Windows is simply a better multitasking OS

[silverpig]

I use win7 for work and OSX for home and I can't stand the window management in win7.

 

[gmaster456]

If it had 2GB of RAM when you got it, you certainly did not get that machine when Windows XP first came out.

He said it came with Windows XP on it. Dell was selling XP machines until something like 2009. Look a little closer.

 

[Ns1]

I use win7 for work and OSX for home and I can't stand the window management in win7.

If you don't use hot keys and love full screen, it's pretty obvious why Win 7 > OSX.

 

[Ns1]

The price argument is stupid for many, many reasons. But Apple has released 7 upgrades of OS X since 2002, when XP was released, while MS has released 3 if you include XP. If you bought XP retail for $200 and the Vista and Win7 upgrades for $100 that's $400 total. It's hard to find good retail prices for older versions of OS X, but they seem to range from less than $100 to over $200 on Amazon. So if we cut that low at $75ea that's still $470. And most people stick with the seam version of Windows for 5+ years and get the license with the PC so it's a moot point.

And even if you factor in another $100 upgrade for Win8, that only puts it $30 above OS X and chances are there will be another version of OS X out before Win9. And it's even worse if you include the first two releases of OS X.

If you're happy with your walled garden that's fine, but cost definitely isn't a reason tout anything from Apple as better than the alternatives.

Any Windows disk is at least 75 bucks. OSX upgrades (for as long as I've used them) were/are $20-30.

I'm not a keyboard shortcut guy myself. I have a 6 button mouse, and I mapped the forward/back buttons to mission control (forward is current app, back is all apps).

alt tab? screen shots? expose? change spaces? change tabs? list goes on and on and on...I try not to move my hands unless I have to.

Is there a hot key for save post on ATOT? LOL

 

[Tyranicus]

He said it came with Windows XP on it. Dell was selling XP machines until something like 2009. Look a little closer.

Nothinman was responding to this:

If you bought a top end computer when XP came out, you almost certainly weren't still using that computer and upgrading to Vista and then 7.

Perhaps you should look a little closer yourself.

 

[gmaster456]

Nothinman was responding to this:


Perhaps you should look a little closer yourself.

You were responding to nothinman who posted

My previous work laptop came with XP on it and I put Win7 on it shortly after it came out

 

[billbobaggins87]

may have been said already but i thought w8 was more of a mobile OS.?

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Aero Snap blows away anything OSX has in its default state.

Literally Windows Key + left/right/up/down arrow and I can position my window side-by-side to do comparisons. It's beautiful.

I really enjoy OSX and the build quality and workmanship of my MBP. I just miss some things about Windows.

 

[Ns1]

There are many, many OSX windows management features that you are not using.

That being said, your problems can be fixed by one of these tools:

http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/cinch/
http://www.boastr.de/

 

[TheStu]

You were responding to nothinman who posted

My point was that if you had a top end computer from 2001 when XP came out, you probably weren't installing Windows 7 on it. My computer from 2001 was a 900MHz Celeron with 128MB RAM and a 20GB HDD. I bought it just before XP came out, I got XP as a free upgrade from Dell. It wasn't top end, sure, but still.

Nothinman said that his last work laptop had 2GB RAM in it.

In 2001, 2GB was basically unheard of in consumer system, ESPECIALLY laptops. I spent $600 for 1GB of DESKTOP RAM in 2004.

Tyranicus was saying that if Nothinman's work laptop had 2GB RAM, then it isn't from 2001, and therefore wasn't new when XP was.

 

[Paperlantern]

Tyranicus was saying that if Nothinman's work laptop had 2GB RAM, then it isn't from 2001, and therefore wasn't new when XP was.

this is what I got from it as well, except it wasn't a necessary statement because nothinman didn't say or even imply that he had his machine when xp came out. So I'm not sure how we are on this

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Aero Snap blows away anything OSX has in its default state.

Literally Windows Key + left/right/up/down arrow and I can position my window side-by-side to do comparisons. It's beautiful.

