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But they still have to use Windows? Or not? I don't mind so long as I can get back to Windows 7.
A Mac can run any version of Windows instead of OS/X if you have a Windows install / license, through a facility called Boot Camp. It can also run both at the same time using VMWare Fusion or similar.
Your beef seems to be with Windows, so running Windows on a Mac, while a very trendy / hip thing to do in the world of software development, is just paying a little more for sexy hardware to still have the problems you already have.
I am advocating instead for leaving Windows as a platform and using Mac OS/X. There are Mac versions of all the major web browsers, plus Microsoft Office if you want it, and once you have that in place you can probably do all the things you normally do, only with a more elegant user interface (in most ways -- I never have cozied to the way Mac applications don't REALLY close when you close the last application window), better security, less security "infection surface", and less problematic updates (supposed improvements in update infrastructure in Windows 10 notwithstanding) and therefore overall more stability.
On the other hand you are not very interested in all this stuff so maybe the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. ;-)
Thank you. That is very helpful. The problem would now be doing battle with computer sales -personnel who are more interested in selling you their company (if not personal) favourite lines, plus profitable but essentially useless upgrade /repair packages, instead of providing you with what you actually want.
You might consider running Windows 8 in a virtual machine like VMWare Fusion. It has a mode where your Windows 8 application can be made to look like any other Mac app so you never have to actually touch the icky Windows 8 UI. It's not as hard to do as it sounds.
Some say that Windows 10 resolves most user interface issues with Windows 8 but I don't have any personal experience with it.
The version of Windows Server that I work on has a UI similar to Windows 8 but I mostly avoid it. If you tap the Windows key you get that funky new Windows 8 UI and if you then tap the Esc key you get back out of it. 99% of the time I'm either in Visual Studio or Sql Server Management Studio or the old fashioned Windows Explorer ... it suffices.
Yes. I already use VMWare Fusion. I will try your link later.
Thank you. That is very helpful. The problem would now be doing battle with computer sales -personnel who are more interested in selling you their company (if not personal) favourite lines, plus profitable but essentially useless upgrade /repair packages, instead of providing you with what you actually want.
My wife is much like you, not that interested in the technology and just wants to get work done (she's a writer). She made the transition fine, given that I am around to get her out of trouble now and then, and if it's something I don't have the patience to deal with I can always bribe my son to come over for a free meal and deal with the issue (he is the system administrator, I am the software developer -- two different skill sets). The kinds of trouble she gets into is the same kinds of trouble she used to get into with Windows ... impatient fat-fingering of option dialog boxes or not really reading pop-up dialogs and making a choice that installs some crapware that gets in her way, things like that. It's just somewhat easier to undo this sort of end user thrashing about on the Mac than on Windows.
My wife is no dummy, but she is representative of a lot of users, who metaphorically swat flies without thinking why the fly showed up in the first place. We IT people know how to think more like a computer and deal with these things properly, but a lot of people don't. The canonical example is upgrading Flash or Java or something like that ... there are two versions, one that's JUST the offered update and the default version which is the update plus some crazy browser toolbar or system optimizer that doesn't really optimize ... if you don't notice and uncheck the checkbox you get more than you bargained for. And then getting rid of this "bloatware" is usually unintuitive, requiring that you disable the extension in each of your browsers, AND uninstall the main program as well ... and you usually have to Google for that procedure, it's not transparently offered up.
These issues exist on both Windows and OS/X, it's just that OS/X has a smaller market share with arguably more astute users on average and it's more effort for less reward for bloatware and malware vendors to target it. And Apple doesn't install bloatware like many Windows hardware vendors do. So the Mac is a little less "crufty" that way, and less prone to outright viruses and trojans, to the point that in practice if not in theory, you can run it pretty safely without the bother and overhead of antivirus programs. Also it seems to accumulate less of what we call "system lint" over time. A Windows box seems to run progressively slower and flakier with each passing year and each new application software install, whereas the Mac seems to just keep working -- the most I've had to do is stop / restart a web browser now and then to get rid of sluggishness -- and I'm the sort that often will not reboot or shut down for weeks and weeks.
But they still have to use Windows? Or not? I don't mind so long as I can get back to Windows 7. Oh Zarquon..they now don't seem to want to send or receive E -mails.
I am still using Windows XP. Windows 7 is on the second computer and I don't like that either because I have trouble finding files when I want them. I suspect I will eventually get rid of this and get a MAC, but I am not sure if I will then be able to use my calendars (they are in publisher). If they hadn't messed up the interface for the calendars on my old Amipro when we did Y2K, I would still be using that. I love amipro, but I am not willing to buy the Lotus word pro that is based on it. It is a pain to convert the files to word as well.
If you want to give up easily there is always this.
To make life easier on Windows 7 and 8.1 converts, Microsoft will allow you to rollback your Windows 10 installation to the previous operating system for 30 days post-upgrade
If you want to give up easily there is always this.
To make life easier on Windows 7 and 8.1 converts, Microsoft will allow you to rollback your Windows 10 installation to the previous operating system for 30 days post-upgrade
I tried that...even at the risk of losing all my work....All of it...and it told me...wait for it...that it couldn't uninstall back to windows 7 because somehow it had upgraded to windows 8 without me noticing it.
I tried that...even at the risk of losing all my work....All of it...and it told me...wait for it...that it couldn't uninstall back to windows 7 because somehow it had upgraded to windows 8 without me noticing it.
8 is so substantially different than 7 I have to ask......if that was so, didn't you notice??
8 is so substantially different than 7 I have to ask......if that was so, didn't you notice??
I heard that it was and am astonished that it looked like the same old windows 7..in fact I think now that it said it was windows 7, so why it says it can't go back to it ...is it part of the scam? I found the facility for initiating the vid player feature that I lost and it said it was fixing it..but it didn't. Is it my fat fingers or the cheapo laptop I am using? Or is something really wrong?
Some sites say it is fine. Other people say it stinks. It probably is that it is only user -friendly if you are an expert user. I have only ever been a trained monkey in computer use. You press a button and get a peanut.
No peanut, monkey keep jabbing button, lose rag, smash computer..
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Now I know I got spyware..you must have been watching me.
I tried that...even at the risk of losing all my work....All of it...and it told me...wait for it...that it couldn't uninstall back to windows 7 because somehow it had upgraded to windows 8 without me noticing it.