In a comment to my previous post, Katie asked if I knew anything about administrative rights in Windows Vista. Apparently, Vista won’t let her install any hardware or software. Honestly, I’m not surprised.
The short answer, Katie, is that I have no idea. My experience with Vista is going, “ooh, that looks pretty,” which is usually followed by the owner of the computer I’m drooling on explaining why they hate Vista. Even our IT guy at work is frustrated with it (he described the “Security” Get A Mac ad as “accurate”).
I’ve never used Vista and I already don’t like it. Wow, what a great job of marketing Microsoft has done! Actually, the problem isn’t their marketing, it’s their programming (the whole, 7+ versions of Vista is also rather off-putting). Why would I want to buy a product that doesn’t work? I seem to recall that OSX had problems when it first came out as well, but I also recall that those problems didn’t prevent users from installing new hardware and software; at least, not to the degree that Vista seems to.
From what I’ve read online and heard from firsthand users, Vista doesn’t like hardware or software that isn’t Vista-specific. So in other words, all of the hardware and software I currently own may no longer be of any use to me once I upgrade to Vista.
How would that change my life? To be perfectly honest, not a lot, except that I’d have to shell out a bunch of money to upgrade all of my hardware and software to the latest versions. In fact, one of the biggest changes would be that my webcams would probably stop working. Even if the software worked in Vista (which is probably won’t, because it’s so old and is no longer being updated), the hardware is so wildly outdated that Vista drivers don’t (and won’t) exist.
I did just buy a new webcam (a beautiful one that works amazingly well) that’s (supposedly) Vista compatible. So if nothing would change, why not just upgrade? Well, apart from not having enough money for all-new software, I don’t have a computer that can handle running Vista.
Do you see where I’m going with this? If I have to buy all-new hardware, and all new software, why should I bother buying a PC at all?
My first computer was an Apple IIe handed down to me by my grandfather. It didn’t have a hard drive and it used 5.25-inch floppy disks (man, remember those?). My second computer was a refurbished NEC running Windows 95. From then on, all I ever owned were PCs. The primary reason was because I had programs that I had purchased (and *ahem* acquired) that were PC-only, so I kept upgrading to new PCs. If Vista won’t like my old software, why not make the move to Mac? After all, it’s Apple is where I started, and I’ve been wanting a Mac for a long time.
Morah asked if my PC files would be compatible with a Mac. It’s a good question and one that requires consideration. I do, after all, have a ton of files that I created on a PC. The good news is, they’re all readable by Mac computers. Macs run Microsoft Office (and Open Office), Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, iTunes, and all of the other programs I’ve used to create my files. And if the program doesn’t exist for OSX, there’s probably some equivalent program that will open them.
Plus, it isn’t as though I would be tossing out my old PCs straight away. There’s still life in them! After all, I’ll still need some computers to run my webcams (actually, it looks like my Mac could do that too).
So what am I saying here? I’m not saying that I’m going to buy a Mac while I’m in Seattle this weekend (although those sound like famous last words…). What I am saying is that when I’m in the market for a new computer, which I’m not yet, I am going to buy a Mac. I mean, if I have to upgrade all of my hardware and software anyway, why not move to a less complicated operating system as well?
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