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I just switched from Mac to Windows and had to move back. I cannot believe how miserable the Windows experience is. I mistakenly thought that since so much is b

by pbreit 7y ago

I just switched from Mac to Windows and had to move back. I cannot believe how miserable the Windows experience is. I mistakenly thought that since so much is browser-based, it's not a big deal. But literally every single little thing is slightly-to-much worse on Windows. Even stupid things like changing scroll direction, saving the 5 second preference for notifications to disappear, finding a wifi password, arranging windows, remembering window positions after disconnects, saving screen shots, etc, etc, etc. Not having a Unix shell is of course ludicrous. Pretty fair article, though.

diminoten 7y ago
If you're changing the scroll direction, you're not moving, you're trying to recreate your MacOS experience on Windows, and it isn't surprising that didn't go well.
- klodolph 7y ago
  It's cheap to change a configuration setting. It's expensive to rewire habit.
  - diminoten 7y ago
    It's cheap but crippling.
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  I used to have a Surface Pro and it had the option for changing the scroll direction. From a quick google, Microsoft has supported this since at least 2013: https://tablets.gadgethacks.com/how-to/reverse-scrolling-direction-your-microsoft-surfaces-trackpad-windows-8-1-0149145/ https://tablets.gadgethacks.com/how-to/reverse-scrolling-dir... But it was a feature limited to their own devices, and was set via a special Trackpad Settings app that you had to download from the Windows Store, not a standard part of the OS. Which is a pretty good example of why I don't use Windows much anymore.
  - hermitdev 7y ago
    What does changing the scroll direction do? If you physically scroll on the trackpad horizontally, does it scroll vertically and visa versa? Not familiar with it, so curiously asking.
    - saratogacx 7y ago
      Think of it like a phone vs a scroll bar. Which option is "correct" is largely a result of personal preference. On a phone, you drag the page so when your finger moves up, you are scrolling down. MacOS has had this be the standard for a long time. Changing the direction makes touch scroll act like you're click-dragging on a scroll bar. when your finger moves down, you scroll down.
    - wlesieutre 7y ago
      It inverts the direction (up swaps with down and left swaps with right) from the previous trackpad scrolling behavior. Before 10.7, the scroll behavior acts like you've grabbed the scroll bar and your fingers drag it, so moving your fingers down makes the scroll grip move down and the page content move up. Moving your fingers left makes the scroll grip move left and the page content move right. The scrolling paradigm is that your fingers grab the viewport and move it with respect to the content. In 10.7 and later, it instead acts as though your fingers are grabbing the content and moving it around within a stationary viewport. So moving your fingers up pushes the content upward. So the scroll interaction is like the direct interaction on a touchscreen, but via a trackpad instead.
- NeoBasilisk 7y ago
  I was scared to ask what this was even referring to
  - wlesieutre 7y ago
    Apple calls this setting "Scroll direction: Natural" and describes it as "Content tracks finger movement." That's been their default since back in 2011, and although a lot of people disabled it at the time I definitely prefer this mode of scroll interaction. It's more direct and is consistent across all the gadgets I use. It acts like you're grabbing the content and moving it around, rather than grabbing a scroll indicator at the side of the page and pushing that up or down. Especially when you factor in other gestures like pinch to zoom with multitouch trackpads, it now very weird to turn this off. For zoom, it feels like you're grabbing the content, but then when you pan suddenly you're grabbing the viewport instead? Next time you're on a Mac, open up Maps and try it both ways. The fact that grabbing content this way feels natural may have a bit to do with Apple having large, smooth, and very responsive trackpads. YMMV on other hardware.
    - mynegation 7y ago
      I tried it both ways and switched to the traditional scrolling. Changing the default once is a small and one time price to pay vs changing the decades of ingrained habits. I don’t ever touch laptop screen even if it is touch enabled. To me mouse is strictly superior to touchpad which is superior to touchscreen and keyboard - outside of operations that require precise positioning on the surface of the screen - is superior to pretty much everything. I thought about why I prefer things this way and decided that it is about travel time. With a touch screen if you want to love from a to b your finger has to travel all the way, whereas mouse can be tuned for maximal sensitivity. And for operations where you can use a keyboard shortcut the interaction time is even more immediate.
      - wlesieutre 7y ago
        I like both depending on context. CAD and gaming, definitely a mouse. But for general use I like the trackpad better. Scrolling is smoother and Apple's multitouch gestures for window/desktop management are really fast and natural. Once upon a time I had an 8 button mouse with several of the buttons bound to Exposé functions, but I don't think I'd go back to that from Apple's trackpads.
- dpkonofa 7y ago
  How is scroll direction, in any way, restricted to a MacOS experience when Windows has had the option for years? I also have the scroll direction set that way because it makes more sense for me when I use the touch screen. It's one of many ways that the UI on Apple devices makes a lot of sense but I don't see why that's somehow a "MacOS experience". Nonsense.
jamra 7y ago
