I recently came across a post on How-To Geek about how the author gave Windows a serious shot as his primary operating system for two years, but kept coming back to his Mac:
I want to like Windows. It’s great for gaming and handles CAD software fantastically. But, for over a decade, I never seriously considered it as my primary OS—until two years ago. Now, after giving it another shot, I’m back on macOS… just like always. […]
A few years ago, I shifted gears professionally and started working in my woodworking and CNC shop full-time. This meant that I had to have a system that supported my CAD (computer aided design) software, which ran exclusively on Windows.
Yes, I could have used a virtual machine on my MacBook, and I could have just switched back and forth between macOS and Windows, but I decided to go all-in on Windows at that time. […]
I was honestly pretty happy with Windows 11, surprisingly even though I didn’t expect to be, I figured the experiment would go on for a few weeks or months, and I’d come crawling back to macOS, but that just didn’t happen.
I ended up living on Windows for just about two full years. I was able to use my CNC software just fine, and when I shifted gears from running my shop to writing full-time again, I was able to do those tasks well too. Video editing worked great, photo editing was great, and playing games was seamless. I had an always-on computer in the office and my laptop for when I was out. It really was a pretty great setup—except for Windows. […]
Truly, the main thing that drove me away from Windows this time was the integration with my iPhone (or lack thereof). If Windows integrated better with the iPhone, offering solutions similar to AirDrop and access to iMessage, I wouldn’t have left Windows. Hands down. I’m very aware that this is down to Apple’s closed-ecosystem approach, and that’s to say I guess it worked as intended on me.
How-To Geek
I’ve included a few snippets here that sum up his experience. While I don’t need CNC or CAD software, I do play certain games that only run on Windows which is why I ended up building my own PC. After having exclusively used Macs since Mac OS 9 was new (with a brief stint of having to use Windows 7 at work), my experience with Windows 11 was, surprisingly, much better than expected.
That said, every time I come back to macOS, it feels like coming home. So many years of Mac usage means I have my Mac-specific workflows and tools that just don’t work on other platforms. Then there’s the matter of stability.
It’s very rare that I have serious issues with my Macs whereas on my PC, I regularly experience the PC just giving up and restarting. I don’t get a blue screen of death or any other message, the PC just suddenly restarts. That is indicative of a hardware rather than a software problem and I believe it’s probably a thermal issue, but I haven’t had the time to really dig in and fix it yet. That isn’t Windows’s fault, but it still detracts from the stability and user experience since the OS is just one component of the overall PC.
In any case though, I find myself using my Mac for just about everything other than gaming. It’s just more comfortable for me and I am much more productive. In the end, a computer is a tool and that tool needs to work with you rather than against you. If I used Windows or even Linux long enough, I could probably get to the same level of comfort, but I’m happy to stick with my Mac for now since it does everything I need.
