back to article Windows 7 versus Snow Leopard — The poison taste test

Apple's Snow Leopard arrived during the twilight zone between the completion of Microsoft's Windows 7 and its general release. The Snow Leopard media was built in early August and shrink-wrapped and on sale late the same month. Windows 7 went gold in late July, but will not appear on the high street until October 22nd. The …

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  1. iamapizza
    Gates Horns

    An exercise in redundancy

    >There is no clear winner, as the two platforms address different needs.

    Gee, didn't see that one coming.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Hmm...

    "Here's another pro-Mac detail. Spaces. Press F8 and you get four desktops to play with. Why can't Windows do that?"

    . . .sounds a lot like the workspaces you get on Linux (gnome anyway, haven't tried any of the other desktop environments).

    The thing I love about windows (especially XP) is that for every feature that windows doesn't have, there are always 3 more applications that will give you it.

    Want a dock? Objectdock.

    Want a better Alt + Tab? TaskSwitchXP.

    Want a better theme? WindowBlinds/XPize/Anything else google will throw at you.

    . . .and the list goes on.

    Sidenote: Right now I'm using Debian Linux. I'm finding it much nicer than either of them. (Although I miss my Adobe software)

  3. Ty
    Jobs Halo

    Also...

    Don't forget.

    Whatever M$ funded FUD you may read in the tech press...

    Every iteration of Mac OS X gets FASTER...

    Every Iteration of Windows gets SLOWER...

  4. Andrew Kirkpatrick
    IT Angle

    Office...

    @Chris 19 Exactly my thoughts, if you wanted Office compatibility you wouldn't buy iWork you'd buy Office 2008, which I have and works fine...

    @magnetik Quicksilver is a fantastic app indeed! One of the first I saw with a 10.6 specific build too

  5. Gaz Davidson
    WTF?

    Xcode a fantastic IDE?!

    Even the VC Express editions without a resource compiler or profiler urinate all over Xcode from a great height.

    It is buggy, often needing a restart to update settings. It has a terrible GUI, taking a scroll and two clicks to see the reason why your build just failed, the icon metaphors are all broken, not something you'd expect from apple; it's as ugly a monster as Borland Builder. It has a naff editor which doesn't recognise preprocessor macros and sticks Mac line endings all over the place, wrecking your diffs. The debugger GUI is terrible, the documentation is fragmented, code completion is lacking and frustrating, the project tree is unintuitive. Its only saving grace is the multi-level, searchable settings dialog.

    I agree with Charlie, it's on par with VC6 or Dev-C++, it's a decade behind VC9 or Eclipse, and a long way behind CodeBlocks.

  6. Christopher Rogers
    Grenade

    Microsoft keeping everyone happy?

    Apple are allowed to keep control of all apps/hardware and they have the final say on how their products are used. Imagine Microsoft decided to produce their own PCs which were the only machines allowed to run Windows. These same machines come with a version of Visual Studio and Office as well as with the usual MS addins they get anti-trust haammerings for (IE and WMP).

    Lets see how many Manufacturers of software and Hardware take MS to court (most likely backed by various governments) if that were to happen.

    Windows 7 is a good job. I'd compare the experience of it on my 5 year old AMD box to that of using Linux with KDE (and i like KDE).

    Yes apple gear is nice and all, but the price ain't worth paying. Why would someone buy an overpriced mac for email internet, photo management and word processing when a cheap windows PC does excatly what is says on the tin?

    Fanbois can go fuck themselves. There isn't enough of them to be important in grand schemee of things.....

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Sigh...

    A good article ruined by dipshit commentators...

    "

    So yes, it does run better on recent hardware, but have you guys check what happens if you try it on any of those Pentium 2.4mhz 512mb most business run on (Or those Semprons 1.x/2x) XP is here to stay for a long time on those."

    And how well does Snow leopard run on a 5 year old Mac. Oh it doesn't?

    Mac OS runs well and is reliable, but then when they only have to supports a couple of configs, it's hardly suprising. Windows does an amazing job considering the millions of different configs out they. Most problems with Windows are not the software, but the crap drivers and buggy software that users stick on top. If you put NT4 on a box and left it running, I'm pretty sure it would still be up and running 2 decades later. However this is not always the software writers fault, someone mentioned Cubase etc...

    On my Atari Falcon many years ago, neither the Mac or the PC could even come close to it's performance. But it's easier to right a bit of software that supported one processor* with limited add on, Mac are in a similar position now. However Cubase on Windows has to support, diffeernet makes of processor, sound cards (hundreds), hard drive confids (RAID, Non Raid), so it's a far more complex beast.

