I'm sure I've posted about it before, but I've managed to keep one of those machines running (probably 7/8 years old at this point) because they are more reliable in general, but parts are also still available for them. Try finding parts for a specific 8 year old Dell or HP machine. (though they could probably run Windows 8 rather than being several OS releases behind...)
Yep. Though, not always. I've encountered
lots of hardware device driver issues with machines designed for XP. Most of these prevent Windows 7, but some are specific to Windows 8.
I'm not sure I agree about being easier to support though.
When something software-related does go wrong with the Macs, I generally find them to be a much bigger headache to sort than Windows. When things work, they tend to be a lot less problematic though.
Hah. Definitely depends what you're used to, and most experienced in troubleshooting. I find OSX much simpler because:
* It is UNIX, so the command shell is much more capable, and it includes things like Perl out-of-the-box if you need to write more complex scripts. Of course, Windows does have PowerShell (and VBScript) out of the box, but I'd rather use things I already know, and have known for years (which means, I end up doing it in VBS on Windows, which is annoying).
* AppleScript, ARD, and Automator can each be EXTREMELY handy.
* Better hardware breaks less and the fact that they're all exactly the same (or close enough except for minor iterative OS revision differences).
* Imaging a mac means copying a disk. It is simple, extremely reliable, and can be done (live) with free tools that work well.
* It isn't just hardware quality that is better. The
average software quality is better too. Better software is better, and breaks less. Now, that certainly comes with a cost (there is less "medium-quality" GUI OSX freeware than there is on Windows), but you get what you pay for. I'd much rather support someone using OmniGraffle than Visio, for example. Transmit is better than Filezilla (which is also available for OSX, but people use Transmit because it is nice). And so on and so forth. There might be a little less total software available for OSX, but the average quality of it is much higher. And, that doesn't even mention that they have so much high-quality software built in (iPhoto and iMovie are two huge examples) that you don't need to buy much else.
* And, if it is freeware you want,
macports. Again, OSX is UNIX.
* The confluence of Registry Settings, Local Security Policy, AD Security Policy, AD Group Policy, and local group policy creates all kinds of headaches for us here. If you're able to image all of your machines and have total control, then I suppose it is fine, but in my world that is unrealistic. For example, I have a machine I've been working on for 5 months now that can't use
certain of our network shares. It is baffling. We have two nearly-identical HP Z620 workstations connected to fancy 1/2-million-dollar microscopes. One works fine. The other works fine when you connect to certain network shares (such as a vanilla one you make on your Windows desktop). It also works fine when connected to our fancy shares for the HPC cluster. But, our "regular" NetApps shares, it can see, but can't access any files on (Windows Explorer hangs when you try, and times out with a generic I/O error after a LONG time). I've seriously had every sysad here, and a whole bunch of us desktop folks all beat on it. We cannot figure it out. I'm sure it is some esoteric combination of group policy, local security policy, and registry settings (something dumb set by the vendor, I'm betting) messing it up. I'd love to just re-image it. I'm sure that would solve the issue, but it would break the scope completely (which, among other issues, has a hardware dongle and a license tied to the motherboard and who knows what else). The only way we can get a new image on it is to pack the whole thing up, send it to Germany, and wait 6 weeks for the vendor to image it and send it back.
This happens to us
all the time. There are too many ways to do everything on Windows, which is a million points at which something can go wrong.
I completely agree that getting your AD set up to handle Macs nicely can be a bit of a pain. But once it is done, it is done, and then they're extremely well behaved network clients (since roughly Snow Leopard, before that it was a horrorshow).
But I had really meant that if you have users which would struggle to move from XP, that I was surprised that they made the transition to OS X easier than a newer version of Windows. (either 7 or
While I don't think OS X is difficult to learn, it's certainly far more different than even moving from Windows XP to 8.
I think that my point above about software quality is the difference. Most users
don't learn the OS. To them, there is no distinction between the OS and the applications they use. Most of our support queries from switchers have been about Office (and stupid Excel, mostly). Thank god they killed Entourage...
But aside from that... Firefox is still Firefox. The dock is simple enough to understand, and you throw the Applications folder on the Dock and it acts like a Start Menu. Meh. Not a huge amount of trouble, aside from Office power users (the Admins complain about the differences in Outlook, which I hope improves with the next release).
Well isn't that what UAC and "Run as Administrator" is for? Or do you mean something else?
Unfortunately, that doesn't work for lots of software out there. We still have a ton of software deployed that even having UAC turned on
at all breaks completely. Run as Administrator support is extremely spotty (even MC doesn't behave well with that).
OSX doesn't have that problem. Basically, the only reason we'd ever have to enable Administrative privileges for OSX users is if they need to install software all the time (or if they're a POSIX nerd). Hell, I've seen WEB APPLICATIONS on Windows that require Admin privileges. Windows 7 and 8 are much better than XP in this regard (Vista was somewhere in the middle), but it is still problematic.
Huh. That surprises me because OS X has always given me more trouble with external displays than Windows has. But any trouble at all has been rare. The biggest issue is the box full of adapters I have to keep around for the Macs.
Oh, dear lord no. Perhaps if you're only using external desktop monitors with digital connections, that is the case, but analog VGA connection support and behavior is
extremely inconsistent on Windows. Do you do Function-F4 to enable the external display, or Function-F7? Or do you have to go into the Windows Display Settings? Or the GPU control panel? Which GPU do you have, and what version of the driver do you have and oh crud, Intel changed their GPU driver interface for the 800th time, yay.
And EDID support on Windows is basically universally terrible with analog outputs.
Sure, you can get an 800x600 image, probably shifted partially offscreen (cutting the start button or clock in half), but if you want it to actually look right on your 1080p projector, on a Mac it is super-simple: Plug in the MiniDP connector. Maybe, just maybe, if you're weird, enable or disable mirroring (which is always done exactly the same way on every machine and which hasn't substantially changed in 10 years).
On Windows, if I'm on the phone with the user (and not in person)? I'm trying to remember which
specific Lenovo POS they have, so I can tell them what to do and not have to walk there.
I agree about the dongles. I have a big box of dongles right here next to me. But, thankfully, they've been using MiniDP now for 5 years? 6? I don't know, it has been a LONG time, and the older ones with DVI and MiniDVI and all the other weird things Apple tried in the bad old days are long gone. The "old dongles" box hasn't been opened in quite some time. I've affixed MiniDP > VGA adapters to all of our cabling in the conference rooms.* Problem solved.
I agree completely with you on the hardware discussion. No need to say more there.
I'm out of time to respond to the rest, but I generally agree on many things... Like I said, I like Windows 8 at home. I actually LIKE the Start Screen quite a bit (the All Applications page, however, is a POS). But... I do need to respond to this, just to needle you a bit:
The only meaningful difference is Start Screen vs Start Menu.
And the dumb charms menu.
We've discussed it before. Thankfully you can finally shut the PC down without going into the stupid hidden charms menu. But, even this, they were somewhat dumb. It shows the Power Button. Mostly. Well, sometimes. It depends on the hardware you have. GAHHHHH!!!! STOP IT STUPID MICROSOFT! MAKE THINGS THE SAME!
* I have a pretty clever, and cheap, solution for this. Ask if you want to know.