Five Windows 7 and Snow Leopard differences

Chron Tech BLog ^ | September 01, 2009 | Dwight Silverman

[ctdonath2]

Difference:

OS X - Apple knows their customers are the people who will actually be using the OS.

Windows - Microsoft thinks their customers are Dell, big corporate IT buyers, and DRM-obsessed big-money MPAA/RIAA content sellers.

[Uri’el-2012]

Windows 7 and Snow Leopard differences

A complete re-write of the code vs.
this season's shade of lipstick on NT.

Unix_© vs. OS/2 3.0

[Astronaut]

Please. Apple advertises Snow Leopard as 64 bit. It isn’t. On everything but an XServe it boots a 32 bit kernel. Apple continues to lie to its fanboy customers who lap it up, and fall father behind Microsoft in terms of 64 bit computing.

[Woodman]

Try two different approaches to searching: 1st in the start menu just begin typing whatever your search parameter is and you should be able to pick from the list of hits, 2nd press the windows key plus ‘F’. In that interface you can refine your search parameters further. I'm not sure what the confusing interface is that you are using?

[itsahoot]

I won't consider a Mac...even for a second.

Jobs will be crushed, crushed I tell you.

[gardengirl]

Have a GREAT trip! :)

[o2bfree]

>>Apple advertises Snow Leopard as 64 bit. It isn’t.

As an Apple shareholder I take issue with what you’ve written. You sir are incorrect! You CAN boot Snow Leopard to the 64 bit kernal if you follow the directions right? All you have to do is hold down 2 keys at startup.

So with all due respect I ask you who is wrong... you or Apple?

By the way I run Ubuntu Linux 9.04 64 bit with 8 gb ram. Linux is definitely the way to go.

[listenhillary]

[Uri’el-2012]

Please. Apple advertises Snow Leopard as 64 bit. It isn’t. On everything but an XServe it boots a 32 bit kernel. Apple continues to lie to its fanboy customers who lap it up, and fall father behind Microsoft in terms of 64 bit computing.

See Startup mode Selector

[savedbygrace]

Either you don’t understand what you’ve written or you’re lying about it intentionally.

Snow Leopard runs a number of applications in 64-bit mode even when it’s booted with 32-bit kernels.

Do you understand the distinction between 32-bit kernels and 64-bit kernels? Do you understand the reason Apple has made SL boot with 32-bit kernels, with an option to boot with 64-bit kernels only?

Now if you do, that means you’re lying intentionally. I’m hoping you just lack the understanding, because that’s correctable. But intentional lying needs to be exposed.

So, would you like to give a go at answering the questions I’ve asked, or would you prefer to admit you don’t know? I can explain, or refer you to explanations people smarter than me have already written.

[TheMightyQuinn]

I’m running Windows 7 Professional, and although I like it and think it’s much better than Vista, there are a few shortcomings. Here’s what I’ve observed:

1) Search. How can you make search actually find anything? My search returns NOTHING! Seriously, search *.* in any folder and Windows can’t find a thing. Search for the exact file name and it still finds nothing.

2) Screensaver. If you do the photos screensaver, Windows will only include photos in the folder you point it to, but not subfolders. So files in the folder “My Pictures” will show up, but not files in “My Pictures\vacation”. To get around this you need to use Windows Live Photo Gallery as your screensaver, but at least there’s a workaround. Vista did not have this problem.

3) Opening multiple files (also a problem with Vista.) If I highlight a txt file and a doc file then press enter, in XP they both would open. Since Vista that functionality is gone.

4) Canon Camera software (maybe not a Windows problem.) I can’t get my Cannon Camera software to work in Windows 7, although it worked fine in Vista. Windows 7 seems to want me to only use their built-in image downloading tool, which I’m not a fan of.

5) Homegroups and sharing. Giving read/write permissions while using homegroups is not intuitive. The help files tells you to enable read/write access, but then does not tell you how to do that. Homegroups are only marginally better than using “Network” to find files, and I think they’ll probably improve upon the concept in the future.

6) MSDN AA activation. It’s clearly spelled out in the EULA that I can install my copy of Windows 7 on two (or more?) machines, but MS won’t let me activate the second copy. I shouldn’t need a second key, but I may have to get one to continue to use Windows 7.

It also seemed that a fresh install was fast (well under an hour), while an upgrade from Vista Pro took a few hours.

[Astronaut]

Thats funny...my copy of 64 bit Windows boots a 64 bit kernel and I dont have to hold down any magic keys at startup! Amazing the lengths the Apple fanboys will contort in order to defend their favorite company. Do you think the average user will know about your magic key combination? Nope. They’ll buy the marketing hype about 64 bit and never know that are only getting a 32 bit kernel.

[normanpubbie]

I'm not a Mac but I wondered about the writer's comments (2 mentions) about no support for PowerPC in Snow Leopard. I guess this means that Snow Leopard won't work on these machines.

Apple sold a lot of PowerPCs. Aren't a lot of them still in use?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Bon voyage! You will be missed.

[normanpubbie]

I guess the Swordmakers are boarding the ship right about now. Have a fun time?! Can anyone else answer my question?

[Mr. Blonde]

How much does it matter to the average user? Could the average user possibly be more upset if they went the other way with it? It would break a lot more stuff is my understanding.

Here is Ars Technica on the subject.

[vox_freedom]

Hey Swordmaker, have a safe and fun cruise, and thanks for the
!

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"Did you ever consider it may be your hardware?"

That machine is partitioned to boot into several OSes. It ain't the hardware.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"Apple sold a lot of PowerPCs. Aren't a lot of them still in use?"

Yes, including two PowerBook G4s here, six years old and still going strong. They're running 10.5.8 Leopard. Apple continues to maintain Leopard, so I have no problem with this approach.

[DollyCali]

have a wonderful time. One likes to think we wont miss being on line but after a few days .. well, there is this “itch” of sorts of the mind... Thank you for your faithful sharing of all the good things to know. See you when you return if you cant find a way to post. And I agree, that is outrageous fee.