    As a rule if you want software RELIABILITY go with a Mac.

    If you want software FLEXABILITY go with Windows.

    * I actually butchered my Atari to have an 040 processor & Maths Coprocessor. Some took it much further.

  8. Vince

    @John Sanders "am I the only one..."

    Well I'm not thinking the same. Mind you, I'm actually using Windows 7 Enterprise right now.

    Plus points:

    a) It's far faster on the same hardware (and I never found Vista bad on this machine)

    b) It sleeps and resumes significantly faster (this matters to me)

    c) It found almost every bit of my hardware out of the box (something Mac hasn't gotta do)

    d) The thumbnail (aero mode) or app lists (basic mode) make switching faster

    e) Securtiy controls are more useful and less pedantic

    f) It runs just as happily on my 800Mhz netbook as it does on my dual core laptop

    g) All of my apps (which include some bespoke and specialist) work just fine

    and @Simon81 - 64-bit. 32-bit is soooooo outdated and needs to die.

  9. TeeCee Gold badge

    @Simon 81

    Personally I'll be going 32 bit*, even though my machine has 4 gigs of memory so the O/S won't be able to see it all. I still have too much 16 bit stuff knocking around (not to mention 32 bit stuff with a 16 bit installer). Also, I really don't like the WHQL approved drivers only thing. With XP, I've seen much kit over the years from third parties where the shipped driver has the WHQL stamp of approval but the updated ones on the mfrs website (which actually bloody work) don't.

    Having said that, you can suck it and see. One of the things about WIn 7 is that every copy comes with both 64 and 32 bit versions included and it's an install time choice as to which way to jump.

    *I'm also considering the possibility of 64 bit with my old copy of XP running under VirtualBox. That would be taking the piss a bit in your case though.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Loving all the Apple fanbois comments...

    I use both OS's every single day and I find Windows more intuitive that OSX.

    Example 1: Stick an mp3 laden USB stick in a Mac and it asks if you want to import into iTunes. No? Fine....it does nothing.

    Example 2: Stick an mp3 laden USB stick in a Win7 PC and it asks if you want to play it, burn it import into library or open the folder to view the files.

    Same with photo's.

    @Ty: Yes you can only run both OS's on a legally on Apple hardware, but this isn't about hardware is it, it's about the OS. Beige boxes? Clearly you got left behind around 1994....

    Which is the only OS you can install on ANY intel computer legally? Windows victory there.

    Also, why on earth do the Macbois insist you can do *everything* on a Mac that you can do in Windows? Try burning a data DVD on a vanilla OSX machine without installing a third party burning application. MacFAIL.

    I love my MacBook Pro which runs Win7 and OSX quite happily....but I despise the arrogant oh-so-superior Mac fanbois that still use arguments from the 1990's to insist "Windoze" (yawn) is buggy crap and MacOS is a utopia of flowery technical wonderfulness.

    You guys make it impossible for me to praise Apple in pubic and only repel people from the brand....because you give the impression that ALL apple users are arrogant gits with superiority complexes.

  11. bigphil9009

    @magnetik

    Seeings as you are trying to balance everything out, I think it only fair to point out that NTFS has allowed you to mount block level devices onto directories since, oooh, ages ago...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @magnetik

    You have been able to mount filesystems into mount points in Windows since NT4 (when it was a pig to use) and since W2k it has been heavily used in business on servers. There isn't really much point for your average user at home or on a workstation, indeed most Linux distros just stick everything into one filesystem plus boot and swap, except in business where mout points are heavily used.

  13. magnetik

    Windows multiple desktops

    Yes Windows has had multiple desktops for ages with the installation of PowerToys. It's not very well done though. I've used many different implementations of virtual desktops on Windows, Linux (in different window managers), various BSDs, Solaris and commercial apps for OS X pre-Leopard. None of them were as slick as the way Apple have done it.

    I would never have recommended virtual desktops to the average Joe but have have no trouble recommending the use of Spaces to a Mac user.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC 2/9/2009 22:29

    You must be new here.

  15. James 30
    Thumb Up

    @DT

    I run XP on my Mac, but only because my wife who has had nasty experiences with pre OS X Macs at the research labs where she worked. She just prefers to use Windows as it's something that she knows well, and isn't willing to change or actively learn a new slightly different way to use a computer.