There is a better terminal coming out, but I use Cmder in the meantime. Taking screenshots has a shortcut key. Alt + Shift + S. I use a screen manager called Aqua Snap. It's great. I turned off notifications. They are awful. I use Windows and OSX, but I understand how you feel. I still prefer OSX.
- dijit 7y ago
  These are good tips, I'm not a windows user and would have never found that hotkey or aqua snap. Do you have any more tips? It might be asking too much but perhaps you could write something up?
  - jamra 7y ago
    Ok. I don't have the mental capacity to write something up at the moment, but here's another one. In Windows, you now have a Spaces alternative (It hasn't been called Spaces for a while). It's super cool. You hit WindowsKey + Tab and up top there are desktops. You can use the plus sign to create a new one and continue to use that expose like feature to drag apps between desktops. Next, you can either navigate via expose or you can Ctrl + Windows + [Left | Right] to change between them. If you're doing any kind of javascript development, there is NVM, which will allow you to change node versions. That's a nice tool. For installing software, some people use Chocolatey. There is some danger because there isn't any code signing as far as I know so I don't use it. But basically, that is a tool that allows you to install apps into windows with a config file. For MITM proxy, Fiddler2 is pretty great. For process management, there is a whole suite of tools called SysInternals. They allow you to see which processes are open and the files they are accessing. That can help tremendously in certain scenarios. Rainmeter is a cool desktop customization tool that you don't have as good alternatives on OSX. 7zip is a must have for compression. Deluge is a decent torrent client. Some of the console commands you want to learn are ipconfig [/all] to check your IP address. On Task Manager, you can set affinity to certain CPUs so that processes don't eat up all of your CPUs. That's a neat trick. I'd have to get a good night's sleep before I can think of anything else, but I hope it was helpful. Edit: Oh and I almost forgot.. You do have a Unix shell on windows. You can google how to turn on "bash subsystem for windows". Then you can install Ubuntu. I don't think it's virtualized. But I still currently prefer Cmder since I can copy and paste on it. But yes it's linux and you can mount your C drive and just linux away at your windows. Pretty soon, their new terminal with better font rendering should be a show stopper. It's currently on some kind of preview that can only be run on pre release versions of Windows 10 so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting.
crispinb 7y ago
I haven't found it as bad as that, but agree it's a poorer desktop environment in lots of mostly small ways than macOS. I don't know how you work out it doesn't have a unix shell though. It does, in the estimation of many a better one by default than on macs.
- hermitdev 7y ago
  WSL is pretty great, and if you're targeting Linux for deployment, it's somewhat superior than OS X. For one, it repects the case sensitivity of the file system on Linux (by default) while OS X is (by default) case insensitive like Windows (you can make OS X's filesystem case sensitive, but I've read it can cause problems with the OS and some apps that assume the default behavior. I've never really used a Mac much, but it did cause a problem at a previous employer where most devs on the team worked on Macs natively and then tests would pass locally and fail in CI, because the CI was running on the target Linux config. I'd usually notice them first as I'd run the tests on my Linux VM (pre WSL) and anything with a case mismatch in a config or module import would fail. Was a pain to fix the first time because of bad assumptions about the Mac env, but subsequent issues were quickly fixed. One big issue I ran into with WSL (not sure it's been fixed, not an issue for me anymore) was building large C++ projects under WSL with MacAfee installed. Apparently a known issue, but it (MacAfee) would leak memory like a seive as it scanned the files in a way that wasnt recoverable. The only way to get the memory back was to reboot. Even after the processes in WSL ended, the memory was lost. You couldn't see what process was using the mem. But, it showed in the system utilization. It is possible to hard freeze Windows due to this bug. Solution? Uninstall MacAfee. Had to have an antivirus due to company rules and (I think) financial regs, but Defender didn't leak memory and was sufficient (albeit slow while building). Don't know if it's still an issue as I haven't used that configuration in close to a year and a half. There have been issues with the Console Host (I noticed artifacts using Vim in bash under WSL under certain circumstances), good news is that the Console Host is getting much needed love and is probably getting the most attention it has in over a decade. Its already improved quite a bit, and some big changes are coming soon. Also, the team behind it is very engaged on Github issues (the source isn't available, but they use GH for issue tracking directly from the public without having to use the Feedback Hub or file an issue with MS support).
rayiner 7y ago
