Nooooooooo! Windows Its like a nightmare!

[Ken Newbold]

I've been running on XP for 4 years now now without incident

If I'm not seen on here for a few weeks now you'll know why

[jonathan_dyane]

I'm running Xp again!!

Yes it's running on Virtual Box inside Linux!! It's ok, a bit slower this way but it allows me to run a few Windows applications.

Virtual Box is good, similar to Virtual pc.

Depends what Windows apps you need as to whether it suits, but Wine works beautifully the odd thing I like to use (like Spotify, which doesn't even stumble when I'm doing lots of things simultaneously on my ancient Thinkpad T21).

[bobhalliday]

Hi all,
I've had XP Pro on my PC since it came out, nearly, I had another version on my Laptop which got busted and the insurance gave me a new one. A Toshiba with Vista Home Premium, it might be okay if I had time to settle down with it and try to learn it, but I can't transfer a lot of my stuff over, probably because I have been using Lotus Smartsuite for everything since it came out too, and I won't change it because it is a totally brilliant set of programs.
Vista won't work with Lotus as seemlessly as XP so I can't copy over spreadsheets or especially the Lotus Organizer program which I use for everything. I imagine Gates wants me to use his crap at hugely enhanced prices, but he doesn't have a program like Organizer! I even thought of going over to Linux! Never Mac's though, Jobs wouldn't give me the source code to let me build them too like IBM did!
Hi Demag, you speak of a program Virtual Box, where can I get this? I was thinking of puting in a dual program but your's might be a better option. All I use the laptop for at the moment is for my E-mails and reading the Forum reports and playing stupid chess when at my caravan on weekends.
Bob

[rowanmoor]

VirtualBox is very good. It is a (mostly) Open Source (and of course free) virtualisation solution which I find to be much better than both Microsoft VirtualPC and VMWare. It is backed by Sun.

It can be found at http://www.virtualbox.org. The user interface is slightly clunky/odd in a couple of places, but other than that it is very good and much faster than a lot of it's competitors.

[terry g]

yep, mines been playing up for about a week? it keeps restarting at random intervals, more so if im using firefox?? .... but on a happier note my 2.5, sailed through its test today, for the third year running,

[demag]

Terry you need to get your Windows up to the same high standards as your XM

For some reason I couldn't settle with Firefox when running XP. Now I'm running Linux though it's brilliant

[Richard]

This is where I put the cat among the pidgeons then go to bed.

I've been a fan of Macs since 1984. Most of what we now take for granted, mice, windows dialogues, and a whole lot more besides, originate with Apple computers. Bill Gates is a thief! Nothing more or less. He stole all these things from Apple computers.

While my friends were struggling with Windows 3.1 and it's clumsy way of going about things, I was on a Mac and didn't have half the troubles. I've published graphics done on a Mac which were impossible on a Windows machine at the time.

Someone posted they're more expensive. No they're not! Over the life cycle of a computer Macs are cheaper. I run two Intel Aluminium Imacs, cost £799 each, there's a Mac mini on the shelf and a Mac server working all the time. In terms of service, virus infection etc, end to end the Macs are cheaper, better specified, and last longer than most Windows machines. And they're so reliable. And the reason? Apple design the hardware, the operating system and the key programmes. It's all in one.

Apple bundled software makes Windows look like an orphan on the streets.

We've all been conned into believing Windows is all there is. No it's not.

We've all been conned into believing software for Macs is limited, no it's not. They're now fully functional business machines, graphics machines, they do whatever you bought them for. (Check apple.com/downloads)

If you look around, the most reliable computers are Macs running OSX based on the Unix platform. No attempt by Microsoft to come near Mac specs or reliability has ever succeeded. NT, on which XP is based, and I understand Windows 7, is a shadow of the almost hallowed Unix.

As a clue to how Microsoft really views it's position vis a vis Macs, Steve Ballmer, President of Microsoft, last year described Windows Vista as, 'the biggest f***ing abortion in the history of mankind,' and that at a press conference! It's on YouTube. Now they offer us Windows 7. I've had a beta version here, and when I cross over to a Mac on OSX Leopard, well, what can I say?

Just give up on Windows, let Microsoft die quietly on the $20+ billon dollars they have as reserve capital, and go for the best, something exquisite, which, unlike Windows, ... works as it says on the tin.

I think you may now have the impression I'm a fan of Apple/Mac!

But the flip side is, my business depends on the unreliability of Windows machines, and to that extent I love Bill Gates. Keep 'em coming Bill, and I'll use a Mac!!

[andmcit]

Yay!!

I'm sitting here on my drop dead gorgeous 17" widescreen anglepoise iMac G4 and I love it!!
In fact, it may come as no surprise to everyone that I've got TWO sitting here side by side!

[youtube]ZWGuUkYZYIE[/youtube]

Without Macs I wouldn't have a job an a means to sustain my crack (Citroen?) habit
- simple as that! And there's not a single soul I've met who hasn't coveted the 32"
Apple widescreen Cinema HD and G5 tower I sit at every day!!

Andrew

[andmcit]

I wonder how many folk are comfortably enjoying running a 2002 machine here still.
(No not a car!!)

What? And you're still happy with it?

Andrew

[rowanmoor]

I wonder how many folk are comfortably enjoying running a 2002 machine here still.

Me! I built my PC at the end of 2002 and also have a second hand (got it for free) laptop which is about 2001 I think. To be fair I to tend to run the laptop on Linux, but it also has XP on it.

My main PC still runs fine. It could do with a reinstall, but I never get round to it. I have added more memory and a disks since new, but I could have brought the PC and upgrades twice over for the price of a Mac! I expect it's performance is probably better than a Mac of the same age due to the upgrades it has had since.

And I do do some intensive stuff on it - photo, music and video manipulation all go fine on it. Even Visual Studio and SQL server run acceptably on it. I don't expect it to be as fast as a new PC, but it isn't too slow.

The thing is, windows needs maintenance. If you pay someone to do it for you then it will cost a fortune. If you find it is getting too slow and don't know how to maintain/reinstall it yourself then you end up buying a new PC and it costs a fortune. If you maintain it yourself (like an XM) then it is much cheeper than a Mac.

Yes, Macs and Linux/Unix are technically better than Windows in many ways, but Macs are more expensive to buy and there are things you can't easily do on them. For example my TV hard disk recorder could not be connected to a mac for a long time. You can now because clever people reverse engineered the windows drivers and produced Linux and Mac versions, but the community behind that is very unusual. Many things including many business applications assume a windows platform including the software I write, and there would be no market for mac versions anyway.

The reason most old PCs have trouble now is that Antivirus software assumes you will have a multi-core processor and SATA drives so they assume they can hog a whole processor and thrash the disk without you noticing. This will bring an older PC to a complete stop so you have to choose your antivirus software and settings carefully.

It is all about using the right tool for the job. Macs are the better tool for some jobs, PCs for others.