    It's worth noting that XP is much snappier on my Mac Mini than it is on my work PC.

    Mind you; she's grown very fond of the iLife bundle that came with the Mac for video and photo editing. And has even grown accustomed the odd menu/window behavior when compared to Windows, in Leopard.

    As a programmer; I use Windows for some coding related things but for day to day stuff, I prefer using OS X. Spaces might not be a new concept, but it works bloody well and is something I miss when having to work in Windows.

    T'was a good, well balanced article on the merits of both OS's but not enough to justify my buying a copy of Windows 7. Microsoft have screwed the pooch as far as I'm concerned with the whole Vista debacle, and I'm really more than happy using OSX for all my home needs.

  16. Ian Stephenson
    Linux

    tl;dr

    Not really.. but seriously...

    I will not pay the apple tax ever, I dont own an ipod or an iphone so I don't need a matching (h)iprice.

    As for Windows 7? The only way I will ever use it is if/when XP no longer does everything I need it to, or if I have to replace either my laptop or desktop and have to pay the microsoft tax on the new box.

    Even then I'll take another good look at free alternatives first.

  17. Peter Kay

    @32/64 bit, Openoffice and naughtiness on alternate desktops

    32 vs 64 bit on Windows 7/Vista. 64 bit - almost every time. If you're running Vista x64 get 4GB RAM, memory is cheap.

    I've had practically no applications I cannot run on Vista x64, excepting old 16 bit ones. Driver compatibility was a bit worse but is now pretty much up to date.

    64 bit will be faster due to the increased number of registers available. Many people still do produce 64 bit versions of their apps, though, and 64 bit browsers are an issue - there's no 64 bit flash. Additionally, whilst 64 bit Java exists you end up needing to run both 64 and 32 bit JVMs. Some java code expects to call 32 bit DLLs which fails under a 64 bit JVM.

    The one exception I would highlight if the machine is *only* being used for games. In that case 32 bit might be the better option until games support 64 bit natively. Anything else? 64 bit for sure.

    Openoffice? You've got to be kidding, right? Much though I'm impressed it exists at all and acknowledge that earlier versions of Word suck especially when working with large documents, Openoffice is not exactly stable on all platforms or possessing of a decent interface.

    I recently tried to use it on Vista x64. Crash crash crashity crash.. Wasn't doing anything unusual either - several simultaneously open documents using very large fonts.

    As to putting naughty videos on alternate desktops, whilst I suppose that's an interesting solution it rather falls foul of the real time Vista/Windows 7 application preview.. Far better just to admit it to your other half.

  18. Thomas Bottrill

    As good as each other

    There's a lot right and a lot wrong with both operating systems. I dual-boot them on my Macbook Pro, and tend to switch between them. For gamers, Windows is still the better option (I've had no luck getting the Mac version of Wine to work), but I tend to use OS X a lot for day-to-day stuff (mainly because the Macbook runs a lot cooler in OS X, the multi-touch touchpad works fully, and the OS X drivers don't completely suck).

    The Dock has actually had a lot of scorn heaped upon it (I don't really understand why, since I have no problems with it), and I find the Windows 7 taskbar to be superior to it (being able to mouse-over to switch between windows is fantastic - I haven't installed Snow Leopard yet, but AFAIK you have to click-and-hold and the icon for the same functionality).

    Spotlight works a lot better than the quick search in the Start menu, but the quick search also functions as a run box, which seems to a bit buried in OS X. Freezes also occur on both Windows 7 and Leopard (and, I'm assuming, still in Snow Leopard), and on neither more often than the other.

    As for Exchange support, this is a big plus for Snow Leopard. To be fair to Apple, I'm assuming they use the autoconfiguration available only from Exchange 2007, and public folders are only there so that Outlook 2003 and earlier clients can access the Exchange server - they're not supposed to be used in Outlook 2007 and up.

  19. paul brain
    FAIL

    OPEN XML

    I loved the line ...

    'Microsoft's Open XML is best avoided in mixed environments.'

    Doesn't that defeat the purpose of an 'open standard'

    Be damned Microsoft and embrace the ODF

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE:Hmm #

    "Jump Lists - er, you mean like the contextual menu that pops up when you right click something on the Dock? (e.g. on Mail you can choose things like "compose new message") AFAIK jump lists are also static, ie they don't change according to the state of the application."

    They are dynamic, and what is shown is dependent upon the application. Example, iternet explorer shows you frequently viewed websites on there, ie dynamically changes depending upon what you look at.