Same thing here. Sold my 2013 MBP and bought a Thinkpad X1 carbon. After a year of frustration, bought a used 2013 MBP. Windows is somehow worse than it used to be. There's two control centers for some reason. Much more notifications and intrusiveness. Taskbar auto-hide doesn't work consistently. Updates install without permission. The big thing is the apps. Apps are getting much less functional (just like how the Settings app does a fraction of what Control Center used to do.) OneNote is a great example: the UWP version lost so much functionality compared to ON 2016, but the latter has been abandoned. Weirdly enough, I never found a good PDF viewer. Acrobat DC is a slow and a battery hog. Edge/Chrome are non-functional (don't handle search properly on many PDFs). Many alternatives are .NET based on battery hogs. Moreover, since Edge/Chrome won't let you use a PDF plugin anymore, the workflow is completely broken. (Download the PDF then open it in a separate app.) I never thought that Preview would be the "must have" Mac app. Oh, and the trackpad! RDP from a Mac into a Windows terminal server is a better mousing/scrolling experience than native windows on the X1 (which has an MS Precision touchpad). Oh, and power management was real hit-and-miss. Sometimes I'd get a full 10 hours, and sometimes, under the same workload, it'd be like 6. The synaptics touchpad comes with a driver (even though it's supposed to be an MS Precision touchpad) that had some helper utility that would randomly go crazy. (If you killed it, it would restart automatically. Deleting the binary fixed that, and had no discernable affect on mouse behavior.)
- wtallis 7y ago
  > Deleting the binary fixed that, and had no discernable affect on mouse behavior. In my experience, deleting the Synaptics binaries does restore access to the operating system's built-in touchpad control panel, rather than forcing you to use the Synaptics utilities that appear to be barely modified from what I remember encountering on a Windows 95 machine. That makes it quite a bit easier to take advantage of the halfway-decent set of configuration options that Windows now offers. You have to repeat the purging after upgrading to a new Windows build, or if Windows Update tries to reinstall the Synaptics drivers behind your back. (Updated userspace tools shipped as part of driver updates don't show in the list of installed Windows updates!)
- mdorazio 7y ago
  > Windows is somehow worse than it used to be. I have to agree. I use Windows probably 90% of the time, but I have to say it peaked with Windows 7 and started going downhill with 8. Now it's a game of "guess which config system has the option you need" + Microsoft forcing all kinds of things power users really should be able to disable.
Kneighbor 7y ago
Same - here's how my story went: Upgraded from my 2009 MBP to a 2017 MBP a couple years ago. Immediately regretted the purchase after the keyboard screwed up multiple times so I returned within 14 days for a refund. Ended up buying a Surface Pro and hated it. Upon booting up my machine I was instantly met with severe backlight bleeding so I returned it. The store gave me another device - same issue. This time I decided to see if I can put up with it. I immediately regretted not having a proper shell for dev work. In addition to this, I couldn't believe how hard it was to remove certain applications/programs from the computer. Why is there a menu for Apps and also one for Programs and Features? These issues kept piling up until after a few days I returned it again. Decided to grab a 2015 MBP from the Apple refurb store and have used it since. No regrets.
keithnz 7y ago
not having a unix shell? you read the article right? the part about how you can run a unix shell with WSL? you don't have to bash on windows, but now you can bash on windows ;)
tomc1985 7y ago
It's a different platform. If you want it to be a mac, use a mac.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Groxx 7y ago
Just to +1 the experiences here: I have a surface pro 4. I enjoy the touchscreen for some things, but otherwise I roundly hate it, almost entirely due to Windows. Some things work in touchpad mode, some don't, sometimes a feature is crippled in one mode, the gestures are finicky and weird and the only reason I know how to use them is because I read a few blog posts, notifications that are undismissable for no reason, and sometimes the touchscreen keyboard doesn't come up for 30 seconds. The very best thing I've done has been to mark every network as "metered" so it stops auto-installing (non-critical) updates and forcing lengthy shutdowns. The only downside (if you can call it that) is that now it seems update is half-broken most of the time, and it won't find updates for a month or two even if I say "check now". Sometimes it works for like a week or two and I can pull updates about every day like I'd expect, and on the day of their release, so it's pretty clear when it's broken. It's usually broken. --- I have Elementary OS installed on it too. It's a much better experience, except for needing a custom kernel for touchscreen (a simple google + apt-get away, thankfully, which is about my limit to put up with), and I don't know how to get the on-screen keyboard to be available at login. There's just so much less nonsense though.
- dublin 7y ago
  If you've marked every network as metered, then Windows is doing exactly what you told it and NOT upgrading over those networks. Even a manual update request should fail, because you've already told it not to upgrade over a metered network. It's not Microsoft's fault you're an idiot...
  - Groxx 7y ago
    Manual requests intentionally bypass that, as their own documentation states when you enable that setting. Plus "check for updates when I press a button" is enormously different than "automatically download and install updates in the background". Wanting one without the other is entirely reasonable and technically simple. Even if it wasn't, it's unreasonable to offer a "check for updates" button that just turns into an indefinite progress bar forever without mentioning "can't check on this network" or something. Also, as I mentioned, it does work sometimes, which is why it's clear when it's breaking. Though I didn't mention it earlier, it remains broken even when I turn off the metered mode, so yea. I'm pretty sure the updater is just plain broken most of the time.
h1d 7y ago
