Avid Windows user here. I had to explain myself so many times to coworkers that I wrote this list [0] to point out differences that users may not be aware of. This list is 4 years old a this point, so a few of the items are no longer true, but overall it still holds water.<p>I've been forced to use Mac for work for several years now, and I still feel jailed in my productivity compared to Windows. The biggest, most crucial difference that Mac users don't seem to know they're missing is how every single Windows dialog box acts like a complete version of Windows Explorer. The Mac's save and open dialog boxes are absolutely infuriating. Also, why can't I just create a markdown file in a folder, double click it so it opens in vscode, then start typing? Window management on Mac is nonexistent, how come window snapping isn't a native feature? Mission Control is like playing hide-and-seek, not managing windows.<p>[0] <a href="https://hellojason.net/blog/nitpicky-differences-between-windows-and-os-x/" rel="nofollow">https://hellojason.net/blog/nitpicky-differences-between-win...</a>
I warmly recommend adding Everything to that list. It's an instant-results file search tool that indexes your entire hard drive. It lets you find any file instantly.<p><a href="https://www.voidtools.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.voidtools.com/</a><p>EDIT: for some extra context, this tool changed the way I name and store files. I hardly ever navigate to a file anymore. I search Everything for, well, everything. After a while, I found myself caring less where I store a file, and more what I name it. I now add any word to a filename that I think I might search it by. Effectively it's a bunch of tags right there in the filename. This removes the need for a separate tagging program like the author suggests.
Uh, a Windows-loving thread on a hacker forum!<p>Let me try to make myself useful, and add an important addition that's missing from the original thread:<p><i>stop Windows 10 from restarting automatically</i><p><a href="https://superuser.com/questions/973009/conclusively-stop-wake-timers-from-waking-windows-10-desktop/973029#973029" rel="nofollow">https://superuser.com/questions/973009/conclusively-stop-wak...</a><p>In particular, <i>step 2</i>... my Windows Surface Go hasn't auto-restarted in months... and this is plain vanilla Windows 10 Home version 2004 (not a fancy Professional or Ultimate).
> <i>Make the Start Menu Full-Screen</i><p>I'm surprised by this one. I couldn't stand Windows 8 because of the full screen start menu. Maybe it was because it was too animated. But I think it was more because I didn't like getting kicked out from my desktop and losing context of what I was doing.<p>I much prefer pressing the Windows key and typing the first few letters of the app I want. Seeing a full screen of apps is way too distracting to me, especially with live tiles.
> PeaZip has a very clean UI, and nice green icons, so it’s very obviously the better choice.<p>If you're "opening" an archive directly you're doing it wrong. The beauty of 7-Zip is the shell integration where you can just right click an archive and do "Extract to [folder name]" or right click a folder and do "Create archive...". I have not had a need for the UI that appears when you double click on an archive in any archive program in 20 years.
As much as I would like to love macOS, Windows has absolutely perfect mouse acceleration. I can’t for the life of me tune the mouse experience on a mac to match windows. I always come back to my trusty PC after couple hours on a mac. So much snappier experience.
> Windows has built-in screen sharing, but only if you have a Pro license<p>Actually windows has built-in screen-<i>sharing</i> on all versions for free. It is not well-known. It is called Quick Assist and is preinstalled on every Windows 10, though it is not as robust as other screen-sharing programs.<p>Windows Remote Desktop is only avail with pro but it is not really screen-sharing as it takes over the session completely (it logs you out from the local session). Sure, you can always use AnyDesk but we're talking here about built-in.
What’s the typical uptime for a Windows machine in daily use? On MacOS that’s usually in a few months scale because that’s how often an update that needs a restart is released. I usually have 5-10 workspaces, and despite that macOS will restore most of it after a restart, I still feel unease restarting.<p>My main issue with Window was that it required quite a lot involvement into the upkeep of the machine, like frequent restarts due to OS and driver updates. Is that a thing of the past now?