    "Libraries - you mean like OS X's "Smart Folders" which have been around for many years? And can I mount a partition into a directory"

    Smart folders are dynamic folders, based upon queres. Also mounting partitions as directories has been in windows for a very long time, just very few people use it.

    Like with many features which are seen as new (or none existant), have been usually hidden away in windows (usually due to their bad interface), and have a revamped interface recently and put more upfront to the user, so then they are then seen as playing catch up with everyone else, as it appears to be something new (not talking about these feature by the way).

  21. Freddie
    Linux

    @Bravo - Fair and Balanced

    To all the people who say that Apple has the advantage because the only machine both os's run legaly on is a mac... I don't really understand. Surely the fact that you can't choose what hardware to run your os on isn't an advantage? If windows can run on custom boxes AND macs, but sl can't. Surely that's a win for windows?

    Another thing I have to say is regarding all the "spit and polish" that mac has, along with all the magic new folders windows has introduced. If the functionality is the same then after a month does anyone even remember that the "cool" bits the ui introduced? All these libraries, smart folders, and all the other marketing gadgets seem to be so much fluff too. Having tried similar things to everything mentioned I can safely say I'll stick with the least intrusive, simple configuration that gives me the functionality I need. I suppose this is why we have articles taking into account end users as oppose to just nerds like us though.

    Tux 'cos I don't mind too much either way, I won't be using either of these.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A good review

    I shall be buying both, though I have to say I much prefer .net studio to xcode as it is far more intuitive. Having said that as I don't do much c# any more, I find myself using eclipse on both my machines.

    I wish though that apple would just say sod it and implement quicsilver into the OS, as it is light years ahead of spotlight. Also, it would be great if someone could port it to windows, as launchy is far to buggy on my xp system.

    The one thing M$ realy need to impement is spaces. As it works much better than the 6 or 7 windows equivilents that I have tried.

  23. David Bond

    RE:Looking forward to Boot Camp'ing Windows 7

    Go for 64 bit, if you have 3GB or more of RAM (or intend to at some point).

  24. Matthew 3
    Thumb Up

    Public Folders

    Not being able to access public folders is, to be fair, going to be less of an issue as time goes on. Exchange 2007 has 'de-emphasised' Public Folders and won't offer them at all in future versions. It may be more relevant to look at how well Safari deals with Sharepoint...

    Anyway, thanks for a well-balanced article.

  25. Trygve Henriksen

    OS/2 for the Win!

    Runs all my most critical apps...

    (Ok, I play X-wing on it, and a session of OMF2097, now and then)

    Demands very little of the HW.

    (Pentium CPU/64MB RAM or better is recommended, but you can get it to run on a 486, if you have lots of RAM. )

    And yes, there's a new version about to appear.

    (eComStaion V2 went to 'RC7 Silver' a week ago)

  26. Shakje

    Just a small point..

    I found it a very good article, but it might have made sense to also mention that VS Express is free, and is all you really need for coding at home..

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Not hard

    "I click and drag an icon down to the Dock to perform a task, but no, the target icon wanders all over the place as I scrub around trying to find it, muscle memory wasted. No magnification is the way to go, but the scaling as one seeks The One True Dock Size matches all the praise in the article."

    Eh? What you're trying to do is a piece of piss.

  28. Dan Wilkinson
    WTF?

    Please differentiate between the OS and paid for apps.

    Why are you comparing Word and Pages, in an OS comparison? Why would you do this anyway, when Word is available on both systems?

    The same goes for mail clients. Outlook isn't cheap, and most people who buy Office for Word and Excel buy the home/student version, which doesn't even include it. OK, it's a great app, but for comparison purposes it might be fairer to mention that out of the box, Mac OS X includes a mail and calendar client with Exchange support that matches maybe (number from out of my ass here) 80% of the functionality of Outlook, whereas Windows 7 doesn't include a mail or calendar client at all, not even a pop3 client.

    I look forward to a more indepth comparison later, presume you will do one.

  29. Bassey

    Re: John Sanders

    > have you guys check what happens if you try it on any of those Pentium 2.4mhz 512mb most

    > business run on (Or those Semprons 1.x/2x) XP is here to stay for a long time on those.