I feel sympathetic to Windows OS developers because the code must be a huge bloat to keep up with decades of backward compatibility and have to go through codes that many generations of people had written to even change a thing which made it pretty much stuck on its own weight. But I can probably still be fine what OS I am on as long as it has quality third party apps but interestingly as a web dev, it's all on macOS and have no intention of moving away as it'll kill my smooth workflow. Tried to check if I could use Windows for it a few years ago but figured it's a pain in a few hours. I can see MS is trying though, when they start including Linux in Windows. And I like their tooling very much, like VS Code and TypeScript but I don't see myself switching away at least for the next 5 years.
nwallin 7y ago
My biggest peeve about windows is how it sends my laptop to sleep when I close the lid. You're plugged into a docking station with a keyboard, monitor, and mouse connected. I have several windows open on the monitor. No windows open on the tiny crappy laptop screen. Why the fartnugget do you think closing the laptop means "go to sleep"?! I didn't buy a docking station, monitor, keyboard and mouse to augment the shitty laptop keyboard, shitty laptop trackpad, and shitty laptop screen, I bought those things to replace them (but still be able to function while traveling). Also windows absolutely refuses to update. It didn't update to 1803 without downloading the install iso manually, it didn't update to 1806, and now it's refusing to update to 1903. Windows (also visual studio, but that's another story) is incredibly just... Bad. The reliance on the mouse and generally terrible keyboard shortcut story annoys me, but it can be fixed with third party software which is ok I guess. Rant over. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.
- alushta 7y ago
  What happens when you close the lid is a configurable option: https://youtu.be/OFfDSEoneok https://youtu.be/OFfDSEoneok
- ToFab123 7y ago
  That is very simple to change. Settings --> power and sleep options --> Additional power options --> Choose what closing the lid does Or from command line https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Quickly-change-the-lid-b78eb77d https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Quickly-c...
  - soylentcola 7y ago
    And if you're lazy like me, just hit the Win key, type "lid", and click "change what closing the lid does" from the results.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  > Also windows absolutely refuses to update. It didn't update to 1803 without downloading the install iso manually, it didn't update to 1806, and now it's refusing to update to 1903. Microsoft has leaned very conservative in offering the feature updates after complaints from the earlier ones. Especially if your laptop has high usage patterns that likely suggest a work laptop it may not offer you the feature update until late in the cycle. Or in some cases specific hardware or software installed. (A big block right now still for 1903 is it can be hesitant if you have a lot of unpatched games installed because several versions of highly deployed anti-cheat software cause BSODs if not up to date, affecting even major games like Fortnite.) There is a good alternative to downloading the ISO, called the Update Assistant. It's an app that can tell you why you are currently blocked, if that is the case, and/or force install the update. It's at the top of this download page (the "Update Now" button in the gray region, not the Media Creation Tool below it): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
thiht 7y ago
Keep in mind you might be heavily biased because you're used to macOS. When I had to switch from Windows 10 to macOS last year for work, I was flabbergasted at how the general UX sucked compared to what I expected: - it's not possible to switch between multiple windows of the same application with Cmd+Tab - it's not possible to display two windows side by side without switching to fullscreen mode - it's hard to make some applications take the whole screen without using the weird fullscreen mode - the apps don't close when you click the close button. I get that there used to be a reason for this, nowadays it's just bad design - it's not possible at all to split the screen horizontally - multi-monitor sucks hard - there's no mini calendar on the clock - the contextual top bar is awful - the Finder is a monstrosity - Cmd+shift+4 for a screen capture? come on... - the difference between cmd, option and control is still not clear There are a lot of good things on macOS but come on, a lot of things suck really bad > finding a wifi password what? > arranging windows No. Just no.
- dasKrokodil 7y ago
  I agree with all of this and would like to add that Windows is much better than OS X if you have a keyboard-centric workflow. For example, if you want to navigate dialog windows with the keyboard, you can just press Alt + one of the underscored letters to directly press a button in Windows. In OS X, you have to press tab a million times until you have reached your desired button and then press space... The window management via keyboard is also much better in Windows. Also I hate that the Home/End keys are broken in OS X. I get that you can use command+right/left instead, but that doesn't work in the terminal for some reason :(
  - ymolodtsov 7y ago
    >> In OS X, you have to press tab a million times until you have reached your desired button and then press space... What do you mean? If you have a dialog button you just need to click Cmd-"First letter of the command that you need". The system never teaches you, true, but it's there.
    - dasKrokodil 7y ago
ThoAppelsin 7y ago
"Saving screenshots" Nice way to hint that you are definitely being sarcastic, because cmd+something+3 surely and clearly is no way intuitive, contrary to the use of dedicated Print Screen key on Windows.
- skygazer 7y ago
  Just to point for the unfamiliar, the "hotkey" defaults for screen shotting are user configurable on macOS, in System Preferences/Keyboard/Shortcuts. In fact, shortcuts can be changed not only for all actions, but also menu items in any/all programs can be remapped to desired key combos, or indeed added for menu items with default hotkeys. This is actually staggeringly powerful, and frequently overlooked.

