
Why I switched to Mac after being a long time Windows evangelist - megamindbrian
If there is one singular problem that stands out in my mind as making using Windows consistently unpleasant it is random daily freezes that interrupt work.<p>I&#x27;ve used Windows loyally for over two decades, from my first Gateway computer to the compact Dell at my desk at work today.  I&#x27;ve used Windows Server 2000, 2012, 2016, etc.<p>Every single use case for Windows is plagues with the same problem for the last two dozen years.  Consistently, Windows freezes, locks up, crashes explorer, between 1 and 7 times per week.  I don&#x27;t miss this &quot;feature&quot; when I switched to Mac.  There was a phase on Mac that it would take a good 30 seconds to wake up after being asleep but this bug seems to go in an out.  I will trade this bug on Mac for daily Windows freezes anytime.<p>Since no one has ever addressed the issue, I&#x27;m finally calling out some common causes that I have seen.  The most common causes I have found aside from failing memory which is always a possibility:<p>1) Group policies
2) DCOM permission errors
3) RealTek audio drivers<p>Has anyone ever listed the group policies that cause Windows to lock up while they are updating every day at 3:00 PM?  I know they exist, and I would love to see a list.<p>DCOM, what is the point and why do I want remote access always available on my computer?  Why does Cortana need to have a constant connection, and why does DCOM errors in the event log cause Windows to lock up?<p>Finally, RealTek drivers.  These are the worst.  Why does an audio driver cause my entire desktop to crash?<p>If anyone could answer these questions for me, I would be eternally grateful and I will forward them to Microsoft promptly since in 24 years of using Windows, they still haven&#x27;t fixed these basic user experience problems.
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zamalek
> Consistently, Windows freezes, locks up, crashes explorer, between 1 and 7
> times per week

This doesn't happen to me. As it stands, my laptop hasn't done a power cycle
since the last Windows update (10th). You are the common factor here, so the
group policy (as you mentioned) is a good starting point. Try leaving it
alone. Additionally, it could be 3rd party stuff that you typically install;
Realtek is suspect because their software is utter garbage. Windows now
includes support for a universal driver (Aria, or something to that tune) so
you may be able to skip the Realtek installation entirely. The only driver
I've installed on Windows in about half a decade is for the graphics card.

~~~
na85
I work in aerospace and my organization is on windows. I have never
encountered a more productivity - killing operating system in my life. Forced
reboots for upgrades, laptops that randomly won't reauthenticate after wake,
network drives that fail to map, other transient network problems, you name
it.

Day to day, the biggest obstacle to getting my job done is consistently
Windows. It's a thoroughly wretched piece of software.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
> laptops that randomly won't reauthenticate after wake, network drives that
> fail to map, other transient network problems, you name it.

Sounds like a problem with the System Administrators at your workplace. For
example who is still using mapped network drives? Group Policy is the modern
way to do it and has been for over ten years.

As to the two network issues, I'd have to dive into the event log to see why.
I've seen WiFi drivers cause this, specifically a HP driver that took almost a
year to get fixed.

Poor technical support and setup will hamper your work on any operating
system.

~~~
kasey_junk
Not for nothing but I haven't needed tech support on the job in 7 years.
That's precisely the last time I used Windows professionally. Prior to that
I'd spent a decade running Windows at work, across multiple organizations and
had similar experiences as described.

I completely buy that a competent IT dept can make windows painless, but I
haven't needed any support competent or not on Mac or Linux.

~~~
zamalek
> I haven't needed any support competent or not on Mac or Linux

An overreaching admin could be precisely why Windows was such a pain for you
(or the poster, who mentioned GPO). That is one of the downfalls of Windows -
it's enterprise ready, which means that your experience is at the whim of
another person or policy.

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fil_a_del_fee_a
I recently bought a MacBook Pro because it for a majority of the time it
simply works. I feel like MacOS stays out of my way. On Mac, there is the app
dock at the bottom, and the task bar at the top. Swipe between full screen
programs. Simple. On Windows 10, there seems to be WAY too much going on.
Press the start menu (which is an actual menu again), and there are tiles
spinning everywhere and way too much clutter. Plus changing system settings is
a pain too. I wish I can directly get to the original windows settings menu
(for example, change hostname) but the process turns into this: Windows 10
menu, Windows 8 menu, Windows 7 menu, then finally the old school menu. To be
fair, MacOS does hide some of its settings, but they are much easier to find
and often relocated, instead of BURIED under different menus.

~~~
chadgeidel
FYI - I just learned this trick (which was actually introduced in Windows 8 or
8.1): right click the start menu for a shortcut to a lot of system-level
shortcuts (Event Viewer, System, Disk Management, etc).

