Just bought a Macbook after promising myself to remain PC.

[zentex]

i was using windows 7 last year for music production. lets just say i won't be making the same mistake again.

care to expand on that? (i'm thinking of finally installing windows 7 instead of the good old XP...)

[Shepherd_of_Anu]

Hi zentex,

As someone who has had experience with windows, mac and several Linux distributions I would encourage you to try windows 7. Try it for yourself before being warded off by the misgivings of others. That being said, I have seen previews of windows 8 and it makes me want to puke. Its turning into a tablet for twitter folk.

Windows 7 is a good move if you are an XP user. I did not use Vista because I head too many things. I switched to win 7 pro this summer and I have had most good experiences. The only problems I have ever had so far were hardware related. ie. drive failures or hardware incompatibilities. Otherwise I have had zero blue screens, crashes or other malfunctions. You will be happy with the move as long as your hardware is up to it. Plus you can run DX 10 and DX 11. If you like to play games that is pretty sweet.

[kivetros]

Hi zentex,

As someone who has had experience with windows, mac and several Linux distributions I would encourage you to try windows 7. Try it for yourself before being warded off by the misgivings of others. That being said, I have seen previews of windows 8 and it makes me want to puke. Its turning into a tablet for twitter folk.

Windows 7 is a good move if you are an XP user. I did not use Vista because I head too many things. I switched to win 7 pro this summer and I have had most good experiences. The only problems I have ever had so far were hardware related. ie. drive failures or hardware incompatibilities. Otherwise I have had zero blue screens, crashes or other malfunctions. You will be happy with the move as long as your hardware is up to it. Plus you can run DX 10 and DX 11. If you like to play games that is pretty sweet.

Oh god. Windows 8... I got a whirlwind tour of the "Consumer Preview" or whatever the other day, and man... it's just bad. The Metro design language is a nice idea in theory, but in practice you just end up with way too much wasted screen space. Metro apps and regular Windows applications can't share any resources, at all (like databases and whatnot). They've added a good bit of UI friction for something as basic as getting to the f'n Start Menu. It's ridiculous.

Anyway - definitely try Windows 7. It's not a bad OS, and it will run on hardware that you already have. Make sure, though, that there are Windows 7 drivers available for your hardware before you get anything started!

Besides that there are the stability and virus free argument that mac fanboy use. Let me say my humble opinion: i dont use ativirusses and i never took a virus since win95 and 13 years old. If you are a medium intelligence user and dont donwload like there is no end, you dont take virus, simple as that. And win 7 stability is on par (no blue screens or crashes in two years, and i dont defragment often).

And this is where Windows drives me NUTS. Apparently, Toloache has had nothing but fantastic experiences with Windows 7, but I have had my fair share of BSODs and stability issues - and I very much know what I'm doing. I'm a systems administrator, reluctant .NET developer, and I build PCs for people as a side job - and even on a fresh install on my HP tx2-1275dx (4GB RAM, AMD dual-core something something at 2.2GHZ/core) I have stability issues, speed issues, and the occasional BSOD. Apparently, my hardware just isn't as awesome as his, and as a result, my Windows user experience suffers.

The point is that the openness of a hardware platform's specs is inversely proportional to the stability of the software for said platform. That's why my Android phone is constantly sh!tting itself, and my iPod Touch never has any issues at all; that's why my Macbook is a tank, while my Windows laptop is sketchy (while other people's Windows machines are just fine).

I guess I'm just saying that while Windows 7 is a good platform, I have really, really good and valid reasons for using OSX. I'm not an iSheep, by any stretch of the imagination. Apple "fanboys" are idiots, and they make the platform hard to represent as somebody who doesn't subscribe to their groupthink BS.

tone-def, just out of curiosity, what happened last summer? I smell a story.

[tone-def]

i kept getting the program is not responding message and that was with Propellerhead Record + Reason combo. i never had this problem with my old G5 iMac or the XP laptop i had before that. with Pro Tools i kept getting these weird messages that wouldn't let me play the track. i had to close and reopen the program every half hour or so. i had RAM problems too because there is so much sh!t going on in the background.

this was on a new laptop.

i feel i'm a worse musician from switching to windows 7 for the best part of a year. the unreliability put me off making music and my skills have suffered. i'm much happier with a mac again and have started becoming productive, although i'm not really happy with the music i'm making.

EDIT: just because i had a bad experience doesn't mean everyone will.

[::BLM::]

i have been using windows xp for years and years without any problems. heard bad things about windows 7 though.

[simonb]

Happy with Windows 7 here.

I recently bought a new laptop and was seriously considering a Macbook (my last laptop was a macbook, been using PC desktops for years though) then decided to just get a PC instead to save the money.

My verdict: it's right to say that Macs "just work". I don't particularly like the OS or the company, hence me being hesitant to spend my money on them, but with the fairly good PC laptop I bought I still had to spend a good few hours reinstalling the OS without all the shite it came with, optimising it for audio, ironing out the bugs and crackles, etc. and even with all that the internal sound chip is a bit rubbish. I know all serious music types will use an ext card but it's nice to just plug in my headphones on the couch or in a café or something when the occasion calls for it.

I don't really regret getting a PC laptop and I'm very happy with it now, but it definitely takes a bit more time and knowledge to get a PC running smoothly, especially a consumer laptop (my desktop has been great from the start but I built it myself and installed the OEM OS which I understand a lot of people don't have the time and inclination for). Same with viruses etc, you don't get a virus on a PC if you know what you're doing but if you're a casual user and/or don't want to think about that then a Mac is great.

There, that's my very balanced viewpoint!

[lejockey]

Windows seven has always worked like a dream for me. I love my laptop

[John Clees]

No need to feel dirty... maybe a sucker at worst but not dirty so much. The only thing to envy about macs are the software franchises they have bought up or created... mainly being Logic and Final Cut. I at one time worked as a video editor and I thought Final Cut was The best thing ever. That being said there are other softwares which are equal or better than those, and available across platforms so its not much of a thing.

I think we have reached a level of technical sophistication that any software which is not cross platform compatible is like that for a reason. That does not necessarily mean that it is the developers who are at fault, it's more that the OS developers do not want to accept standard conventions which would make the playing field equal. They want to preserve their niche markets because a niche market is willing to pay more for their goods then the average person. The funny thing is that a company like apple has developed their business in such a way that the majority of people are willing to pay niche prices for fairly regular products by industry standards. That is the real genius behind Apple.

so true. as far as window's 7 is concerned it's an adjustment to the new standard. a year ago everyone, including myself was racking my head on my desk waiting for sound cards and other things to be updated to fit to the new window's 7. now that that process has taken place... my studio computer, window's 7, quad core, i5 will destroy anything I've every throw at it. let alone a i7...

in my personal opinion, their is completely no advantages using a mac anymore with the new window's 7 format, and getting a minimum of quad or dual core with an i5.. I think pc's and mac's are equal, with the exception of extremely clever marketing as stated above..

* on a side now, people hated window's vista when it came out, which was the beginning stages of window's 7. I still currently use a window's vista for my serato, have played 17 hour sets, took it to moscow for my live show, and it's not even a dual core, and I've never had a single issue with it. it's a 2007. the big different is that with the price of computers, in my opinion, you should use them for separate uses. I have one for the net, one for my studio, and another for my dj stuff.. keeping things separate and not using one machine for a all in one, I think truly has made a difference in how I view pc's now. ** never use your studio pc for the net.

congrats eggnchips on your purchase. I hope it serves your needs and you have a lot of fun with your new machine..