Interesinting that some of the tools he installed to "improve" default windows are open-source and also available on linux.<p>Anecdata: about a decade ago I asked a few colleagues if a mac user would feel more at home using windows or Ubuntu. Answer were almost unanimous: Ubuntu. It is a shame that market needs (hardware, services and software) still makes people need windows.
I use Windows at work for its killer feature I rarely see mentioned: text antialiasing and rendering.<p>I believe (?) Freetype came very close to Cleartype in Linux land, but MS holds patents on the extra bit that makes Cleartype just a bit better.<p>I assume text antialiasing will be unnecessary in 10 years due to the rising ubiquity of high resolution monitors, but that day is not here yet. I’ve noticed that macOS has just completely bailed on text antialiasing. Hooking up my MacBook Air M1 to my 109 DPI monitor is a truly awful experience. On the other hand, text on the Retina screen is holy grail. However, holy grail is unattainable for me at the moment. LG Ultrafine monitors are too expensive.<p>Due to DirectWrite, it’s very easy to get an end-to-end best-in-class GPU accelerated text rendering experience on Windows.
> When I hit the start menu, it’s because I want to launch an application. I don’t need to see the rest of the desktop. So why is the Start menu by default only occupying a small portion of the screen, and wasting the remaining space?<p>Hilarious.<p>I mean, I fully agree with the author on that. But since the author is not tied to a Windows ecosystem, he doesn't know that a full-screen start menu actually happened on Windows 8, and it was nearly <i>boycotted</i> by Windows userbase because of the fact that it occupies full screen space. Users demanded to have a Windows95-style start menu, and MS had to redesign it.<p>Why it's so important for Windows users to have a Windows95-style menu, is beyond me.<p>There you have it :D
I've found over the last few years, as much as I hate to say this, that Windows has been a decent experience for me. It's not perfect, but the combination of the right programs (Directory Opus 12, X display server, SSH client) plus WSL makes it a usable experience.<p>VS Code is also now my IDE of choice.<p>I look forward to the day I can switch to Linux full-time (probably Arch), but for now I need good OneDrive integration.
There is a windows phenomenon that I don't know if happens with everybody, but it happens with most of my acquaintances:<p>Every time someone buys a windows computer I get impressed about how fast the computer is. Six months later, same computer, I get impressed about how slow it gets. This experience has been like this for decades. Never seen anything like that on linux or mac.
Whenever I get Windows-curious, the one thing holding me back is all the telemetry and privacy compromises I hear about on forums like HN. One thing I'd love to see in a "switch to Windows" list is a simple list of steps to harden the privacy characteristics of a fresh Windows 10 installation. I occasionally see automated solutions for this, but it's hard for me to judge the reliability and trustworthiness of such tools. A simple, clear list would be great.
> Since Windows’ window management works much better than what OS X’s does<p>I find this interesting because to me, it just seems that macOS does this way better, especially on MacBooks with the gestures (some of which work on windows). I really miss Mission Control whenever I have to use Windows.
I cant use Windows as my main for its terrible tendency to allow programs to just pollute the filesystem anywhere and everywhere.<p>I need a way to keep my system tidy and any installation can possibly mean<p>1) infection with whatever *ware (even legitimate software acts like one
2) polluting the whole system with files you will not be able to easily find and delete (or registry or whatever else)
I went back to Winwdows after a long hiatus for my 'personal' laptop. The OS definitely doesn't have as much polish but I've been quietly impressed.<p>I'm not a developer, but I am developer-adjacent, and I really struggled to get set up with WSL. Even using some guides like this:
<a href="https://char.gd/blog/2017/how-to-set-up-the-perfect-modern-dev-environment-on-windows" rel="nofollow">https://char.gd/blog/2017/how-to-set-up-the-perfect-modern-d...</a><p>I'll probably have to start it again from afresh, I just found setting up WSL unintuitive and the relationship between WSL and Windows confusing. I believe the situation was previously much worse so forward progress I suppose.<p>Things I like about Windows:<p>- Windows take up more space on the screen. When maximized, there's no title bar and sizing icons taking up space like on MacOS. For example, Chrome tabs are right up to the top of the screen without going full screen.<p>- There's a program for everything. I've been able to play games I used to from 20 years ago and where they don't work out of the box (some do), someone has made a utility to make it all work. I'd forgotten the advantage of Windows having so many more users.
