Leaving Windows for the Walled Garden - Grail Hunt

That is some serious gymnastics practice! :open_mouth:

Itā€™s really an iMessage thing to be honest. My daughter sent me a short video of our granddaughter sorting blocks and son sent a picture of a freak storm hitting them - it was really cool to see those full screen size right at my desk! As for the ā€œall in oneā€ solution, I think I have given up on that (sorry unicorn chasers) thanks to MS/Intel incompetence and Apple hubris (no MacPad for YOU!).

:grin: :thinking: :grimacing:

I donā€™t know, I feel kind of trapped in Windows due to gaming. No more Boot Camp alternative and I tried an M1 Mac Mini w/Parallels and Crossover with disappointing results. Ditto for Linux with WINE/Proton (repeatedly). So in a way Iā€™m completely trapped in a Windows walled garden. It would be liberating if games were released equally across OS platforms, natively. :crying_cat_face:

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The older two are on the competative team. 2 hour practices for now, 3 hours when they move up a level.

I felt that way until I found that Civ VI has released an Android version. I was just looking for alternatives to see if I could scratch that world domination itch, and there it was, full blown Civ VI. But Iā€™m going to stop taking this thread off topic and go start one of my own.

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This thread has gotten me wondering about the amount of relapse :laughing: with people who switch. I so far have personally switched twice. I started with Apples and Macs, but when Apple hit itā€™s nadir in the mid nineties I switched to Windows. And then I relatively recently (early 2020) switched back to Macs with the purchase of a 27 inch iMac.

And then just this last week I upgraded it to the base level studio.

So of course the big qualifier on all that is I still have Windows for a work device with my Pro 8 and due to the job, I use all of these devices on a frequent basis.

That all being said, the clincher for me when I bought the iMac was the level of integration both obvious and subtle across my iPhone, iPad and Mac. Something that in some cases you donā€™t realize fully till it goes missing when using say Windows and Android.

And while some would like more (such as letting the iPad Pro run Mac OS) IMHO Apple has done far more than anyone else with the level of integration. And yes I fully acknowledge itā€™s 100% in Appleā€™s interest to do so.

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Similar to me. Not counting the Commodore 64, I started with a Mac in 1984 and never touched anything else until Windows 98 came out (and Jobs returned to Apple, killing the clones I was eyeing as an upgradeā€¦ but I digress). Iā€™ve bounced between Windows, Mac, and a bit of Linux ever since but mostly Windows. If all things were equal (e.g. game availability on Macs, touchscreen, Pencil, etc.) I would return to my roots. Itā€™s home.

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Isnā€™t the true test if somebody is willing to switch their daily driver over the long-term? Anyone can dabble and appreciate another OS when it is a secondary deviceā€¦but once you hit those pesky edge cases, or serious projects that stretch your computing skills, I feel people inevitably gravitate back to their ā€˜trueā€™ OS of choice. :wink:

To give my own experience attempting a switch to MacOS, Iā€™ve found several things Iā€™ve taken for granted on the Windows ecosystem:

  • a lightweight yet robust archiver, like 7-zip
  • lightning-fast SMB file searching with Everything
  • portable apps that donā€™t write system files all-over

These advantages are seldom-acknowledged, but offer enough quality-of-life that I question if the MacOS ecosystem really does offer any benefits in terms of ease of file and application management.

I even find the GUI on MacOS looking quite a bit ā€˜datedā€™ and slightly cluttered compared to the Windows 11 UIā€¦perhaps I came in with too high expectations? :stuck_out_tongue: In any case, I plan to keep plugging away at transitioning to MacOS. But my takeaway so far is donā€™t come in expecting ā€˜magicā€™, every OS is a new set of paradigms and tools to be learned and mastered.

An interesting corollary, from personal experience, would be ā€œswitcher anxietyā€ - the fight or flight syndrome that has inhibited my numerous attempts to switch from Windows to Mac. I was a DOS/Windows user from the beginning as a mere shell - thatā€™s nearly 37 year, and every previous attempt to switch has ended up in a retreat to the familiar and well known:

This is probably the biggest draw for me - or maybe itā€™s the MS ā€œpushā€ these days for more control by building a higher walled garden with each tweak of Windows 11 (and more tracking and advertising) in the Windows environment making me go for the benefits of Apple if they are both going to be controlling MY garden.

Of course, this is all balanced by one more factor - is the pain worth the gain, because switching is no minor ordeal at times.

I felt the same way until my most recent failures - ā€œfamiliarityā€ (where is that) and not necessarily ā€œlikeā€ was the reason I jumped ship the last two Apple trials. I didnā€™t think of Windows as my true choice of OSā€™ as much as it was as familiar as my commute to and from work and I could nearly zone out at times and still make it home. But the more important question, and what keeps me plugging away at MacOS, is the question ā€œIf Windows is my chosen OS walled garden, why do I keep trying to break out of prison?ā€

This is absolutely true!

What we really need is a fusion of MacOS/iPadOS on an M2 Surface Pro!

