Vista Drove Me Away - a Testimonial
September 18th, 2007 by Mike
I used to be a Microsoft Fan - a really, really big and obnoxious one too. Whenever someone even brought up the topic of a Mac I would go on about how PC’s were “clearly superior” and “control the market for obvious reasons.” In fact, my friends who use Macs as well remind me that I used to lecture them for ten minutes straight about the supposed advantages of the Windows Platform. Using cliché arguments like “Windows’ Wealth of Software” to defend my views, I convinced myself not to get a Mac last December and so I bought a brand-new Acer PC.
Now because this was December and Windows Vista wasn’t out yet, I had to sign up for the anything-but “Express” Upgrade Program. I thought the deal was good, though: Pay $20 and get what would normally be a $300 operating system. And all through January and February I was wound up in frustration as my new PC slowed down and started presenting me with a vast multitude of Problems I did not expect, from Wireless Networking Woes to starting up in a (very) untimely fashion.
Vista arrived in the first week of March. I installed it with high expectations and was engulfed by excitement when I first saw my windows surrounded in Aqua – I mean Aero, glass. But then my problems worsened. My peripherals didn’t work. The little flash card reader to the side always gave me error messages when I tried to load my photos. My great video card couldn’t take advantage of half its features. And that wasn’t the least of it. Tons of other things didn’t work properly and my PC began behaving erratically.
It was around this time that I looked for solutions to my problems, trying Linux even. Eventually, something went off in my head: “My iPod works great, doesn’t it? If that works nicely, why wouldn’t a Mac?” I googled “Switching to Mac” and lo and behold, I get to this site. I read the entire front page, and started looking into the archives. One article pointed to the iLife video tutorials on Apple’s website, and was amazed with how easy using the apps looked, and the elegance of the User Interface.
Two weeks later, after more research, I was sold on Mac. I started saving up the money I could in the hopes of buying a Macbook Pro by Christmas. But I didn’t want to wait that long, so instead I decided to save for a Blackbook, and a short while later decided that I didn’t want to pay an extra $50 for a color.
I saved and saved, and while I was on Vacation this August bought the middle Macbook in an Apple store. I also bought the Marware Macbook Protection pack, which I found nearly ridiculous after using it, because it diminished the utter elegance and simple look of the Mac. I still keep the screen cleaner handy though, because it works quite well.
I initially planned on buying Parallels to run Windows, but after some great reviews bought VMware Fusion instead. Though I decided quickly after using Tiger that I don’t need Windows on the Mac, I still keep it on here because, well, I paid for it, and might as well get my money’s worth. To all you people out there deciding between Parallels and Fusion, choose fusion. It’s a lot faster compared to my trial version of Parallels.
In the first few days Tiger and Macbook blew me away. Yes, the icons on Vista are indeed a higher resolution than those in Mac OS X, but the Mac OS X icons look so damn cool! They’re nice and candy colored, and look friendly. The Vista icons try to look so professional that they end up looking like pure garbage. Back on track here, my applications could be installed just by dragging and dropping! Coming from a Windows environment, I expected there to be more involved. And best of all – not one error message. And performance-wise it was spectacular. Safari takes what, less than a second to load? Compare that to IE7, a big bloated non-user friendly browser.
28 days after getting the Macbook and not one regret.
P.S. I don’t even think right click is that necessary now, and I was really worried about that.
P.P.S. I don’t ever want to touch that Acer PC again. Ever.
Author - Switching to Mac Forum Member “331phoenix”
Posted in Testimonials, Mac vs PC, Operating Systems | Send this to a friend
September 19th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Sounds like my experience. Loving my new Mac Mini. Looking forward to getting a MacBook Pro and eventually either an iMac or a Mac Pro
September 19th, 2007 at 10:59 am
[…] Vista Drove Me Away - a Testimonial I used to be a Microsoft Fan - a really, really big and obnoxious one too. Whenever someone even brought up the topic of a Mac I would go on about how PC’s were “clearly superior” and “control the market for obvious reasons.” In fact, my friends who use Macs as well remind me that I used to lecture them for ten minutes straight about the supposed advantages of the Windows Platform. Using cliché arguments like “Windows’ Wealth of Software” to defend my views, I convinced myself not to get a Mac last December and so I bought a brand-new Acer PC. Read the full article on SwitchingToMac.Com […]
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Great post. I wrote a post yesterday on why so many businesses are switching to the mac http://www.askbigpapa.com/blogs/16/Dump-your-PC-for-a-Mac-and-quadruple-your-productivity.html.