by pbreit 7y ago

diminoten 7y ago

If you're changing the scroll direction, you're not moving, you're trying to recreate your MacOS experience on Windows, and it isn't surprising that didn't go well.

klodolph 7y ago
It's cheap to change a configuration setting. It's expensive to rewire habit.
- diminoten 7y ago
  It's cheap but crippling.
wlesieutre 7y ago
I used to have a Surface Pro and it had the option for changing the scroll direction. From a quick google, Microsoft has supported this since at least 2013: https://tablets.gadgethacks.com/how-to/reverse-scrolling-direction-your-microsoft-surfaces-trackpad-windows-8-1-0149145/ https://tablets.gadgethacks.com/how-to/reverse-scrolling-dir... But it was a feature limited to their own devices, and was set via a special Trackpad Settings app that you had to download from the Windows Store, not a standard part of the OS. Which is a pretty good example of why I don't use Windows much anymore.
- hermitdev 7y ago
  What does changing the scroll direction do? If you physically scroll on the trackpad horizontally, does it scroll vertically and visa versa? Not familiar with it, so curiously asking.
  - saratogacx 7y ago
    Think of it like a phone vs a scroll bar. Which option is "correct" is largely a result of personal preference. On a phone, you drag the page so when your finger moves up, you are scrolling down. MacOS has had this be the standard for a long time. Changing the direction makes touch scroll act like you're click-dragging on a scroll bar. when your finger moves down, you scroll down.
  - wlesieutre 7y ago
    It inverts the direction (up swaps with down and left swaps with right) from the previous trackpad scrolling behavior. Before 10.7, the scroll behavior acts like you've grabbed the scroll bar and your fingers drag it, so moving your fingers down makes the scroll grip move down and the page content move up. Moving your fingers left makes the scroll grip move left and the page content move right. The scrolling paradigm is that your fingers grab the viewport and move it with respect to the content. In 10.7 and later, it instead acts as though your fingers are grabbing the content and moving it around within a stationary viewport. So moving your fingers up pushes the content upward. So the scroll interaction is like the direct interaction on a touchscreen, but via a trackpad instead.
NeoBasilisk 7y ago
I was scared to ask what this was even referring to
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  Apple calls this setting "Scroll direction: Natural" and describes it as "Content tracks finger movement." That's been their default since back in 2011, and although a lot of people disabled it at the time I definitely prefer this mode of scroll interaction. It's more direct and is consistent across all the gadgets I use. It acts like you're grabbing the content and moving it around, rather than grabbing a scroll indicator at the side of the page and pushing that up or down. Especially when you factor in other gestures like pinch to zoom with multitouch trackpads, it now very weird to turn this off. For zoom, it feels like you're grabbing the content, but then when you pan suddenly you're grabbing the viewport instead? Next time you're on a Mac, open up Maps and try it both ways. The fact that grabbing content this way feels natural may have a bit to do with Apple having large, smooth, and very responsive trackpads. YMMV on other hardware.
  - mynegation 7y ago
    I tried it both ways and switched to the traditional scrolling. Changing the default once is a small and one time price to pay vs changing the decades of ingrained habits. I don’t ever touch laptop screen even if it is touch enabled. To me mouse is strictly superior to touchpad which is superior to touchscreen and keyboard - outside of operations that require precise positioning on the surface of the screen - is superior to pretty much everything. I thought about why I prefer things this way and decided that it is about travel time. With a touch screen if you want to love from a to b your finger has to travel all the way, whereas mouse can be tuned for maximal sensitivity. And for operations where you can use a keyboard shortcut the interaction time is even more immediate.
    - wlesieutre 7y ago
      I like both depending on context. CAD and gaming, definitely a mouse. But for general use I like the trackpad better. Scrolling is smoother and Apple's multitouch gestures for window/desktop management are really fast and natural. Once upon a time I had an 8 button mouse with several of the buttons bound to Exposé functions, but I don't think I'd go back to that from Apple's trackpads.
dpkonofa 7y ago
How is scroll direction, in any way, restricted to a MacOS experience when Windows has had the option for years? I also have the scroll direction set that way because it makes more sense for me when I use the touch screen. It's one of many ways that the UI on Apple devices makes a lot of sense but I don't see why that's somehow a "MacOS experience". Nonsense.

jamra 7y ago

There is a better terminal coming out, but I use Cmder in the meantime. Taking screenshots has a shortcut key. Alt + Shift + S. I use a screen manager called Aqua Snap. It's great. I turned off notifications. They are awful. I use Windows and OSX, but I understand how you feel. I still prefer OSX.