    Actually, yes. Ran Win7 on a Sempron (1.5Ghz - I think) we had lying around at work to test compatibility with a piece of software we're about to release. Now, it was absolutely vanilla. No AV, no browser plugins, no office. It wasn't even on the network (it's as if they don't trust my software!). But it absolutely flew. Booted in 15-20s and was generally fast and responsive. People were genuinely stood around watching in amazement. And it was a HP for fooks sake!

    Of course, that would probably be the case with most machines that didn't have the (all too necessary) crap that slows them to a crawl.

    But that's just one example. I've run most of the Win7 builds on lots of different hardware and it just IS a lot quicker than Vista. I actually liked Vista, but on my Core2Duo 2.4GHz with 2GB RAM it sucked - until I removed Office 2007. Then it was fine.

  30. Wayland Sothcott 1
    Thumb Up

    Windows 2000 users

    For those of us forced to like XP having found Windows 2000 perfectly sufficent, Windows Vista is just pointless and broken. Windows 7 has had the glazier in and everything is now mended and clean.

    New users are probably better off with a Mac but if you need Windows then Windows 7 is good news. I stuck the beta on a P4 with 512 RAM and it was fine, faster than XP SP2.

    So if you can switch from Windows you should, but you don't have to any more.

  31. Dan 10

    @Simon 81

    I don't play games much, but off the top of my head, I would ask:

    How physical memory you have? Only 4GB+ will take advantage of 64-bit.

    There are some studies that have shown that 64-bit incurs a performance overhead in terms of extra work to address a 64-bit virtual address space. Think of it as a business upgrading to a bigger office: If you don't have enough people to fill/make use of all the space, the main difference will be that you pay more for the upkeep/maintenance/bills for the bigger property, without realising the benefits.

    Also, how much of what you use is available as 64-bit? That includes, drivers, plugins, games etc.

    Good luck.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    @Ty

    Who the fuck needs to waste money on Apple hardware!!!?? All made in the same sweat shops as the rest and it is only a PC clone now.

    If you need to suffer OS X then use a Hack and forget the over-priced and over-rated apple hardware.

    As usual, Macturds been sniffing Jobs underwear again to get high.

  33. arran

    why

    is it always the Microsoft fanbois who go bat sh!t crazy over things like this?

    nice report, I shall be duel booting this laptop on the basis the report above shows me what I need from both O/S.

    thank you.

  34. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
    Flame

    @Ty

    Just out of curiosity; when whas the last time you saw a beige computer. The last one I can remember seeing had a pentium II in it. It's just a shame that such specious emotive crap should be spouted in the first comment on an article. That amazing Mac you are talking about is the same generic hardware you'd find in any 'beige box'. You know Apple don't make their own hardware any more, right?

    Disclaimer - before anyone rants at me and accuses me of being some sort of Microsoft shill, I'd like to make it clear that I have no love for zealots from either the Redmond or Cupertino camps. Both are large, soulless corporations and as bad as each other. That's capitalism for you, so get over it.

  35. Adam Salisbury
    Thumb Up

    Voice of experience

    @ John Sanders - Funnily enough I write this comment on a Dell Latitude D620; Intel Centrino Duo 1.86GHz (x86), 2GB DRR2 RAM and an 80GB HDD, running the Win RC in the office. It's about 4 years old and runs like a dream, it surprised even me!

    @ Mad Hacker - IMO Win7 IS faster than XP or at the very least as fast as XP.

    I'm very impressed with Win7 but I'm well aware that statement is a bit of a contradiction as all Win7 is merely Vista but working! Nevertheless a good result from MS, I'm just waiting for the day mainstreaming gaming comes to the Mac so I can see how the other half live!

    Good atricle, as others have said it's good to get one like this that isn't dripping in fanboy goo

  36. Ray0x6
    Linux

    dock vs. taskbar

    gnome-do

  37. northern monkey
    Thumb Up

    I'm glad..

    ..the dockbar zooming thing can be turned off - it's always made me feel a bit dizzy and sick.

    And at paul brain I thought exactly the same when I saw the openXML comment - not that any of us could've predicted that we'd be in exactly that situation. ECMA deserve one big slap!!

    Also nice to hear apple have gone with the F8 thing - been using ctrl-alt-fkeys in linux forever to get extra logins - always handy if X decides to have one of its moments.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    re: Loving all the Apple fanbois comments...

    "Also, why on earth do the Macbois insist you can do *everything* on a Mac that you can do in Windows? Try burning a data DVD on a vanilla OSX machine without installing a third party burning application. MacFAIL."