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You mean besides the fact that your name is @dstrauss? :stuck_out_tongue:

Well, the last time you decided to pause, the old forum shut down for a week. Sooā€¦no, you donā€™t get to stop. There are about 200+ other ā€˜inmatesā€™ that tune into your regular escapades every week. :smile:

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@marty
interesting points, but can you elaborate one item. the comment

Mac OS has the ablity to compress/decompress zip files. Decompress by double clicking and compress by right clicking the file(s). Iā€™ll agree it doesnā€™t deal with RAR files without an app, but OTOH RAR has lots of security and integrity issues.

More curious than anything,

and BTW agree about SMB volume searches but OTOH with non windows volumes such as unix/linux Mac OS has been measured as fast or faster

Thatā€™s like every MacOS app there is, except stuff like Adobe with DRM. Delete the app folder and itā€™s gone, no ā€œfiles all overā€ or registry. Created documents might be in another location but thatā€™s expected.

If weā€™re comparing built-in archiving on the OS file manager, at least Explorer lets you open/preview an archive without extracting, so that you can select single files to extract. On MacOS, dealing with large archives is cumbersome, especially since built-in storage is non-upgradeable (and expensive), and file operations on SMB network shares are slow.

However, if we compare third-party utilities, of the dozen so Mac archiving tools Iā€™ve tried, they do not integrate as cleanly into the shell as 7-zip, and/or have needlessly bloated UI to manage archive files, and/or lack basic functionality like selecting archive type, CRC checking, and compression level.

I just struck me as surprising that something as basic as robust GUI-based file archiving wasnā€™t a simple matter on MacOS.

Unfortunately, even small utilities will leave configuration files in multiple locations:

(MacPaw)

So, when uninstalling any software, you have to go over each of these folders one by one and remove the following:

  • Binary and dock icons are located in /Applications/
  • Application support files are located in
    ~/Library/Application Support
  • Support Caches can be found in /Library/Caches/ and
    ~/Library/Caches
  • Plugins are located in ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/
  • Library can be found in ~/Library/
  • App preferences are located in ~/Library/Preferences/
  • Crashes are found in
    ~/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/
  • App saved states are located in
    ~/Library/Saved Application State/

The lack of a built-in uninstaller to remove these files is also baffling to me.

But going back to my point about portable software, Linux has Docker, and the Windows ecosystem has large and growing catalogue of free, open software with binaries that run in portable mode. All configuration files exist in the app folder, and in the case of the PortableApps format, any shell integrations are deregistered on exit.

When I install Mac applications, I just feel like Iā€™ve regressed 10 years in terms of control of how the application integrates with the OS. Itā€™s manageable, but just not what I was expecting in terms of ease and convenience.

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I noticed that the only websites that mention leftovers are websites that sell a program to remove leftovers. My last experience with a Mac mini M1 had no leftovers for any program I had, anywhere. I guess YMMV.

Yeah except the vast majority of these ā€œportableā€ applications also make a zillion edits/entries in the registry, which can and does affect other apps.

This discussion looks to be headed down the rabbit hole of where you sit makes all the difference in what you see. IMHO none is inherently better or worse is in aggregate , just different.

There are plenty of days I curse the existence of the registry and dlls and just as many when I curse the sometimes byzantine structure of libaries and prefs (looking at you especially Adobe, though Micrsoft is almost as badā€¦)

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I really admire youse all adventurous spirits. For me, never ever given a thought about venturing into the Mac platform or Apple world in general (think no pen support and mobile OS as the most basic reasons). MS hit the right chord for me with the Surface line and thatā€™s where Iā€™ve pitched my computing tent.

Besides, outside of the US, I donā€™t think people care about all that integration that much. Donā€™t have anyone within a 200km radius who uses iMessage or is it Facetime. My point is, while that level of integration might get great reading about it here, itā€™s hardly a deciding factor for most of us.

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Iā€™ve made brief trips into Apple land. My husbandā€™s work in Design means heā€™s all Apple all the time, so there are always Macs in the house for me to play with if I want. I had a blackbook for a while. I enjoyed hackintoshing netbooks. I hackintoshed a thinkpad x61t at one point. I had an aluminum macbook when those first came out as well. But I didnā€™t reallly use them for anything more than email and web browsing. But in those days, I had way more software that required windows, so I always had to have a dual boot going.

My most successful trip completely outside of Windows was the Samsung chromebook. The first one they made with the 3:2 screen and spen. It could run android apps and that filled in the gaps enough with some other things I needed moving to web apps. My latest attempt is with Samsung Dex as one of my favorite games is available on Android now.

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Gotta ask, did you ever have coupleā€™s Mac-vs-PC debates? Who won?

What about fighting over what devices the kids should learn first? (Note: I am not a neutral partyā€¦you gotta them early into TPCR, before all the snotty Apple crowd gets 'em. :vb-wink:)

:+1: :+1:

:roll_eyes: :stuck_out_tongue:

Their friends will quickly undo your indoctrination.