A rant on XP

imac davidimac david
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
A rant.



Why oh why do people persist in claiming XP is as good/stable as OSX? I had a PC a few years ago running Win98, and when the daily crashes became too much I bought the G4 iMac and ?retired?the PC. Skip forward 2 years, and I needed the PC in my holiday home to basically act as a TV, watch DVDs, and be a music jukebox.



So, I bought a new HD, bought WinXP, reformatted everything, and started from scratch. Until last weekend, everything was fine (apart from the firewire interface disappearing once I installed the WinTV card a year ago, but that didn?t really matter as I wasn?t going to do any video editing).



Last weekend I popped in a DVD to watch as usual (I only switch this machine on every fortnight, it isn?t linked to a phone line, and I never install new software) and the film was jumpy, not the smooth picture I usually see. I try another DVD, same result.



So what happened?!?! Why has something changed? What can have changed? I don?t play games on this machine, I can?t surf the net, I don?t install software, nothing. The HD isn?t full, the RAM seems fine, but something has changed.



And yet people claim it?s as good as OSX? And, as I say, I don?t even push XP.



(BTW, I think I found the answer - the PC was expecting some sort of high speed network to be running. Why I have no idea as that PC has never been networked in its entire existence).



End of rant



David

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    It's because it's the best they've ever seen, and most PC users still think OS 9, Platinum, and G3 iMacs are the latest Apple has to offer.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    BLAME APPLE!



    ADVERTISE OSX!!! it worked for iPod, so why the fuck does apple keep osx a secret, relying on good and great reviews from places like pc world and other PC oriented mags, If apple made a set of ads for pop culture say MTV/VH1, a set for biz world for like cnbc, msnbc, cnn and bloomberg, and print, from WSJ to NYtimes to USA Today to People.



    If apple would spend say 20 million dollars to get out the word and have promotions.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    My experience is that individual unstable apps on XP are more likely to cause system-wide problems on XP than on OS X. I've had to reboot my PC at work a few times recently because an old copy of Metrowerks Codewarrior that I'm using will crash occasionally, and when it does, the whole computer gets so sluggish that it's almost frozen, it takes several minutes to get the Task Manager up so that the CW can be killed, takes a while for CW to actually die, and then even after CW finally dies Iu'll often find other apps acting strangely, like not wanting to quit when I try to quit them, etc.



    Codewarrior isn't the only app I've seen cause problems like this for other apps and the rest of XP, just the most recent example.



    At least now that I've upped the RAM in my PC (from 512 MB to 1 GB) I don't find myself rebooting as often because of my PC getting more and more sluggish over time since the last reboot.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    adamraoadamrao Posts: 175member
    The primary difficulty I have with WinXP is the fact that it's not a "true" multi-tasking OS. Mac OS X is. In XP, EVERYTHING is linked together, connected, mixed up, etc. In Mac OS X, NOTHING is.



    Example: Want to delete Internet Explorer (default web browser in XP) in Windows? Never. Want to delete Safari (default web browser in OS X) on a Mac? Go ahead.



    Outside of the Finder, everything on the Mac, even the things that Apple includes with the OS, is removable and unconnected. iPhoto, iTunes, Mail, TextEdit, etc. They can all be removed. Ever try to remove NotePad in Windows? Forget about it.



    That's not even including the problems of fragmentation on Windows compared to Mac OS X... that would've been my guess as to why your system slowed down on your DVD playback.



    Mac OS X isn't perfect... but it's pretty darn close. Now if only we could get more apps for the Mac... we'd be in business.



    Dittos on the advertising. Why not make a commercial that shows something simple and cool on Mac OS X? Call it the "can you do this on your PC" ad campaign. Like dragging a picture from a website to the desktop? Or showcase the widgets in Tiger? I wish they would do that as well... <Sigh>
  • Reply 5 of 6
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by adamrao

    Outside of the Finder, everything on the Mac, even the things that Apple includes with the OS, is removable and unconnected. iPhoto, iTunes, Mail, TextEdit, etc. They can all be removed. Ever try to remove NotePad in Windows? Forget about it.



    Actually, for most situations the Finder can also be removed. Instead, place an alias to the default application you want to launch in place of the Finder application deep in /System, and away you go.



    There are still some requests that applications make that assume the existence of the Finder, but they're getting more rare as Apple pulls that functionality out into components and frameworks. The Finder is quickly becoming a simple file tree viewer, much like iTunes is a music catalog viewer.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    clonenodeclonenode Posts: 392member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by a_greer

    BLAME APPLE!



    ADVERTISE OSX!!! it worked for iPod, so why the fuck does apple keep osx a secret, relying on good and great reviews from places like pc world and other PC oriented mags, If apple made a set of ads for pop culture say MTV/VH1, a set for biz world for like cnbc, msnbc, cnn and bloomberg, and print, from WSJ to NYtimes to USA Today to People.



    If apple would spend say 20 million dollars to get out the word and have promotions.



    We've all seen this before! But OS X is NOT a product Apple wants to promote that way... the Macintosh computer is the main thing. Microsoft advertises Windows because that's all they've got. An OS as a product. They're pretty one dimensional. Apple, on the other hand, is deep; the OS is deep, the hardware is deep. Too much to communicate in a 10-30 second commercial. Besides, that's not their style. And the iPod has proven that! They don't sit and spell out how easy it is to use and connect to your computer... they just show stylized people dancing and enjoying their music.



    Enough!
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