Mac to PC - Easy Ease the Transition

[Davor 0]

 

 

Yeah. After two years with Windows, it's the only thing I really 'miss'.

 

Although, at least in Mavericks, they've kind of killed it, a tad. if you try and preview an animation codec type file you have to wait for it to convert it first. At least it's good for images. I'm in need of a comp upgrade and was thinking of going back to Mac... but the price!! I'm exploring building a killer PC.

[Fred Camino 0]

Enjoy window snapping,

 

For those who might be making the reverse switch, I've been using Cinch on OSX for years for that Windows-esqe snapping.

[pixel_pimp 0]

Yep we are switching to PC too. Font management seems to be biggest issue. I wish Apple would make it easier to load OS X on any hardware. I haven't tried hackintosh yet and IT at work is not even going to try it.

 

Is Window 7 still the main install? Some people love Windows 8.

 

Any recommendation as far as RAID set up for PC? http://www.rosewill.com/products/20/160/334/0000/series.htm Is this all you need and fast drives?

[AromaKat 1]

There aren't any font management issues with Windows. Suitcase Fusion is great.

 

We have been 100% windows 8 for over a year now. No problems. You have to do a bit of fiddling to make it realize its not a tablet (ugh) but once all that is over, the metro interface is actually real nice.

 

The RAID question is a loaded one. Are you trying to share / have network storage? If just looking for a local raid setup, you can just do it right off your motherboard - no need for external cards or enclosures. I forgot that was something that Macs can't do (hardware level anyway).

[VelocityVideo 1]

My understanding is that Windows 10 is going to have something along the lines of Mission Control.

 

Unless there's some relatively recent whizbang I don't understand, Windows will at least maximize a window to fill the display. That was one thing about Mac that really annoyed me on a daily basis.

 

Finder has some utility to it, but I still find Explorer more versatile in many regards. I use MacDrive to allow me to access Mac disks, even old System 7 stuff that I was playing around with until I configured a proper classic MacOS emulator on a Compact Flash card.

 

Cf

[pixel_pimp 0]

Well part of me wants a low power server that is fast enough to work off of. So that would either be a NAS or Server. I was looking at this external RAID just because that is what I have always seen as far as a "RAID Setup" Internal RAIDS seem fine. With the Mac Pro you only had 3 open drive bays after the start-up so most people would use and external solution (4 drives) and if it needed to be worked on it could just be taken away or swapped out.

[Fred Camino 0]

Ugh.. here's a few "simple" steps to turn off the ludicrous ripple effect every time you click if you're using a Wacom in Windows.

 

http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-disable-ripple-effect-using-windows-7-with-Wacom-tablet

 

Edit: See AromaKat's response below for a better solution!

Edited November 19, 2014 by Fred Camino

[AromaKat 1]

Ugh.. here's a few "simple" steps to turn off the ludicrous ripple effect every time you click if you're using a Wacom in Windows.

 

http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-disable-ripple-effect-using-windows-7-with-Wacom-tablet

 

Oh my! Dont do that!

 

Just use this - http://viziblr.com/news/2011/8/13/fix-my-pen-makes-your-wacom-tablet-just-work-on-windows-7.html

 

 

There are many other issues aside from the click & hold to right click function that make wacom difficult to use in Windows with how it naturally handles it. Its the Surface Pro's fault, because all that stuff is made for the surface pen - not the wacom pen.

 

Just use the 'fix my pen' tool linked above to resolve all issues.

Edited November 19, 2014 by AromaKat

[vozzz 2]

wow! that is super nifty! I've been doing this manually all along. =)

 

thanks for that thing

[Fred Camino 0]

Was so close to giving up on this switch idea until I dumped Windows 8 and tried to work with Windows 7 on another PC render node I have. The difference is night and day.

 

Is there any compelling reason to use Windows 8 if I despise it and want to avoid it like the plague? Like, anything under the hood that I'd really be missing out on by just sticking with Windows 7. It'd have to be something pretty damn special. Too much of that touch/tablet PC stuff is embedded into Windows 8 for my taste, navigating the interface is a nightmare with a Wacom, and even all the hacks above don't seem to wipe that shit off of the OS (and having to hack your OS so much is annoying).