I don't mind Windows; there are some apps that are VASTLY superior to anything I could find on Mac or Linux. Nor Mac, for a different set of apps. I don't think I would ever spend the Apple tax on one though; as long as work provides me with one that's fine.<p>I tend to do my "real work" in a unixy context, but WSL, VMs, and `brew install coreutils` gets me close enough to run my dev tools of choice.
> There’s no OmniDiskSweeper on Windows, but there is WinDirStat, which does the same thing<p>WizTree is much faster than WinDirStat as it directly reads NTFS's Master File Table. It's not open source, but it is free for personal use.
I keep meaning to try this out. Every time I boot a fresh Windows 10 install I am traumatized enough to walk away and not try again, though.<p>The install process is pretty bad - the same ancient UI that came from Longhorn. Towards the end you go through about 20 differnt checkboxes to un-toggle all the various annoying settings you don't want like tracking and advertisements on the login screen. Creating an account is also a headache - MSFT is really pushing the online signin stuff now. Everything also feels sluggish to me, but perhaps that is due to the machine I am using (i7-3770k, 16gb ram, but kinda old in general) and there just feels like an abundance of noise and crap everywhere (Windows explorer is like a junk drawer that wont close)<p>I ended up using it for one thing - I managed to pay Titanfall 2 through the entire campaign on an Xbox controller. That was a pretty fun experience. Recently I wiped the box to start giving Fedora a shot as a sidekick box.<p>I cannot quit macOS though. It is just too good at staying out of your way and not being annoying (I am on Mojave) - and the muscle memory is strong.<p>DHH's take resonates with me: <a href="https://m.signalvnoise.com/back-to-windows-after-twenty-years/" rel="nofollow">https://m.signalvnoise.com/back-to-windows-after-twenty-year...</a>
There are several references to WSL (Windows System for Linux) in this thread, but I think this shall be posted as a separate WSL-related comment.<p>I switched to Windows after almost 10 years on a Linux Desktop (mostly Ubuntu) when WSL was in version 1. It was slow and buggy.<p>However, as of today, WSL 2 is a very strong reason to use a Windows machine as a dev machine.<p>Windows Terminal is fast, snappy and modern. It looks like and behaves like a regular *nix shell with all the bells and whistles.<p>VSCode works both with the Windows filesystem and with the WSL. You can even run `code .` and it will open a proper Windows VSCode instance in a Linux directory.<p>I have been developing and running (with/without Docker) Python, Ruby, Java, Node, Elixir on a WSL-enabled machine for quite some time and the experience is good.<p>From a smooth development process point of view, I don't see any reason to use a Linux machine anymore.
I don't like the full screen start menu, but I always expand it to allow three columns (and with the 'show more per group' setting). And I have all app shortcuts there, as small icons and grouped into categories, because that's what makes more sense to me, always available at the click of a button, and not in the desktop.<p>In fact, and all those who see me working always asks, I have my desktop configured as follow:<p>* No shortcuts, only the recycle bin and the files I'm currently using.<p>* The desktop is the default folder for firefox downloads.<p>* The icons are HUGE, and I mean that, press control and use the mouse wheel until the icons's height is a third of the desktop height more or less.<p>My desktop is my workplace, all the temporary items I need are there, until I move them to their proper folder into Documents, Images, or where necessary. I rarely have more than 5 files, and those who are there have my total attention. And, since the icons are huge, it's extremely easy to see the previsualization for images, pdf, videos, etc.