    So I take it, you're ignoring OS X's built-in Disk Utility (on my Mac, it's the only thing I use to burn data discs) or don't know quite as much as you like to think you do....

  39. Gareth Gouldstone
    Thumb Up

    @Mounting disks onto directories etc

    MS-DOS used to do this as far back as 3.2, maybe even 3.1 (1985). But then, MSDOS (and NT) were developed on Xenix, so you would expect Unix-like behaviour. ;-)

    Well-balanced article. I use Mac at home, Linux/Solaris at work. Used Windows up to XP.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Why do I get this horrible feeling...

    That I want to spend about £1000, on a tablet Macbook that can run Windows 7....

    It needs at least 2 USB ports and VGA out, and I think I'm sold.

    Sucks to be me.

  41. Hans 1

    @Tim Anderson - network management and policies in OS X Server

    [quote]That said, Microsoft has an array of network management and group policy tools that make Windows standardisation attractive to admins, and this is unlikely to change soon.[/quote]

    You wanna install [Snow] Leopard Server and see what it has to offer, both for Wndows and the Mac when it comes to policies and network management.

  42. Barracoder
    Gates Halo

    Multiple desktops on Windows

    Multiple Desktops have been available since XP, using the PowerToy.

    http://www.snapfiles.com/get/msvdm.html

  43. touchwood

    Win 7#

    To Win 7 #

    "By Anonymous Coward Posted Thursday 3rd September 2009 04:35 GMT

    I'm on the verge of installing Ubuntu on my home and work machines, and even though her laptop is now usable with Win7, my wife is adamant that her next machine will be a Mac."

    Verily so, in thine household thine Vixen hath chosen, 'Her Pussy' OS? Nicely done! Not based on ye poofed-up 'LongHorn?'

    How great marketing from MS! 'LongHorn' attracteth males, nay?

    Yet, Thine wifey, preferreth a good, silken, 'Pussy OS,' nay ye Long of Horn??

    be, methinks, ye hath some placating to perform, nay??

    :+++>

  44. Matt.Smart
    Thumb Up

    Nice!

    Great article, well balanced, and a refreshing change from the normal fanboy-baiting stuff. Well done.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE: re: Loving all the Apple fanbois comments

    I tried Disk Utility...but it was so unintuitive neither I (nor another long time Mac user) could figure out how to do anything other than burn an ISO image...

    If you put a blank disc in a computer the following happens:

    Windows: Dialogue asks "Would you like to burn a data, music or DVD?"

    OSX: Disc icon appears on desktop....nothing else happens.

    So much for "It just works".

  46. Mark76

    MacDock? Pah!

    The RISCOS icon bar is a far superior implementation of the dock concept. Sure, it doesn't have the sophisticated graphics and the fancy animations, but it is possible to add stuff to it with the icons becoming so small you can barely make out what they are thanks to its virtual infinite length.

    Also... Bundles is just a copy of !Boot

  47. Dave 142

    discs

    well I'd prefer it if my OS doesn't hassle me every time I put a disc in, but if you like that level of irritation you can turn it on in the CD & DVD preferences in OSX. Or you just drag what you want onto the disc and right click and select burn. Yes, that does just work

  48. James Pickett
    Gates Horns

    Speed

    "Windows Vista machine actually runs faster once upgraded"

    Wow! (sarcasm intended) - In other words, changing from the World's Worst Operating System to the World's Second-Worst Operating System is an improvement. Who'd have thunk it...?

    I know it seems churlish after all your effort, but what most of us want to know is whether it is an improvement on XP, and will it be as fast on the original hardware (as opposed to some glossy, just-unwrapped sextuple-core box with a Terabyte of RAM)?

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    blame the OEMs\end users for W7 dis-experience?

    Is the delay with Windows 7 anything to do with it being a buggy first version ? The whole tone of this advert er .. article smacks of nothing but me-too-ism. The not-out-yet Windows 7 is as good-as Snow Leopard and if W7 doesn't impress then blame the OEMs .. there ... didn't take as long to say ...

    "Windows works better when properly managed, which is why a skilled business user gets a better experience than the hapless crapware-laden consumer"

    Yet more blame the OEMs/endusers waffle .. shame on you elREG

    "Malware is also a factor, since Windows is by far the most popular target"

    translation: Malware isn't caused by any intrinsic defects in the Operating System

    Could have been piped in directly from Redmond ...

    Why not just label this whole thing ADVERTISING ...

  50. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    @Dave 142

    Was switched off in Windows some time ago.

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