September 25th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I finally got tired of waiting 15 minutes for my Dell notebookto boot up and decided to get a Mac notebook. Was frustrating at first because the documentation was poor at best. I googled and found this website, switchingtomac.com, was really informative and helped a great deal. I’ve had the Mac for two weeks now and I now don’t even turn on the Dell. I do wish it would run MS Office, but have found other ways to do what that software does. Still learning, but enjoy it, especially the almost instant on and Safari is much better than IE-7. Won’t ever buy another windows computer…
September 26th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Well written. I have just upgraded from a MacBook to a MacBookPro after a year of bliss actually spending time using my software instead of tinkering with the myriad of settings necessary to prevent the blue screen, and all the wasted time rebooting after said tweaks or installing software.
I was impressed with the firewire import of my user settings and software from the 13″ to the 15″. All the licences, emails bookmarks etc. transferred, and everything just worked!
You can still right click! Just go to your Keyboard and Mouse settings from system preferences and change the button functions.
September 26th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
I’m thinking of switching my desktop to Mac but have questions abut compatability (I’ve been having Vista nightmares on a new notebook).
I’ve been using PC and Windows for years, so all my archived material consists of Word docs, PowerPoints and Excel spreadsheets. Will I still be able to access all these on a Mac? And will I be able to run Photoshop and Dreamweaver? I work at home, so it’s pretty important that I be able to access and use all my old files.
September 26th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Pip, You can run the Mac versions of the programs you mentioned or if you like you can run the Windows versions in Windows on the Mac, the choice is yours but if at all possible try and stay on the Mac side if you can.
As for transferring your files, just put them on a CD, DVD or a Flash drive or Hard Drive, the Mac can read it all and as long as you have a compatible program to view it on the Mac then you are set!
October 1st, 2007 at 9:18 am
Yep, here too, got an Acer desktop with 2GB ram and E4300 Core 2.
Sluggish, RAM hog and boots up about the same time as a SP2 XP. I’ve since reformatted and put my old XP on it, from which I am writing. Fast and stable.
Also got an iMac 17″ desktop and still not sold this will replace Windows. Updates are just as bad and huge, sometimes 93MB patches.
October 1st, 2007 at 6:21 pm
You wrote a very FUN article! It was almost as fun as moving my new IMAC browser around to take it all in. THANK YOU!
I had a E-Machines PC that came with Speakers and no drivers for sound - What the heck!! I bought it 18 months ago and its ready to be scrapped. It took about 5 or 10 minutes to wake it back up and it had this high resolution flashing light when it was asleep (to conserve energy) - I had to put a book in front of the CPU keep the room dark.
My other computer was an IMAC Snow from the year 2000. I purchased it new from the Apple Store and the ONLY thing I ever took it in for, once, was a memory upgrade. Now its just a victim of old technology. I saved for over a year for my $1800 Imac and its worth every penney! I look forward to reading all other users’ comments. Take Care!
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I am glad to see that I am not alone in this. I have been operating Intel (DOS) then Microsoft based systems since the old 8088 processors around 1985. Vista absolutely drove me away from Microsoft. Since Vista, my household has three Apple computers installed and happily churning along.
The arrogance of Microsoft is just absolutely astounding. In its constant game of not violating copyright, nothing makes sense has risen to a whole new level. I have no intention of learning all the new little ins and out of the system. I was operating an Apple system within a few hours after never having dealt with one before. I was frustrated for hours by Vista as I clicked through this and that trying to learn how to make things work that never did work. I am sure that some programmer thinks that Vista is just a lovely little puzzle. I don’t have time for it. It’s stupid. It’s irresponsible. And, it’s a rip-off!!!
December 9th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Microsoft picked up the arrogance when they were developing DOS with IBM, “play the game my way or I’ll take the ball and go home” My Mac Book should be here tomorrow….
December 13th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Vista made me switch also.
I now have an iMac and it does 98% of what i need. for the other 2% i used BootCamp and installed Windows XP (NOT VISTA).