 

But Windows 7, this is actually really really nice. Like.. I don't really miss OSX nice.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Fred Camino

[Aaron Scott 0]

Windows 8 is faster (boots faster, runs faster) and has some great revamped stuff (like the new Task Manager). And, if you install something like Classic Shell, is functionally indistinguishable from Windows 7. It's also rock-solid stable. I really have no idea why anyone wouldn't update.

[AromaKat 1]

Was so close to giving up on this switch idea until I dumped Windows 8 and tried to work with Windows 7 on another PC render node I have. The difference is night and day.

 

Is there any compelling reason to use Windows 8 if I despise it and want to avoid it like the plague? Like, anything under the hood that I'd really be missing out on by just sticking with Windows 7. It'd have to be something pretty damn special. Too much of that touch/tablet PC stuff is embedded into Windows 8 for my taste, navigating the interface is a nightmare with a Wacom, and even all the hacks above don't seem to wipe that shit off of the OS (and having to hack your OS so much is annoying).

 

But Windows 7, this is actually really really nice. Like.. I don't really miss OSX nice.

Were you trying 8.0 or 8.1?

 

Yes, Windows 7 is fine. I'd say its just as stable as 8. And perhaps I'd even say don't go to 8 until you are a bit more familiar with Windows, due to all of the hackery you have to do to rid the machine of all that tablet nonsense. Windows 8.1 removes a lot of the headache you are describing, but its still there. Once you have it configured and wrap your head around the start screen, its extremely nice. The main trick is to disable or manually select desktop versions of applications for viewing files. Kill all RT functionality. You can google how to disable all RT from windows 8.

 

There are a lot of nifty features in 8 that aren't in 7. One of my favorites being the ability to pause a file transfer to let another go faster.

 

I do love Windows 8, but I understand how going from OS X to that can be confusing as all hell. 7 will do fine, and Windows 10 is just around the corner anyway, which is going to resemble win7 more than win8.

[vozzz 2]

yea, make sure you are using 8.1 and not just regular windows 8. it boots and works WAAY faster than 7. and lots of nifty features as mentioned, file transfer pausing, faster network connection, new task manager. no annoying window animations.

[Fred Camino 0]

Ha, okay well I'll have to check if I was on 8.0 or 8.1... man it was driving me crazy. Anyways, thanks for all the tips. I really want to commit to this switch.

[jblessing 0]

Ok, so this is probably a dumb question, but it's driving me nuts. On Windows 8.1, how do I alt + tab to bring up all windows in an app? Like how I alt + tab to Finder and all of my windows come up at once...having to tab to each open window now in file explorer is stupid.

 

Bonus question: how do I cmd + ~ to cycle through the open windows within my current app?

[AromaKat 1]

Alt + tab brings up all screens. Windows + tab cycles through open windows with a 3d animation.

 

Control + tab cycle through windows or tabs within applications that support it.

 

Shift can be used as a modifier to go backwards when cycling.

Edited December 8, 2014 by AromaKat

[jblessing 0]

weird... windows + tab does nothing for me. control + tab doesn't do anything for explorer.

[vozzz 2]

windows tab was taken out in win8, ctrl+tab is for firefox and chrome, and probably photoshop and anywhere else you can manually bind it. For example you can manually bind it in c4d to switch to "next project"

[Fred Camino 0]

Happy 2015 mographers... happy to report I've switched to PC and I'm loving it. Finally got Windows 8.1 to behave the way I want, and everyone was right... it's fast and the "modern" UI lives in the background and I ignore it just like I ignored "Launchpad" on OSX. Got myself a 6-core i7 5820k machine customized to my exact needs, with future expandability, plus two new xeon render nodes (at the same specs as my current Mac Pro workstation) all for the price of one 6-core new Mac Pro. Not bad.