dijit 7y ago
These are good tips, I'm not a windows user and would have never found that hotkey or aqua snap. Do you have any more tips? It might be asking too much but perhaps you could write something up?
- jamra 7y ago
  Ok. I don't have the mental capacity to write something up at the moment, but here's another one. In Windows, you now have a Spaces alternative (It hasn't been called Spaces for a while). It's super cool. You hit WindowsKey + Tab and up top there are desktops. You can use the plus sign to create a new one and continue to use that expose like feature to drag apps between desktops. Next, you can either navigate via expose or you can Ctrl + Windows + [Left | Right] to change between them. If you're doing any kind of javascript development, there is NVM, which will allow you to change node versions. That's a nice tool. For installing software, some people use Chocolatey. There is some danger because there isn't any code signing as far as I know so I don't use it. But basically, that is a tool that allows you to install apps into windows with a config file. For MITM proxy, Fiddler2 is pretty great. For process management, there is a whole suite of tools called SysInternals. They allow you to see which processes are open and the files they are accessing. That can help tremendously in certain scenarios. Rainmeter is a cool desktop customization tool that you don't have as good alternatives on OSX. 7zip is a must have for compression. Deluge is a decent torrent client. Some of the console commands you want to learn are ipconfig [/all] to check your IP address. On Task Manager, you can set affinity to certain CPUs so that processes don't eat up all of your CPUs. That's a neat trick. I'd have to get a good night's sleep before I can think of anything else, but I hope it was helpful. Edit: Oh and I almost forgot.. You do have a Unix shell on windows. You can google how to turn on "bash subsystem for windows". Then you can install Ubuntu. I don't think it's virtualized. But I still currently prefer Cmder since I can copy and paste on it. But yes it's linux and you can mount your C drive and just linux away at your windows. Pretty soon, their new terminal with better font rendering should be a show stopper. It's currently on some kind of preview that can only be run on pre release versions of Windows 10 so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting.

crispinb 7y ago

I haven't found it as bad as that, but agree it's a poorer desktop environment in lots of mostly small ways than macOS. I don't know how you work out it doesn't have a unix shell though. It does, in the estimation of many a better one by default than on macs.

hermitdev 7y ago
WSL is pretty great, and if you're targeting Linux for deployment, it's somewhat superior than OS X. For one, it repects the case sensitivity of the file system on Linux (by default) while OS X is (by default) case insensitive like Windows (you can make OS X's filesystem case sensitive, but I've read it can cause problems with the OS and some apps that assume the default behavior. I've never really used a Mac much, but it did cause a problem at a previous employer where most devs on the team worked on Macs natively and then tests would pass locally and fail in CI, because the CI was running on the target Linux config. I'd usually notice them first as I'd run the tests on my Linux VM (pre WSL) and anything with a case mismatch in a config or module import would fail. Was a pain to fix the first time because of bad assumptions about the Mac env, but subsequent issues were quickly fixed. One big issue I ran into with WSL (not sure it's been fixed, not an issue for me anymore) was building large C++ projects under WSL with MacAfee installed. Apparently a known issue, but it (MacAfee) would leak memory like a seive as it scanned the files in a way that wasnt recoverable. The only way to get the memory back was to reboot. Even after the processes in WSL ended, the memory was lost. You couldn't see what process was using the mem. But, it showed in the system utilization. It is possible to hard freeze Windows due to this bug. Solution? Uninstall MacAfee. Had to have an antivirus due to company rules and (I think) financial regs, but Defender didn't leak memory and was sufficient (albeit slow while building). Don't know if it's still an issue as I haven't used that configuration in close to a year and a half. There have been issues with the Console Host (I noticed artifacts using Vim in bash under WSL under certain circumstances), good news is that the Console Host is getting much needed love and is probably getting the most attention it has in over a decade. Its already improved quite a bit, and some big changes are coming soon. Also, the team behind it is very engaged on Github issues (the source isn't available, but they use GH for issue tracking directly from the public without having to use the Feedback Hub or file an issue with MS support).

rayiner 7y ago

Same thing here. Sold my 2013 MBP and bought a Thinkpad X1 carbon. After a year of frustration, bought a used 2013 MBP. Windows is somehow worse than it used to be. There's two control centers for some reason. Much more notifications and intrusiveness. Taskbar auto-hide doesn't work consistently. Updates install without permission. The big thing is the apps. Apps are getting much less functional (just like how the Settings app does a fraction of what Control Center used to do.) OneNote is a great example: the UWP version lost so much functionality compared to ON 2016, but the latter has been abandoned. Weirdly enough, I never found a good PDF viewer. Acrobat DC is a slow and a battery hog. Edge/Chrome are non-functional (don't handle search properly on many PDFs). Many alternatives are .NET based on battery hogs. Moreover, since Edge/Chrome won't let you use a PDF plugin anymore, the workflow is completely broken. (Download the PDF then open it in a separate app.) I never thought that Preview would be the "must have" Mac app. Oh, and the trackpad! RDP from a Mac into a Windows terminal server is a better mousing/scrolling experience than native windows on the X1 (which has an MS Precision touchpad). Oh, and power management was real hit-and-miss. Sometimes I'd get a full 10 hours, and sometimes, under the same workload, it'd be like 6. The synaptics touchpad comes with a driver (even though it's supposed to be an MS Precision touchpad) that had some helper utility that would randomly go crazy. (If you killed it, it would restart automatically. Deleting the binary fixed that, and had no discernable affect on mouse behavior.)

