How hard is it to switch from Mac to Pc

[399]

I've been a Mac guy my entire adult life, but have become increasingly unhappy with Apple and their lack of professional solutions for several years. I am now at the point where my current Apple machines will no longer do the job I need them to do, am not excited about their current offerings or the offerings I can see coming down the track and am looking seriously at going all PC: Phones, tablets, laptops. Once I get past my fear how hard will it actually be? Thank you in advance...

[McHox]

._. not hard at all

[MegaDave91]

Buy a Windows based PC and you've switched.

[Hugs12343]

not hard. I was so glad when i did it

[LienusLateTips]

Not that hard. You'll just have to make some adjustments because Windows doesn't have dock, etc.

[Howitz]

it's just like a vegan trying to switch to a regular diet, you feel everything that made you special and belonging to what you consider a social elite go away. It can be really painful, especially if you had low self esteem before and behave irrationnally and a mac was somehow part of the solution to your esteem problem because you could say you had a mac and feel so proud.

 

if you was'nt brainwashed, then it's not hard at all, it's actually a relief.

[dizmo]

As long as you have a phone or can access the browser to Google things that you can't figure out, not hard at all.

I had to use a Mac when I was at my girlfriends place and working on school projects since that's what she had. I got stuck a few times, but a quick Google search often fixed whatever I couldn't figure out. I suppose a PC would be slightly more complicated, but not overly.

[PorkishPig]

10 minutes ago, 399 said:

I've been a Mac guy my entire adult life, but have become increasingly unhappy with Apple and their lack of professional solutions for several years. I am now at the point where my current Apple machines will no longer do the job I need them to do, am not excited about their current offerings or the offerings I can see coming down the track and am looking seriously at going all PC: Phones, tablets, laptops. Once I get past my fear how hard will it actually be? Thank you in advance...

 

Not hard at all. I work with both Macs and PCs, and it's fairly easy for me to switch back and forth. The one thing that might take a minute to get the hang of is the way application installations and uninstallations work, the way the dock and task manager function, and the need to manually install new drivers.

[Hugs12343]

1 minute ago, JDE said:

Not that hard. You'll just have to make some adjustments because Windows doesn't have dock, etc.

@JDE who is theis deXxterlab97

[LienusLateTips]

1 minute ago, Hugs12343 said:

@JDE who is theis deXxterlab97

In my sig? He was a cool dude with over 20,000 posts who asked the mods to delete his account in like September 2017 or something

[1234vietnam]

easy, my friend got used to windows in a couple of days

 

[Airdragonz]

Shouldn't be too bad. I've been running a dual boot mac and windows 10 pc. Mac is better with some tasks, Windows better at others

[Drak3]

Extremely easy. The two systems aren't all that different as far as the end user is concerned.

[tatte]

The first thing you should do is check if all the software you need is available on Windows, this includes features that are native to macOS but plausibly absent in Windows (for e.g. SSH). If you have any kind of external storage, make sure it stays accessible and readable. Be sure you have the necessary cables and dongles (for e.g. Bluetooth) your peripherals may require. If you're using a trackpad enthusiastically you might want to look into that beforehand as well, I don't know if Windows still supports the same feature set.

 

Once you have your new Windows PC workhorse up and running, dedicate a moment to configuring Updates to your liking as they can prove unexpectedly disruptive. Brace yourself for learning the new keyboard layout and it's new shortcuts. Getting used to the new OS' behaviour (or the lack of such) might be annoying for a while, but nothing unmanageable.

 

If by PC you also mean a Windows Phone, do plenty research. You might be better off with an Android phone, depending on your needs (especially on how you want to sync your data). The earlier remark about absent features applies here too, but Android probably has an app for any habit you might bring over from iOS.

[399]

My needs are pretty basic: The Adobe suite, Office suite for software. I'll have to make sure my LR collections can be put on a PC machine. We stopped using any Apple software after the Aperture betrayal. I'm not necessarily keen on leaving but don't see any Apple machines that are either modular or mobile for a creative. Every Apple machine we own is at least 38 months old, so if we were ever going to leave this would be the time...

