When Windows won't work, it's time for a Mac

ZD Net - Where Technology Means Business ^ | February 23, 2004 | David Coursey

[Swordmaker]

by David Coursey
Executive Editor, AnchorDesk
Monday, Feb. 23, 2004

In my computing life, there's one constant: The Macs don't crash and the Windows machines do. I mention this because on Thursday I went to see my friend Rob (Enderle, the noted industry analyst) and took along my Fujitsu Tablet PC. I used it at Rob's house to take notes of our meeting.

THAT WENT well enough, but when I got home the machine had slowed to a crawl--and there it's stayed. Now XP is never a speed demon at boot time, but ten minutes to boot is ridiculous even by XP's standards. The computer works fine in Safe mode, but if I try to log on normally the Task List shows a process called "winlogin" taking 99 percent of processor time. That's why the machine has slowed to below the speed of plate tectonics. And, no, it doesn't catch up by moving really fast all at once as terra not-firma sometimes does.

My bet is that it isn't the hardware's fault, that something corrupted some system file between the time I left Rob's and when I got home. I think I've done about all I can do with the machine short of rebuilding it. I've tried booting with the last known good settings and I've done a System Restore back to the time when the computer was almost new. The next step will be to find the restore disks (if I can find them) and reload the OS--just what I want to do with my weekend.

Meanwhile, the Compaq Armada M700 that I've been nursing (with help from my friend Big Ernie) has relapsed: I crashed it loading some apps and have finally decided to give up. I'll use the drive and memory I bought for it for some other project. Goodbye, dear friend.

My HP Media Center crashed after Symantec SystemWorks 2004 first failed to install properly and then didn't allow itself to be uninstalled. Yes, the antivirus component was half-installed but has no entry in the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel. There's an antivirus remover on their support site, but it doesn't work with the 2004 version.

I'D SAY that installation snafu was a fluke--except that it also happened on the Fujitsu. I'm in the process of switching all my virus protection to Panda's line, which works well and isn't expensive. I'm not sure what I'll do for disk utilities and registry fixers. If you have a recommendation, drop me a line. I'd like to find something besides Norton to recommend. This isn't the first problem I've had with a Symantec installation, but it may be the last. Sad, since I've liked their stuff for so many years.

Symantec has a way of purchasing other utility companies seemingly to cut down on the competition. Remember Central Point Utilities? They were at least as good as the Norton utilities of their day, but vanished after Symantec bought the company.

More recently, Symantec bought PowerQuest, another interesting utilities company. It'll be interesting to see how much of that company's technology finds its way into Symantec products. A friend of mine who swears by PowerQuest's disc tools was really bummed when he heard the company had been bought. (The acquisition occurred months ago, but I just mentioned it to him. Ruined the guy's whole afternoon.)

I'm down three Windows machines right now. I could use Rachel's machine--I paid for it and she is my assistant, after all--but there's important stuff on it and just in case it's a bad case of compu-Karma that's crashing these machines, I want to leave hers out of my sphere of negative influence.

SO I'M DOING what I always do when Windows ticks me off (that's not the word I really want to use, but this is a family AnchorDesk): I grab a Mac. Right now, I'm typing this column on a 15-inch PowerBook G4.

The nice thing about Mac OS X is that it's darn near uncrashable. No matter what programs I install or uninstall or how I use it, OS X just runs. I've been using it since before the commercial release and have had only one serious crash--and that was during a hardware installation. The machine then booted right up without further incident. Other that that, the OS has been--at least in my experience--rock solid. And that's more than I can say about my Windows machines.

Sure, not all the programs I want to use run on Mac, but it's like I tell people: If a Mac does what you want to do, it's a much more stable OS than Windows

[Swordmaker]

"The nice thing about Mac OS X is that it's darn near uncrashable."

Says it all. And ZD NET is not a Mac Centric site...

[Swordmaker]

Good article. ZD NET

"The nice thing about Mac OS X is that it's darn near uncrashable. No matter what programs I install or uninstall or how I use it, OS X just runs." - David Coursey, Executive Editor, ZD NET AnchorDesk

[MrsEmmaPeel]

I've been on the Mac since 1984. Mr. Peel and I develop software/web development. Mac OS X, for me was a big thumbs down. I absolutely hated Jaguar, to the point where I got some Sony machines with XP and a top of the line NEC monitor and learned C#. I moved all my web work (apache/php) to Windows 2003/.aspx pages. We've pretty much completed the lengthy process of moving all our Mac Objective-C libraries over to C#. We have absolutely fallen in love with the development environment.

Mr Peel wanted to try the Mac again, so we upgraded to Panther. That is better, so doubt about it, but there is no real incentive to switch back. For me, the issue is not stability - as both platforms are rock solid, its usability. I can get more work done on the XP environment with the .net tools. 4 years ago I would never have thought that possible.

Also, there are more software choices in XP.

[wita]

The mac seems to still hold sway in the graphics world, but I agree with you on all the rest. I still have my 2e but of course that was an apple not a mac.

[goldstategop]

I run Norton Systemworks and Internet Security here on an HP PC. No problems since I installed Windows XP. The folks at Symantec also bought Goback from Roxio. You still won't find a better set of utilities for Windows today for the price and you can get them on Ebay for a fraction of what you'd pay at CompUSA.