wtallis 7y ago
> Deleting the binary fixed that, and had no discernable affect on mouse behavior. In my experience, deleting the Synaptics binaries does restore access to the operating system's built-in touchpad control panel, rather than forcing you to use the Synaptics utilities that appear to be barely modified from what I remember encountering on a Windows 95 machine. That makes it quite a bit easier to take advantage of the halfway-decent set of configuration options that Windows now offers. You have to repeat the purging after upgrading to a new Windows build, or if Windows Update tries to reinstall the Synaptics drivers behind your back. (Updated userspace tools shipped as part of driver updates don't show in the list of installed Windows updates!)
mdorazio 7y ago
> Windows is somehow worse than it used to be. I have to agree. I use Windows probably 90% of the time, but I have to say it peaked with Windows 7 and started going downhill with 8. Now it's a game of "guess which config system has the option you need" + Microsoft forcing all kinds of things power users really should be able to disable.

Kneighbor 7y ago

Same - here's how my story went: Upgraded from my 2009 MBP to a 2017 MBP a couple years ago. Immediately regretted the purchase after the keyboard screwed up multiple times so I returned within 14 days for a refund. Ended up buying a Surface Pro and hated it. Upon booting up my machine I was instantly met with severe backlight bleeding so I returned it. The store gave me another device - same issue. This time I decided to see if I can put up with it. I immediately regretted not having a proper shell for dev work. In addition to this, I couldn't believe how hard it was to remove certain applications/programs from the computer. Why is there a menu for Apps and also one for Programs and Features? These issues kept piling up until after a few days I returned it again. Decided to grab a 2015 MBP from the Apple refurb store and have used it since. No regrets.

keithnz 7y ago

not having a unix shell? you read the article right? the part about how you can run a unix shell with WSL? you don't have to bash on windows, but now you can bash on windows ;)

tomc1985 7y ago

It's a different platform. If you want it to be a mac, use a mac.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Groxx 7y ago

Just to +1 the experiences here: I have a surface pro 4. I enjoy the touchscreen for some things, but otherwise I roundly hate it, almost entirely due to Windows. Some things work in touchpad mode, some don't, sometimes a feature is crippled in one mode, the gestures are finicky and weird and the only reason I know how to use them is because I read a few blog posts, notifications that are undismissable for no reason, and sometimes the touchscreen keyboard doesn't come up for 30 seconds. The very best thing I've done has been to mark every network as "metered" so it stops auto-installing (non-critical) updates and forcing lengthy shutdowns. The only downside (if you can call it that) is that now it seems update is half-broken most of the time, and it won't find updates for a month or two even if I say "check now". Sometimes it works for like a week or two and I can pull updates about every day like I'd expect, and on the day of their release, so it's pretty clear when it's broken. It's usually broken. --- I have Elementary OS installed on it too. It's a much better experience, except for needing a custom kernel for touchscreen (a simple google + apt-get away, thankfully, which is about my limit to put up with), and I don't know how to get the on-screen keyboard to be available at login. There's just so much less nonsense though.

dublin 7y ago
If you've marked every network as metered, then Windows is doing exactly what you told it and NOT upgrading over those networks. Even a manual update request should fail, because you've already told it not to upgrade over a metered network. It's not Microsoft's fault you're an idiot...
- Groxx 7y ago
  Manual requests intentionally bypass that, as their own documentation states when you enable that setting. Plus "check for updates when I press a button" is enormously different than "automatically download and install updates in the background". Wanting one without the other is entirely reasonable and technically simple. Even if it wasn't, it's unreasonable to offer a "check for updates" button that just turns into an indefinite progress bar forever without mentioning "can't check on this network" or something. Also, as I mentioned, it does work sometimes, which is why it's clear when it's breaking. Though I didn't mention it earlier, it remains broken even when I turn off the metered mode, so yea. I'm pretty sure the updater is just plain broken most of the time.