I really enjoy OSX and the build quality and workmanship of my MBP. I just miss some things about Windows.

I agree 100%. Wherever I use a Mac Aero Snap is the feature I miss the most.

 

[TheStu]

I agree 100%. Wherever I use a Mac Aero Snap is the feature I miss the most.

I could never get into Aero Snap, I very rarely need 2 windows each taking up exactly half the screen. I use Divvy instead, which lets you define how big the window is going to be on a grid. So I can lay out 4 equal size explorer windows very quickly.

Or a 3 column excel spreadsheet that I am checking against a larger one, or against the system we use at work.

Or a full width, but only 15% height window on the bottom of the screen with 2 windows that each take up 85% height by 50% width. That sort of thing. I prefer the granularity that Divvy offers over the one size fits all that Aero Peek offers.

However, if you just want straight up Aero Peek, Cinch, as has been mentioned, will do the trick.

You know what I miss when I am on my MacBook and not my desktop? The thumbnail previews on the taskbar icons. But that is less about usability than just appearance. App Expose and Expose solve the problem for me better.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Aero Snap blows away anything OSX has in its default state.

Literally Windows Key + left/right/up/down arrow and I can position my window side-by-side to do comparisons. It's beautiful.

I really enjoy OSX and the build quality and workmanship of my MBP. I just miss some things about Windows.

The thing about positioning windows side by side in Windows is...

...you can't scroll the window that you don't have in focus.

I can't move my mouse cursor over to the window that is not in focus, and then scroll it slowly while typing in the other window. If I want to move to the next lines of texts, I have to click the other window, scroll it, then click back in this window. More steps than necessary. To my workflow, that's detrimental because I do split windows very regularly.

Seriously, both sides have their own pros and cons, but I think you are just nitpicking Windows features compared to OSX.

 

[TheStu]

The thing about positioning windows side by side in Windows is...

...you can't scroll the window that you don't have in focus.

I can't move my mouse cursor over to the window that is not in focus, and then scroll it slowly while typing in the other window. If I want to move to the next lines of texts, I have to click the other window, scroll it, then click back in this window. More steps than necessary. To my workflow, that's detrimental because I do split windows very regularly.

Seriously, both sides have their own pros and cons, but I think you are just nitpicking Windows features compared to OSX.

Wizmouse will allow you to scroll in inactive windows, utterly critical to my workflow.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Wizmouse will allow you to scroll in inactive windows, utterly critical to my workflow.

Thanksfully, it works with MacBooks. But I have found some laptops and netbooks that it doesn't work with.

And it's not a native feature of Windows in any case. Some applications don't support it.

 

[MrX8503]

He clearly does not use hot keys

That blows my mind. How can anyone expect to multi task without keyboard shortcuts.

 

[TheStu]

That blows my mind. How can anyone expect to multi task without keyboard shortcuts.

Well, part of the problem is that Windows seems to really only have like, 2.

You know what else grinds my gears about having to do actual, you know, work in Windows? I cannot rename open files. Lets say I get sent a scanned copy of a bill, in Windows I have to open it up (wastes time launching Reader), check the bill number, close it, hit F2 to rename it, and hope that I remember all 10 digits of the bill number.

In OS X, I hit space to quicklook, hit enter to rename it, and type the number while looking at the image. This is something that comes up anywhere from 3 times a day, to 10 times an hour.

You also cannot move open files. You can't do anything with open files unless you do it from the application in question.

 

[sourceninja]

I honestly am half as productive when I don't have my magic pad. I have at least 6 gestures I can't live without.

 

[vshin]

I love my new Macbook Pro Retina Display laptop, but I have to admit that I miss the multitasking of Windows 7. It's not that I can't multitask in OSX, it's just not nearly as efficient.