[prion]

Macs aren't computers, they're a religion. I wish I had a nickel for every time a Mac acolyte looked me in the face and said "Macs never crash" while standing in front of a crashed Mac.

"Oh, this? No, it didn't crash. This is my fault. I loaded a bad driver."

Yesssss.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

How many nickels would that be EXACTLY?
Not a Mac lover, just a stickler for rhetoric. ;-)

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

If I started computing with XP, I wouldn't even know what a BSOD ( blue screen of death ) or crash is. Not saying it's perfect but Apple users are going to have to find a new anti Windows line pretty soon.

[pt17]

The Macs don't crash and the Windows machines do.

My PCs (WNT and W2K) haven't crashed since I installed them years ago and I only reboot after installing something. I must be doing something wrong?

[lentulusgracchus]

What do you think about the rumor that Chairman Bill is going to use activation software to turn XP into a rental property -- $100/yr to run it, or something like that?

I need a new laptop, but I am extremely hesitant to get involved with XP because of the activation issue. But my more-experienced friend tells me, don't be wet, go for a new box running XP Pro rather than one of last year's remaindered stock running Win2K. I'm looking at Toshibas and IBM R- or A-Series laptops. Right now I'm using a P-II IBM i-Series.

What do you think?

[Jack of all Trades]

Here's a short article summary:

I've roached three systems, but the problem can't possibly be me whaaa. An old system tool that happened to work for me is no longer available Whaaa. So, I'll just shovel a load of cash at the problem and hope for the best.

[lentulusgracchus]

"Roached"?

[MrsEmmaPeel]

The mac seems to still hold sway in the graphics world,

I would disagree. Some of the things I can do in the .net world I never did on the Mac (technique is possible, just too complicated.) I'm talking about real-time layering of an image with various alpha channels and outputting that image to a web page. Multiple users can be viewing similar but different images that are generated to their specifications on the fly. The world of interactive graphics is pretty impressive. I'm not into gaming, but that would include gaming engines.

Passive graphics -- like the Photoshop editing I believe is also possible on XP. There are a lot of software choices for DVD/Video editing.

The key in any graphics use is the Monitor and processor speed.

[Crusher138]

My Mac Story:

Back in the dark ages of networked computing (about 12 years ago) I was developing a networked system for order tracking for my company. We had an art department and we had to make a choice:

1. Give them the Macs they wanted and have them all share a terminal to input the required order information or...

2. Force them to use WinTel machines, where each could not only do their art, but each could enter the required order information.

We were told we could get the Macs to network (maybe) but they wouldn't be able to run our in house developed software (except maybe in emulation mode). Since the program depended on mapped network drives, the Macs really couldn't cut it as data machines. The cost of buying Macs and Wintel machines was prohibitive.

We chose the second option. There was much crying and gnashing of teeth, but when they saw that their beloved Adobe applications ran quite well on their systems, they quieted down.

Several years later we bought out a competitor and picked up their Macs from their art department. Our artists were hell bent on showing us how wrong we had been and how great Macs were. Unfortunately the Macs didn't cooperate. They couldn't get them to talk to our image setter over our network. They barely networked with each other. While on some tasks (screen redraws) they were faster, on others (saves and loads) they were considerably slower. Oh, and when it comes to crashes, while Macs have less "system" crashes, they have plenty of "application" crashes.

The upshot? While every artist we hire initially disses the Windows machines, after working with them for a while, each gets along with them just fine. The true measure of the conversion - each of my four artists has bought Windows based machines for their home systems (and, no, they don't bring their work home).

[pending]

The other thing is cost. I just bought a new MB/amd 2200/512 MB of ram, can now do all the fancy media center tricks...Tivo type things, for 125 bux. All on the very cool but admittedly aging 98. I use the 98lite installer/setup by Shane Brooks. it really gives you a lot of control over the thing.

For XP/2000 see definately black vipers site. Turn off all the stuff you dont need. It is a swiss army knife, you know?

Software availability is another thing. I am legit, never had to buy anything, its either free or included with hardware.

I am thankful for the standardization, a dream that seemed unrealizable a few years ago. Imagine predicting computer parts at the friendly walmart...just plug em in?
It is spectacular, and under-rated.

I will not say I like everything MS does, bt have found it manageable over time. There was quite a learning curve though.

[Glenn]

I wish I had a nickel for every time a Mac acolyte looked me in the face and said "Macs never crash" while standing in front of a crashed Mac.

You expect any self-respecting computer geek to believe this? If I had a nickel for every time one of my Macs crashed, I'd have $.00. I'd have only slightly more, maybe $.20, for every time one of my PCs (W2K) crashed. (Though they do get fussy at times.) This whole BSOD thing is overblown these days. Making up stories out of whole cloth about "acolytes" in front of crashed Macs who loaded bad drivers out of goes one beyond overblown.

There. I've called you on it.

[martin_fierro]

[MrsEmmaPeel]

What do you think about the rumor that Chairman Bill is going to use activation software to turn XP into a rental property

Hasn't Apple done the same thing? They make their operating system obsolete requiring users to pay full upgrade price. A friend of ours bought a new top-of-the-line iMac in September/2003, by November, he wanted to upgrade to Panther but Apple insisted that he pay full price.

At least on a PC box, if you decide to ditch XP, you have other OS choices.

[Stallone]

Sounds like little Davey is too stupid to own a computer.

[Stallone]

Mac's crash all the time - their owners are liars, idiots and unconscious.