo

[azosx]

I bought a Cube last year for a discount price when they were discontinued and loved it. Being a PC user for over a decaded, this was something new and exciting, especially with OS X. The Cube had it's share of problems. It liked to turn on by itself at times and would freeze completely on a gray screen at boot for no apparent reason. I sent it in to Apple and they fixed it under warranty and has run near flawless since.

Now the time had come to replace my Dell laptop that had been running flawlessly for about 3 years now. The warranty was almost up so I decided to buy a PowerBook G4. It arrived several days after ordering it, unfortunately, out of the box it had peeling paint, a black mark across the underside near the battery, and a non functioning A/C port. I'm a pretty forgiving person, I run a business and understand these things happen so I called up Apple and they were nice enough to "make an exception" to fix the cosmetic defects and would repair the A/C port under warranty.

To my surprise this took 3 weeks, and when I got my PowerBook back, a brown greasy substance was oozing from the LCD hinges, covering the keyboard, screen and top and bottom of the PowerBook. A 5 in scratch ran across the top left of the LCD and the A/C port was still not functioning. "Ok" i thought, "it looks like they've been using it to change car tires for the last 3 weeks, lovely." I called Apple immediately and explained the condition my PowerBook came back in. While on hold I was holding the PowerBook and for no other reason than boredom, depressed the PC card slot eject button. Amazingly, it would not reseat into the machine. One more thing to add to the list of growing problems. Next, a repair technician came on the phone and acussed me of mishandling the unit and causing these problem. He then said he'd make an acception to fix the damage one more time. Rather pissed off by now I called back and was transferred to a product specialist, she was very nice and put my unit on a loop to insure it would be fixed in the least amount of time. When they got the laptop for the second time now, they mistakenly opened it up under the wrong case number so it again took nearly 3 weeks to fix. Oh, did I mention, I'm a college student well into summer session and have had no laptop for over a month?

So the PowerBook comes back, A/C port still is not functioning and now the unit has a distinctive rattle when picked up. Kind of like a screw is tumbling around on the inside of the machine. Atleast I'll never beable to mistakenly identify my PowerBook should the need ever arise.

I called back the product specialist who helped me get the repairs "expedited" and told her my problems. She tried to convince me that the A/C port was normal and the rattle I hear is common with all PowerBooks. Basically she blew me off, no longer wanting to deal with this issue.

It's pretty sad I had to go out of my way, take this thing across town to a Certified Apple Repair Center and have them tell me what I knew all along, the machine is broken.

These guys were awesome, they told me this was total BS, that by now Apple should be replacing the unit and what I should say to them to insure this happens. They also told me to have Apple call them if any problems should arise.

Apple is in the process of replacing the PowerBook. After a month and a half and having dropped several grand on something, I have absolutely nothing to show for it.

In anycase, I can relate to your PC woes, just with a Mac instead. Am I never going to touch a Mac again, no, crap happens. I guess some of us are just more open minded than others.

[Alexandert]

Ok. I switched. From Mac to PC. At first I felt sad about it. But now after a month of using my machine I can say that this Machine ROCKS!!! I love it. I LOVE MY MACHINE!

But I hate the OS!

Loc at my sig. there you can find my specs. The Ge-Force Ti 4 is just awesome! All games I ever wanted (for over 12 years of mac use) run fast as s...! With 6x FSAA turned on, Antisotropic Filtering and so on and so on... I bought everything over the internet and got everything in 24 hours for about 1200€! Im sure it will kick every Macs ass in games and co.. I dont often use Photoshop and stuff. So this machine just rocks!

One thing about the OS. I worked with OS X for over 1 year. less then 30 days with XP. And I can say that XP is crap. Related to OS X it just................. No I cant find a word for that. Just bad. In that time I found out how to deactivate the "Oh, your computer crashed. Lets talk to microsoft about it. Please put down you personall life" - dialogs. It crashed in this 30 days 3 times. (Because the Ge-Ti 4 is new and the drivers suck)


Ok, the moral of all this???

I hated PCs. I used to call them PeeCees. And I would like to say that my mind changed totally! I love my PC. Because I had to build it up from the ground I feel like having a "baby". This Machine has incredible power. And with all the equippment it shipped with (BLUETOOTH!!! ONBOARD!!!) it kicks the digital hubs ass by far!

BUT

All this power is nothing without a good OS which can use the full potential of your machine. XP is the best System Micros... has? Cool. But its shit. I would really love OS X on my machine. That would be just great.

As I'm writing this I'm using Win2k and it works flawlessly.I like the way the Explorer is integrated into the system. Whereever you are you can just type an adress into the window and 2 secs later it opens it. (Its so much faster in Internet things!)

So what did we learn???

XP sucks but PCs are good. I dont thing Apple would do such a big mistake If the bring X to PC.


(Sorry for bad english, language, spelling, word and all the other bad stuff in this text)

[kanecorp]

themacko...maybe you dont know of to use a PC...
i have 5, Some with XP Pro and some with 2000 Pro, i have non of the problems you have....

[xaqintosh]

I'm getting very depressed by this thread, too much Pro-XP and Anti-Mac



edit: I have left this thread for good

[bubbajim]

xaqintosh: There no need to worry. Just step out of this thread and pick the plethera of threads out there that are more cheerful .

Back to this thread though... azosx: I can't believe that Apple would do such a thing unless there was reasons to suspect something.. I'm not saying you did anything to the unit or displacing blame, but I am just indicating that sometimes a conversation can go the wrong way. Once that was done they keep that info in a consumer log and any future conversations w/Apple tech will bring up your previous encounters with them.
I am in agreement with you though and would have not even accepted the fact that they sent a scratched up unit in the first place (Is the unit new or refurbished?) Though the joyage was long and hard, I think none the less you will enjoy your laptop.