For starters, there's no transparency. This means I can't really see what windows are open behind me if they are directly behind the current window. Now I can do the finger shortcuts to bring them up, but that's an extra step that I don't have to do in Windows. Windows also makes much better use of screen real-estate. For an app in OSX to use the full screen it has to enter into fullscreen mode which is cumbersome. In Windows it's so bloody simple, double click the top title bar and voila. Also I can shuffle windows around very easily in Windows so that I can view them side by side.

All in all, I enjoy my laptop and for the most part enjoy OSX. But my next laptop will be Windows based for sure. I miss it.

I prefer multi-tasking with Win 7 on my desktop with a large monitor, but I actually feel OSX handles multi-tasking better on laptops with a limited display size. It's much easier to set up multiple desktops with Mission Control and quickly swipe between them with the multi-gesture feature. In contrast, cramming multiple shrunken/transparent windows onto the same laptop screen can look very cluttered.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'm not a keyboard shortcut guy myself. I have a 6 button mouse, and I mapped the forward/back buttons to mission control (forward is current app, back is all apps).

Humbug. 6 mouse buttons?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343

The way I see it, I have 75 mouse buttons arranged in 6 orderly rows right above my trackpad.

I don't know quite as many Windows keyboard shortcuts, but it's close.

Really, I'm just too lazy to move my hands.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I prefer multi-tasking with Win 7 on my desktop with a large monitor, but I actually feel OSX handles multi-tasking better on laptops with a limited display size. It's much easier to set up multiple desktops with Mission Control and quickly swipe between them with the multi-gesture feature. In contrast, cramming multiple shrunken/transparent windows onto the same laptop screen can look very cluttered.

See, I just remember what I have open. I must just not multitask enough.

 

[Nothinman]

If it had 2GB of RAM when you got it, you certainly did not get that machine when Windows XP first came out.

It was a hand-me-down when I started so I don't know what the original config was, but 2G was the max and it had a "Designed for XP" sticker on it, so while it may not have been released alongside XP it's still close enough for my point. Since the hardware and software aren't released in lockstep like they are with OS X, it's even more difficult to compare time frames. Most vendors try to release hardware soon after MS puts out an OS but they usually really undercut the specs and it takes at least a few months for things to catch up and figure out what the realistic low end is as opposed to MS' minimum specs.

The primary point was that during the life of OS X you were literally forced to buy several new PCs in order to run the latest release, but that's not the case with Windows.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

In OS X, I hit space to quicklook, hit enter to rename it, and type the number while looking at the image. This is something that comes up anywhere from 3 times a day, to 10 times an hour.

I do this all the time, I couldn't live without it. Not just receipts, but other documents (PDFs especially) that I download from work-related websites with seemingly random numbers for their filename, and I need to re-name them to something useful, which I can see on the first page in QuickLook and type in Finder. I can get through a whole folder of 20-30 PDFs in a couple of minutes, I can't imagine doing it on Windows.

 

[bkar89]

I love my new Macbook Pro Retina Display laptop, but I have to admit that I miss the multitasking of Windows 7. It's not that I can't multitask in OSX, it's just not nearly as efficient.

For starters, there's no transparency. This means I can't really see what windows are open behind me if they are directly behind the current window. Now I can do the finger shortcuts to bring them up, but that's an extra step that I don't have to do in Windows. Windows also makes much better use of screen real-estate. For an app in OSX to use the full screen it has to enter into fullscreen mode which is cumbersome. In Windows it's so bloody simple, double click the top title bar and voila. Also I can shuffle windows around very easily in Windows so that I can view them side by side.

All in all, I enjoy my laptop and for the most part enjoy OSX. But my next laptop will be Windows based for sure. I miss it.

Hmm... my opinion totaly differs form this, with missioncntrl/expose I actually find multitasking easier on osx than w7.

before i got my rmbp i had a 13" mbp, being used to work on a 2x24" windows box, my rescue was expose. If it hadn't been for expose, i think my apple run would be a very short one

You do hower have som valid point. The snap feature, and maximize are both features i'm going to miss when i toss that windows box out the door...

(tip: you can actually download a app to enable a similiar snap feature in osx)