 

A few other Mac to PC transitional things that have helped me:

 

- Synthese to replace Fluid (makes web sites run like apps outside of browser)

- Monosnap to replace Skitch (for some reason Skitch is horrible on Windows, can't set a custom key command for capture)

- Clover for Finder style tabbed file browsing - love this

 

One Windows Explore question: is it possible to select a group of files and automatically collect them into a new folder? In OSX you simply select, right click, and choose "New folder from selection" in the context menu. Possible in Windows?

[vozzz 2]

files into new folder

 

ctrl+x (cut)

ctrl+shift+n ( new folder)

enter ( to accept name)

enter (to open folder)

ctrl+v (to paste)

 

probably there is an app to do this. or if you use a finder replacement they probably have this command.

[AromaKat 1]

Nice, Fred!

 

I didn't even know of the 'create folder from selection' option within OS X. Seems like something I could get the hang of. I've just gotten really fast at Vozz's shortcuts.

[vozzz 2]

here you go

 

http://lifehacker.com/5885278/files-2-folder-creates-new-folders-pre-populated-with-your-selected-files

 

this is why i love windows. When you ask a question like this, a solution is found. With mac's when you ask: "why can't you cut files?" they tell you, that you are stupid, and files would constantly get lost... because i would forget to paste them...

[Aaron Scott 0]

The best OSX question is "How can I refresh my window to see new files on a network?"

 

F5? Command-R, maybe?

 

No, the real answer is to go outside and think about all the events in your life that brought you to this point. How do you feel about the journey? How do you feel about your destination? Was the journey worth the destination, or vice versa? Is one more important than the other? Do you sacrifice now for a better existence down the line, or do you decide that the current moment, this exact point that you occupy, is, in fact, a moment in a series of moments, with the "destination" nothing more than the cumulative sum of those moments? If so, what are you doing right now? Is this what you want? What you need? How do you find the balance so that every moment matter as much as possible? And in this reflection, how do you keep yourself from bowing to the crippling depression that runs underneath it all? Fuck that depression. It contributes nothing. It's the really enemy, the one thing that can actively steal away those moments. You need to fight for them. You need to matter, dammit. Go back to your desk. Check Finder. Have the files shown up yet? No? Shit. There's that depression again. Maybe you should take a longer walk next time.

[AromaKat 1]

The best OSX question is "How can I refresh my window to see new files on a network?"

 

F5? Command-R, maybe?

 

No, the real answer is to go outside and think about all the events in your life that brought you to this point. How do you feel about the journey? How do you feel about your destination? Was the journey worth the destination, or vice versa? Is one more important than the other? Do you sacrifice now for a better existence down the line, or do you decide that the current moment, this exact point that you occupy, is, in fact, a moment in a series of moments, with the "destination" nothing more than the cumulative sum of those moments? If so, what are you doing right now? Is this what you want? What you need? How do you find the balance so that every moment matter as much as possible? And in this reflection, how do you keep yourself from bowing to the crippling depression that runs underneath it all? Fuck that depression. It contributes nothing. It's the really enemy, the one thing that can actively steal away those moments. You need to fight for them. You need to matter, dammit. Go back to your desk. Check Finder. Have the files shown up yet? No? Shit. There's that depression again. Maybe you should take a longer walk next time.

 

That was awesome, but while you were out pondering life, I found this

 

http://www.soderhavet.com/refresh/

[Fred Camino 0]

here you go

 

http://lifehacker.com/5885278/files-2-folder-creates-new-folders-pre-populated-with-your-selected-files

 

this is why i love windows. When you ask a question like this, a solution is found. With mac's when you ask: "why can't you cut files?" they tell you, that you are stupid, and files would constantly get lost... because i would forget to paste them...

Thanks! Problem solved.

 

Honestly, I feel so cool using Windows, like such a hipster. Imagine the respect I'd get pulling out a bad ass Alienware gaming laptop with glowing LED's in my local pourover coffee shop. All the conformists with their MacBook Pro's would feel so lame.