Microsoft announces Windows 10
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Chazz Layne
Administrator
Having used both (well, all 3) platforms in-depth for decades, I'll take a Windows 7/8+ workstation any day. It's simply a more reliable, more efficient product. It's the bloatware force-fed by Dell, Acer, etc that ruins it... stick to HP's business line and it's golden.
Oh, carry on then. I still geek out a little, always building (or at least heavily modifying) my own machines, but my beta-testing days are far behind me so I haven't even previewed WIN-TEN yet.
nwoods
Expedition Leader
I far prefer Win 7's File Explorer (but hey, can we get a hotkey for a New Folder already?), and I love Win 7's ability to pin windows and snap windows to various screen positions, and I LOVED Win 7's awesome new Search function when it first came out in 2009. But I disliked just about everything else, from mounting a drive, repartitioning a drive, joining machines to ad hoc networks, getting NFS credentials to work right over a network, etc.... and the constant updates and patches. Ugh!
I have Hyperdock on my Mac which replicates the pinning and snapping windows functions (it's awesome!), and Spotlight now exceeds Win 7's search by a long way (and its customizable!). Finder is getting better, but I still prefer File Explorer, but EVERYTHING else on the Mac is good, whereas those were the only strongpoints in Win7. Win 8 is just.... sorta glorious, and sorta awful at the same time. LOVE the white space in it's layout of certain apps, like IE and Mail, but it's too hard to drill through to find various apps and functions, and the discontinuity between app interfaces is painfully jarring to me.
I think Win 10 goes a LONG way towards fixing what I dislike about Win 8, and improves the things I like about Win 7. I am definitely going to use Win10 when it comes out....on my Mac in Parallel
Chazz Layne
Administrator
Shift-command-N on a Mac, shift-ctrl-N when Winning.
I can't help but giggle at this as my Mac's keyboard goes AWOL, yet again, for the second time today and I reboot it, yet again, for the second time today. Before you ask, yes it's a hard-wired genuine Apple USB keyboard that came with the Mac. On average I'm about 20% slower on the Mac—not for lack of experience—but for shortcuts that simply don't exist, tasks that can only be handled with a mouse, and random glitches that bring the workflow to a grinding halt. Heck, a fourth of the time command-tab doesn't even work right (mouse/keyboard focus stays stuck in the previously used app, now hidden).
The only two things I find better are the Magic Trackpad (great for speed and eliminating repetitive-motion issues, but Logitech has a sleek black one for PC), and being able to hit shift-option-dash to get an m-dash (—) instead of having to track it down in Character Map.
I will say this though, I demo'd Windows 8 when it first came out and it was blazing fast on a 27" quad-3.4 iMac... I do dig the hardware.
nwoods
Expedition Leader
Good question. I looked at a couple of articles (windows central.com and extremetech.com), and they say Windows 10 is based on Windows NT kernel 6.4, but that the kernel will be renamed 10.0, which is a significant jump from 6.3 that is the NT kernel for Win 8. So I'm thinking it's still DOS based, if that is an accurate description for what the existing kernel is.
MojaveKJ
Adventurer
I am not an IT guy by any means but I would think they would move more toward UNIX code... IDK.
nwoods
Expedition Leader
From what I remember, Apple's OS was based on DOS and Windows was based on Unix until OS X and Win95, when they switched cores and Apple OSX became Unix based and Win95/NT 4 was a big change. I might have that wrong, I'm not an expert, but I remember something along those lines. Kojack might be able to clarify.
Chazz Layne
Administrator
It would certainly make some things easier for those of us who hop on the shell frequently (I use it to manage all the web servers). I can understand why they wouldn't though, especially after the mess Apple's been through making OSX play nice with their BSD-clone underneath (file permissions still don't work quite right). From MS's perspective, they fully own DOS and can easily bend it to their will. Going *nix-based and starting from scratch probably looks pretty scary...
Apple's was proprietary up until OSX, and near impossible to get to, but in System 7 and 8 the commands and syntax were very similar to DOS. I miss System 8...
Likewise, early DOS had many additional commands that were dropped when more modern Windows versions were released (anyone remember "parking" the drives?). The syntax has pretty much always been the same though (and frustratingly not Unix-like).
Side question, since there's so many Mac fans here at the moment: has anyone successfully installed the Yosemite update yet? I've downloaded the installer 5 times over the past month, each time it arrives "corrupted" and unusable. Feel free to drop me a line back channel if there's some special trick to make it go.
Having used both (well, all 3) platforms in-depth for decades, I'll take a Windows 7/8+ workstation any day. It's simply a more reliable, more efficient product. It's the bloatware force-fed by Dell, Acer, etc that ruins it... stick to HP's business line and it's golden.
Oh, carry on then. I still geek out a little, always building (or at least heavily modifying) my own machines, but my beta-testing days are far behind me so I haven't even previewed WIN-TEN yet.
I buy Windows to get rid of bloatware. I can't use HP products in mobile versions because of poor experiences with them in the past. Maybe they are better now, but I had 3 DV laptops and kept replacing motherboards for various reasons. I have been using acer with great reliability and results. I am using an asus vivotab now for my portable tablet and works great. I do believe that W10 will be free upgrade for 8.1 users no matter what platform whether it be phone, tablet or computer. I am anxiously waiting for W10 on my nokia, its going to be awesome from what the rumors are saying.
I am like yourself, after using all three, and not falling for the Imarketing or the Ilemmings, the windows ecosystem is much more polished, easier to use, smoother, faster, and overall a better system. Devices are more inline with what you should pay and not paying the apple tax, which is ridiculous as most times the devices are not better built or better quality, just they have an apple logo and that instantly makes them 50 percent more expensive.
When I bought my acer timeline, it was 999.00. A MPB 13" with all the highest upgrades, still had less ram, HD space, battery life of less than half of what my timeline does was around 1599.00. I could not bring myself to buy it. I am glad I never too, as after 4 or 5 months of owning pretty well all apple products at the time besides the MacBook, I ditched it all and lost my shirt. Who said that you get good re sale with mac. I paid over 1000 for my Cinema monitor, and 800 for my Mini, and sold it for 700.00 for a package.
Back to having awesome desktop with touch interface, something apple still refuses to embrace, but its coming and when they do, it will be touted as the "revolutionary" new thing that they came up with. Typical apple mind control.
Win products are the easiest, most cost effective, and have the most features.