I started using MacOS in around 2009 and I don't see any problems between the two that aren't simply "Okay this is just different, but not necessarily wrong". The only big problem I have is that MacOS doesn't have a proper native maximise option which doesn't make the window fullscreen.<p>With regards to the recommendations in the article, Windows actually shifted to a start menu that was full screen and was hated by the majority of Windows users (including me). Atleast they give you the option now.<p>Either way, I think this is a good genuine article. Its rare that I see people describing what its like to use Windows after being such MacOS enthusiasts, rather than the other way.
If anyone prefers video, a while back I put together a similar type of post / video going over and demoing a bunch of apps / tools that I use on Windows to have what I feel like is a decent development environment focused on web development using Docker, WSL 2 and heavy terminal usage.<p>That's at: <a href="https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/a-linux-dev-environment-on-windows-with-wsl-2-docker-desktop-and-more" rel="nofollow">https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/a-linux-dev-environment-on-wi...</a><p>Been using the set up for years now with slight changes over the years (WSL 1 to WSL 2, etc.), it's solid.
Nobody talk about doskey. When I started working in windows I missed my aliases that I had in linux. Doskey is a great tool to mimic the functionality. Some example of my aliases:<p><pre><code> edit="%EDITOR%" $\*
kbs=ag $\* --file-search-regex "\.md$" "C:\Users\my\Dropbox\MyNotes"
pg_start="C:\My Program Files\Scoop\apps\postgresql\current\bin\pg_ctl" start -D "C:\My Program Files\Scoop\apps\postgresql\current\data"
</code></pre>
I load the file with the aliases like this:<p><pre><code> doskey /macrofile=C:\Users\me\doskey.cmd</code></pre>
So I haven't used Windows in a while, but the thing that kicks me back to Linux (1st choice) or OS X (2nd choice) every single time was file locking.<p>I think the majority of windows software opens files with an exclusive lock, making it really annoying to use, e.g. you can't delete a dir if anything in its subdir is open for whatever reason.<p>With the amount of software running on a system nowadays, and things like windows update, nothing bothers me more than having files locked in Windows for whatever reason and forcing me to update.<p>I've also never had a good experience with Windows Update (it fails <i>all the time</i>)
> As far as I can tell, 7-zip is more widely recommended amongst Windows users, but what do they know? PeaZip has a very clean UI, and nice green icons, so it’s very obviously the better choice.<p>I appreciated the pithy joke, but I was curious about an actual comparison since I always use 7-Zip. This short article seems like a useful rundown of the (very minor) differences if anyone else is interested: <a href="https://en.softonic.com/articles/head-to-head-peazip-vs-7-zip" rel="nofollow">https://en.softonic.com/articles/head-to-head-peazip-vs-7-zi...</a>
> Around 2015, I started to realize that I was no longer part of Apple’s target audience.<p>2015 was also in the era of the big CPU stagnation when Intel refused to make bigger steps forward in order to maximize profits<p>it put Apple in weird spot because they depend on 3rd party for their hardware, they can't play the same cards as Intel, obviously, it's Apple<p>now that they released their own silicon, it is pretty clear what happened in the past, and what was their exact goal, to not depend on intel anymore or any 3rd party, so developers can experience fast machines again, and how things are changing today.. in a very good way<p>don't be this closed minded about "apple don't understand developers", because that's not true at all<p>And that's pretty weird, because today Windows 10 is doing exactly what you though Apple was doing to you ;) without investing in their own silicon, without improving their OS, and without improving their filesystem<p>worse, 1 icon at a time!
i was tempted to switch back to windows but i am worried i won't find the same build quality/durability from non-apple machines. anyone can recommend good/durable windows machines?
For work I use a Mac and I remote into Windows, and I have so much trouble making my brain swap the keys for copy/paste.
Ctrl-C Command-V is so painful.
windows is getting a lot better but there's no decent tiling window manager.<p>on macos, yabai is quite ok.<p>on linux, it's a the best. just take your pick