[mrchow19910319]

2 hours ago, 399 said:

My needs are pretty basic: The Adobe suite, Office suite for software. I'll have to make sure my LR collections can be put on a PC machine. We stopped using any Apple software after the Aperture betrayal. I'm not necessarily keen on leaving but don't see any Apple machines that are either modular or mobile for a creative. Every Apple machine we own is at least 38 months old, so if we were ever going to leave this would be the time...

most apple user won't leave mac is not because they fell in love with the hardware the look of the machine, it is because they can't leave macOS. They either got used to it, or find it more intuitive than windows. 

 

if you can leave macOS behind and not feeling uncomfortable about it, windows platform is much much more open and give you tons of options. rumor has it that apple will put out next gen desktop with modular design this year, but apple being apple, well, you can imagine the price tag they put on those machine too. 

 

TLDR, if you can get used to windows, leaving mac/apple's eco system is not hard at all. Install an anti-virus software on your PC, don't go to sites that seems too good to be true. Then you are good to go. One thing I don't like about windows is that backing your files up can be a pain in the ass. Unlike time machine, you plug it in, then you forget about it.  

[mrchow19910319]

4 hours ago, Howitz said:

it's just like a vegan trying to switch to a regular diet, you feel everything that made you special and belonging to what you consider a social elite go away. It can be really painful, especially if you had low self esteem before and behave irrationnally and a mac was somehow part of the solution to your esteem problem because you could say you had a mac and feel so proud.

 

if you was'nt brainwashed, then it's not hard at all, it's actually a relief.

why people have to assume that every apple user is a fanboy... just why? just because you don't like onion does not make whoever likes it a dumbass. 

[davrosG5]

Done it myself and it was generally fine.

There's no problem with Lightroom - the images don't care which platform you are on but you may have to build/import into a new Library.

My main gripe was getting e-mail out of Apple Mail - the work around for transferring stuff was a pain (without paying for software to do it) but straightforward enough.

If you use a Microsoft account to log into the PC just make sure you check where it's saving stuff - it'll try to default to OneDrive on a fresh install.

 

I will be interested to see what apple comes up with in terms of the new MacPro that's meant to be coming out this year but as others have said I don't expect the price to be terribly reasonable and even if it is more modular and upgradeable than their other computers you'll still almost certainly get more millage out of an equivalent windows machine.

 

You could always use Bootcamp to try out Windows on an existing machine to test things out before spending on new hardware.

[Howitz]

4 hours ago, mrchow19910319 said:

why people have to assume that every apple user is a fanboy... just why? just because you don't like onion does not make whoever likes it a dumbass. 

Well for my defense I was not being serious there

[Techicolors]

i use a mac and pc daily, not difficult at all. found both to be perfectly usable 

[geo3]

On 1/16/2018 at 7:23 PM, Homeless Pineapple said:

the need to manually install new drivers.

I haven't had to do this in several years. 

[Guest]

On 1/16/2018 at 9:26 PM, JDE said:

In my sig? He was a cool dude with over 20,000 posts who asked the mods to delete his account in like September 2017 or something

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I miss him....  

 

Also the PC isn't too hard. It's basically a mac, just remember that the file application is called File Exploerer and looks like a folder. Then 99% of apps have a SHORTCUT on the desktop. 

It's pretty close to a mac, but without all the fancy swipes and stuff macs have. Yeah windows implemented those now, but they are utter garbage compared to a 2013 macbook air. Just prepare for windows to do weird things without you telling it to do, and random blue screens, and a tech support that will tell you every problem is your hardware and disconnect before you can say "I literally just ran a diagnostic on all my hardware...."

[LienusLateTips]

On 1/16/2018 at 10:32 PM, mrchow19910319 said:

why people have to assume that every apple user is a fanboy... just why? just because you don't like onion does not make whoever likes it a dumbass. 

I actively use Mac yet I actually don't really like it that much.

[mrchow19910319]

2 hours ago, JDE said:

I actively use Mac yet I actually don't really like it that much.

nothing wrong with your opinion. 

[DrMacintosh]

On 1/16/2018 at 6:23 PM, Howitz said:

if you was'nt brainwashed, then it's not hard at all, it's actually a relief

This is just insulting, especially as someone who uses both macOS and Windows 10. 

 

Calling people brainwashed does not help further the discussion.