Why I switched to Mac after being a long time Windows evangelist
I've used Windows loyally for over two decades, from my first Gateway computer to the compact Dell at my desk at work today. I've used Windows Server 2000, 2012, 2016, etc.
Every single use case for Windows is plagues with the same problem for the last two dozen years. Consistently, Windows freezes, locks up, crashes explorer, between 1 and 7 times per week. I don't miss this "feature" when I switched to Mac. There was a phase on Mac that it would take a good 30 seconds to wake up after being asleep but this bug seems to go in an out. I will trade this bug on Mac for daily Windows freezes anytime.
Since no one has ever addressed the issue, I'm finally calling out some common causes that I have seen. The most common causes I have found aside from failing memory which is always a possibility:
1) Group policies 2) DCOM permission errors 3) RealTek audio drivers
Has anyone ever listed the group policies that cause Windows to lock up while they are updating every day at 3:00 PM? I know they exist, and I would love to see a list.
DCOM, what is the point and why do I want remote access always available on my computer? Why does Cortana need to have a constant connection, and why does DCOM errors in the event log cause Windows to lock up?
Finally, RealTek drivers. These are the worst. Why does an audio driver cause my entire desktop to crash?
If anyone could answer these questions for me, I would be eternally grateful and I will forward them to Microsoft promptly since in 24 years of using Windows, they still haven't fixed these basic user experience problems.
30 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 80.5 ms ] threadIf there was a Windows laptop that allowed me to boot into macOS with relatively simple set up (meaning as simple as Bootcamp setup) I would strongly consider it.
Apple due to either indifference or intent wants Windows running on Mac hardware to be a bad experience and they succeed. You're better off grabbing a copy of Parallels, since they seemingly care about you having a good experience on both the MacOS and Windows side of things (and in my opinion succeed).
Windows 95 was, iirc, Windows 4.0. The Windows franchise started well before Windows 95: 1985 for Windows 1.0.
This doesn't happen to me. As it stands, my laptop hasn't done a power cycle since the last Windows update (10th). You are the common factor here, so the group policy (as you mentioned) is a good starting point. Try leaving it alone. Additionally, it could be 3rd party stuff that you typically install; Realtek is suspect because their software is utter garbage. Windows now includes support for a universal driver (Aria, or something to that tune) so you may be able to skip the Realtek installation entirely. The only driver I've installed on Windows in about half a decade is for the graphics card.
Day to day, the biggest obstacle to getting my job done is consistently Windows. It's a thoroughly wretched piece of software.
Sounds like a problem with the System Administrators at your workplace. For example who is still using mapped network drives? Group Policy is the modern way to do it and has been for over ten years.
As to the two network issues, I'd have to dive into the event log to see why. I've seen WiFi drivers cause this, specifically a HP driver that took almost a year to get fixed.
Poor technical support and setup will hamper your work on any operating system.
I completely buy that a competent IT dept can make windows painless, but I haven't needed any support competent or not on Mac or Linux.
An overreaching admin could be precisely why Windows was such a pain for you (or the poster, who mentioned GPO). That is one of the downfalls of Windows - it's enterprise ready, which means that your experience is at the whim of another person or policy.
His point is that the OS should be designed properly so that even if there are glitches in drivers or external factors, the entire OS shouldn't become unusable, only the portion with the problem. Every OS since the 68000 chip came out has done this (AmigaDOS, BeOS, Sun, MacOSX, even OS/2), but Windows is so fundamentally flawed that any small flaw in any other component can bring it to its knees.
Funny you say that, Windows is the only desktop OS I've seen calmly inform me that sorry, my GPU driver just crashed and had to be restarted, instead of freezing or throwing a kernel panic. The kernel really isn't Windows' problem
All I know is that I routinely cannot do my job because of windows.
So you're saying Windows isn't fundamentally unreliable, it's just fragile. You need to know how to treat it gently for it to work reliably. It's not robust under common misuses.
Given Apple continues to gain market share, maybe I'm wrong.
In Mac? I'm pretty sure they're steadily losing market share[0]. The whole market for desktop computing (inc laptops) has compressed, but Apple seem to be losing share faster than PC competitors.
iOS they remain in good shape however, but the OP's post was specifically about Mac/PC.
[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-mac-lost-most-pc-market...
http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/04/11/apples-mac-continu...
2016 was the the only year Apple failed to outgrow the market in at least a decade, its market share was as low as 2% before Jobs came back.
- Firefox freezes constantly requiring force-quits. Reinstalls and updates don't help much. Probably Firefox's fault.
- Mouse randomly clicks off in a different monitor, or in the upper left corner, losing application focus. While a minor annoyance while typing, photoshopping, using hotkeys, it makes me flip my shit when I'm gaming.
- Wakes up from sleep without reason or indication or any way to stop it: The actual fuck. This is the worst. I have fiddled with every setting and registry entry that has anything to do with the computer's sleep state, captured logs to view activity leading to power on and after, changed OS's, formatted, switched hard drives, everything. This bugs the shit out of me, as my aging desktop is loud and hot and makes my bedroom a terrible place to sleep. I have scripts and shortcut keys from my wireless headphones to put my computer back to sleep from my bed, but what the heck is this anyway.
These are all random quality of life improvements that shouldn't need to be so hard to put in place.
About that mouse issue; have you ever tried a different mouse or reinstalling it's driver? I don't know Mac and I don't remember how it was on Linux, but if a mouse clicks or moves just a little bit, that wakes the system up on Windows machines. Till you got the random mouse clicks, it looks like it's a #1 suspect.
Could it be that this only happens on OP's machine because of a failure to remove malware?