h1d 7y ago

I feel sympathetic to Windows OS developers because the code must be a huge bloat to keep up with decades of backward compatibility and have to go through codes that many generations of people had written to even change a thing which made it pretty much stuck on its own weight. But I can probably still be fine what OS I am on as long as it has quality third party apps but interestingly as a web dev, it's all on macOS and have no intention of moving away as it'll kill my smooth workflow. Tried to check if I could use Windows for it a few years ago but figured it's a pain in a few hours. I can see MS is trying though, when they start including Linux in Windows. And I like their tooling very much, like VS Code and TypeScript but I don't see myself switching away at least for the next 5 years.

nwallin 7y ago

My biggest peeve about windows is how it sends my laptop to sleep when I close the lid. You're plugged into a docking station with a keyboard, monitor, and mouse connected. I have several windows open on the monitor. No windows open on the tiny crappy laptop screen. Why the fartnugget do you think closing the laptop means "go to sleep"?! I didn't buy a docking station, monitor, keyboard and mouse to augment the shitty laptop keyboard, shitty laptop trackpad, and shitty laptop screen, I bought those things to replace them (but still be able to function while traveling). Also windows absolutely refuses to update. It didn't update to 1803 without downloading the install iso manually, it didn't update to 1806, and now it's refusing to update to 1903. Windows (also visual studio, but that's another story) is incredibly just... Bad. The reliance on the mouse and generally terrible keyboard shortcut story annoys me, but it can be fixed with third party software which is ok I guess. Rant over. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

alushta 7y ago
What happens when you close the lid is a configurable option: https://youtu.be/OFfDSEoneok https://youtu.be/OFfDSEoneok
ToFab123 7y ago
That is very simple to change. Settings --> power and sleep options --> Additional power options --> Choose what closing the lid does Or from command line https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Quickly-change-the-lid-b78eb77d https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Quickly-c...
- soylentcola 7y ago
  And if you're lazy like me, just hit the Win key, type "lid", and click "change what closing the lid does" from the results.
WorldMaker 7y ago
> Also windows absolutely refuses to update. It didn't update to 1803 without downloading the install iso manually, it didn't update to 1806, and now it's refusing to update to 1903. Microsoft has leaned very conservative in offering the feature updates after complaints from the earlier ones. Especially if your laptop has high usage patterns that likely suggest a work laptop it may not offer you the feature update until late in the cycle. Or in some cases specific hardware or software installed. (A big block right now still for 1903 is it can be hesitant if you have a lot of unpatched games installed because several versions of highly deployed anti-cheat software cause BSODs if not up to date, affecting even major games like Fortnite.) There is a good alternative to downloading the ISO, called the Update Assistant. It's an app that can tell you why you are currently blocked, if that is the case, and/or force install the update. It's at the top of this download page (the "Update Now" button in the gray region, not the Media Creation Tool below it): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

thiht 7y ago

Keep in mind you might be heavily biased because you're used to macOS. When I had to switch from Windows 10 to macOS last year for work, I was flabbergasted at how the general UX sucked compared to what I expected: - it's not possible to switch between multiple windows of the same application with Cmd+Tab - it's not possible to display two windows side by side without switching to fullscreen mode - it's hard to make some applications take the whole screen without using the weird fullscreen mode - the apps don't close when you click the close button. I get that there used to be a reason for this, nowadays it's just bad design - it's not possible at all to split the screen horizontally - multi-monitor sucks hard - there's no mini calendar on the clock - the contextual top bar is awful - the Finder is a monstrosity - Cmd+shift+4 for a screen capture? come on... - the difference between cmd, option and control is still not clear There are a lot of good things on macOS but come on, a lot of things suck really bad > finding a wifi password what? > arranging windows No. Just no.

dasKrokodil 7y ago
I agree with all of this and would like to add that Windows is much better than OS X if you have a keyboard-centric workflow. For example, if you want to navigate dialog windows with the keyboard, you can just press Alt + one of the underscored letters to directly press a button in Windows. In OS X, you have to press tab a million times until you have reached your desired button and then press space... The window management via keyboard is also much better in Windows. Also I hate that the Home/End keys are broken in OS X. I get that you can use command+right/left instead, but that doesn't work in the terminal for some reason :(
- ymolodtsov 7y ago
  >> In OS X, you have to press tab a million times until you have reached your desired button and then press space... What do you mean? If you have a dialog button you just need to click Cmd-"First letter of the command that you need". The system never teaches you, true, but it's there.
  - dasKrokodil 7y ago

ThoAppelsin 7y ago

"Saving screenshots" Nice way to hint that you are definitely being sarcastic, because cmd+something+3 surely and clearly is no way intuitive, contrary to the use of dedicated Print Screen key on Windows.

skygazer 7y ago
Just to point for the unfamiliar, the "hotkey" defaults for screen shotting are user configurable on macOS, in System Preferences/Keyboard/Shortcuts. In fact, shortcuts can be changed not only for all actions, but also menu items in any/all programs can be remapped to desired key combos, or indeed added for menu items with default hotkeys. This is actually staggeringly powerful, and frequently overlooked.