macOS to Windows 10 experiences

LiE · 4 Sep 2017 at 16:19

Has anyone made the move? It may be something I have to do due to work, but I'm hugely attached to some the apps e.g. Calendar, Mail, Safari. I'm also heavily into the apple ecosystem with everything synced up.

How much pain was there?

Orcvader · 4 Sep 2017 at 16:48

Can't say from direct experience but my brother uses macOS for home and Windows 10 for work. He prefers macOS because he's also tied into the ecosystem (iPhone, iPad) but he did move some things to other services such as Firefox, Gmail and Dropbox so he doesn't depend too much on Apple when using Windows 10.

You could always bootcamp Windows and see how you feel about it? It will still come down to personal preferences.

Steedie · 4 Sep 2017 at 17:00

What do you anticipate being painful? Is it replacing your Mac entirely? Or just using as well as for work?

If it's the latter you'll be fine. Since buying my gaming PC, I now use Windows 10 daily and it's fine, I still have my iMac and MacBook Pro as main machines for dev work and browsing, but when I've needed to use the Windows machine for something other than games it's fine. I suggest using Chrome on your Mac (just to sync your bookmarks across to Windows when you sign in), and you can download iCloud for Windows to access any documents etc you need.

You'll realise how ghastly Windows is compared to macOS for daily tasks like browsing, emails and other small tasks, but for work related activities like development, I prefer it and have started moving some tools across

LiE · 4 Sep 2017 at 21:09

I would be replacing my mac entirely. Work would provide me a Windows 10 laptop that I would use for the 2 days I'm required in the office. When I'm at home the plan would be to sell the MBP and put the cash towards a gaming Windows 10 desktop. I would use the desktop when at home and not the laptop.

In terms what I spend the majority of my time doing when at work - browser (70%), office (10%), mail/skype for business (10%) and Citrix viewer (10%). I work with cloud based software so browser is king for me. I sometimes use Sublime if I'm doing some bigger javascript work but mostly use the editor within the browser.

What I like about using my personal MBP for work is being able to respond to iMessages and have everything in a decent desktop calendar app (personal, work, etc).

So the way I see it, there are some key apps that I'd need to think about.

Office - this would be better in Windows. The Mac version is still quite inferior.
Browser - I would move to Chrome.
Password Manager - I use keychain, I would need to migrate my passwords.
Calendar - I think the best option here is to keep work calendar within Outlook and personal in Apple and use my phone/web.
Music - I can continue to use Apple Music via iTunes.

I would miss retina, but I tend to sit quite far back from my screen these days.

Laptop that would be provided FYI - https://www.uk.insight.com/en-gb/productinfo/laptops-and-notebooks/0007116996-00000001

Orcvader · 4 Sep 2017 at 23:17

Windows 10 allows you to add an iCloud account, which will sync your Apple account's emails, calendars and contacts: https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/icloud-email-calendars-windows

Apple actually made an extension to sync Safari bookmarks with Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/icloud-bookmarks/fkepacicchenbjecpbpbclokcabebhah?hl=en

Everyone I know seems to have migrated away from iMessage and use either WhatsApp, Wechat or Facebook Messenger. Although that will still depend on everyone else you know moving as well.

Once you have the funds for a gaming PC get a 4K screen and you won't miss retina that much

. Although to be honest macOS does a much better job with scaling with older apps on high DPI screens. Windows is getting better, but there's still the odd app which scales poorly.

masto · 5 Sep 2017 at 12:28

I’ve been using both for quite a while now, but recently decided to see what it would be like without my macOS machine. Messages and the integration between phone, iPad and laptop are probably the biggest thing I miss. I’ve got around it by:

- using iCloud for Windows - there’s a Firefox plugin to sync bookmarks, I use iCloud Drive for syncing files between my iPad and PC (I am using the iOS 11 beta with the files app).
- iTunes for Windows isn’t great, but it does the job
- I tend to use the calendar and mail on the iPad and via the iCloud web interface when on the PC. Outlook integration felt a bit like overkill, but maybe I just haven’t fully committed to moving everything to Windows yet.
- not having keychain on the PC is a nuisance. For infrequently used sites I just reach for the iPad. Commonly used passwords have been moved across. I use keepass - no question that there are better solutions but it runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux and I have a mix of all three at home.

It’s nice having a powerful desktop machine being used doing more than just gaming. My VMs run far better than they did on my Mac. To get an equivalently powerful Mac desktop would have cost me a fortune. Office is better too, as mentioned.

At this stage my Mac is sitting in a drawer and I’m getting by with Windows and an iPad, and am quite comfortable. One of the drivers for this was that I needed to do some work on Windows again and didn’t feel that virtualising would be good enough. My Linux VMs for work are quite lightweight and ran ok on the laptop, but a windows VM was a bit too slow for my liking.

If you’ve not used Windows 10 much I’d recommend you look at Classic Shell. It hides the messy start menu and provides you with something that resembles either XP or Windows 7.

LiE · 5 Sep 2017 at 13:04

Thanks @masto how did you find the lack of retina?

masto · 5 Sep 2017 at 13:44

It didn't really bother me, but then I don't do much with images.

My main screen is a 24" dell ultrasharp and I tended to have the laptop plugged into that anyway.

13" vs 24" - I'll always go for the bigger one when I can.

Screens and trackpads are probably the nicest parts of mac laptops though.

As Orcvader says, you could always buy a 4K screen....

LiE · 5 Sep 2017 at 13:48

I think the plan would be to buy the Dell S2417DG - 1440p 24". Just not sure if 1440p on 24" will make things too small. I do like a high PPI.

Daff_Duck · 5 Sep 2017 at 14:38

Maybe missing point but you could always run Win10 side by side with Mac via boot camp or VMware

My wife does this as their are like everything else, benefits and drawbacks and to have both running just makes it simpler for her

LiE · 5 Sep 2017 at 14:51

Work would be providing me with a windows 10 laptop. I barely use my MBP outside of work, so it wouldn't get used. I was thinking it would be better to sell it and put the cash into a Windows 10 desktop and I'll use that when at home.

There are a couple other motivating factors here too which I haven't mentioned.
1. I want to play some games, I don't have any means to do that now.
2. I fancy a change. Grass is greener and all that.
3. I don't really want everything to heavily tied into Apple. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but it does mean I cannot easily change between hardware/software providers if I want.