------
TomJohnson123
I went to the, possibly, only university in the country that did not have C &
UNIX. In 1973, at USF Tampa, we had an IBM 360 system, complete with punch
cards. Horrible. Engineering required Fortran IV, boring, and the instructor
smoked. I finally worked at a defense contractor, which used DEC's VAX 11/780
running VAX/VMS. I was hardware and a good-natured soul introduced me to
VAX/VMS. VAX/VMS was painless, easy to learn and use. In October 1981, IBM
came out with the IBM PC. $6,000 with a monochrome monitor, no hard-drive, and
DOS 1.0, not much more than a loader. Over time, MicroSoft improved DOS and
eventually started the Windows franchise with Windows 95. The MS hired Dave
Cutler away from DEC to be principle sw architect on the Windows New
Technology. Windows was good and MS was innovative. Prices came down.
Capability went up. But a new "feature" showed up: software "viruses", then
trojans, then on-and-on, building a $10Billion per year anti-malware industry.
I still stayed with MS. I liked and knew the user interface. Then came Windows
8, 9, and 10. Over time I had had periodic positive discussions with folks who
knew and used C, UNIX, GNU, Linux. My wife is legally blind and finds her way
around the display partly by vision (limited) and partly by memory. Windows
8-10 made computer use by my wife impossible. I switched to Linux Mint 17.3,
love it, enjoy it, have fun with it. I installed Linux on both mine and my
wife's machines, on a friends machine, and no-one has any complaints. Starting
on Monday, 22 May 2017, I am teaching my 11yo grandson how to program in C on
Linux. I doubt that I will ever go back to Windows.

~~~
glandium
> MicroSoft improved DOS and eventually started the Windows franchise with
> Windows 95

Windows 95 was, iirc, Windows 4.0. The Windows franchise started well before
Windows 95: 1985 for Windows 1.0.

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silverlake
I've had the opposite experience. Used Windows for 2 decades and rarely had
problems. Switched to macs 4 years ago and all of them (4) crash a few times
per week.

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
Did you install some (the same) software on all four of your macs? A few
crashes per week per mac, on all four macs, seems more than a coincidence. I
have had three macs and they always ran very stable. I only reboot when macOS
updates require it.

~~~
skinnymuch
Def seems more than a coincidence. But wouldn't OP having consistent crashes
in recent years (past decade) for Windows indicate something similar when
Windows for many people is pretty stable?

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valuearb
I find stories of someone switching to Macs at this late date very
interesting, because it seems like the benefits for switching were always
better a while ago.

Given Apple continues to gain market share, maybe I'm wrong.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
> Given Apple continues to gain market share, maybe I'm wrong.

In Mac? I'm pretty sure they're steadily losing market share[0]. The whole
market for desktop computing (inc laptops) has compressed, but Apple seem to
be losing share faster than PC competitors.

iOS they remain in good shape however, but the OP's post was specifically
about Mac/PC.

[0] [http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-mac-lost-most-pc-
market...](http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-mac-lost-most-pc-market-share-
in-2016-chart-2017-1)

~~~
valuearb
Apple did lose market share in 2016, but its rebounded the last two quarters
and is back to outgrowing the market. And note that the Macs average sales
price is 2-3x the average PC price, and even increased the last quarter.

[http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/04/11/apples-mac-
continu...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/04/11/apples-mac-continues-to-
buck-worldwide-pc-shipment-decline-in-q1)

2016 was the the only year Apple failed to outgrow the market in at least a
decade, its market share was as low as 2% before Jobs came back.

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keerthiko
I don't get the regular crashes on my Win10 desktop I use for all my side
projects and gaming at home. However, what I do see:

\- Firefox freezes constantly requiring force-quits. Reinstalls and updates
don't help much. Probably Firefox's fault.

\- Mouse randomly clicks off in a different monitor, or in the upper left
corner, losing application focus. While a minor annoyance while typing,
photoshopping, using hotkeys, it makes me flip my shit when I'm gaming.

\- Wakes up from sleep without reason or indication or any way to stop it: The
actual fuck. This is the worst. I have fiddled with every setting and registry
entry that has anything to do with the computer's sleep state, captured logs
to view activity leading to power on and after, changed OS's, formatted,
switched hard drives, everything. This bugs the shit out of me, as my aging
desktop is loud and hot and makes my bedroom a terrible place to sleep. I have
scripts and shortcut keys from my wireless headphones to put my computer back
to sleep from my bed, but what the heck is this anyway.

These are all random quality of life improvements that shouldn't need to be so
hard to put in place.

~~~
dyukqu
I have a Win10 laptop which it's performance is nowhere near a gaming machine.
3 Firefox flavors are installed on it (2 of them with a lot of extensions) and
I don't remember the last time I've seen them crash or require force-quits.
Don't have a good guess about the experience you have been through with it.

About that mouse issue; have you ever tried a different mouse or reinstalling
it's driver? I don't know Mac and I don't remember how it was on Linux, but if
a mouse clicks or moves just a little bit, that wakes the system up on Windows
machines. Till you got the random mouse clicks, it looks like it's a #1
suspect.

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tritium

      Has anyone ever listed the group 
      policies that cause Windows to lock 
      up while they are updating every 
      day at 3:00 PM? I know they exist...
    

I can't wait to hear about this one. In all my years of reading about security
and systems administration... What on earth? A global stop-the-world policy
update that spans time zones? Why have I never heard of such a thing?

Could it be that this only happens on OP's machine because of a failure to
remove malware?

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stolk
Windows 10 Creator's edition was incredibly unstable for me: after the
upgrade, it would hang within minutes after boot. Each and every time. This
went away after upgrading firmware of my Samsung SSD EVO 840 drive. But yeah,
windows has never been an industrial strength OS like QNX and UNIX are.

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shahbaby
why not just dual boot?

~~~
dalfonso
Agree. I have a Mac for the sole reason that I can boot into any OS I want and
thus run/debug any app I want.

If there was a Windows laptop that allowed me to boot into macOS with
relatively simple set up (meaning as simple as Bootcamp setup) I would
strongly consider it.

