Useful Apps for First-Time Windows Users?

pauljoyce asks: "I'm a Mac fan who is intrigued by the possibilities of Apple's Boot Camp software. Now that I have a chance to painlessly dip into the Windows world, what I'd like to ask you is, what Windows software amazes you? I want to build a list of unique, elegant, can't-do-without apps, so all us new Boot-Camp babies can finally experience some of the great innovation happening over on the Windows platform. I roughed in a quick blogpage to collect the info, and to house any useful discussions. It'll probably deteriorate into a flame war at some point, but hopefully I can get a few contributions to each category before then. Would those interested please chime in with their list of favorites?"

Comments

Games.

[jnelson4765]

Really - there are all these cool games, that are released *years* before they are available on Macs.

That's the only reason I have a Windows box - to play my games, b/c most of them don't run in WINE.

Re:Games.

[Politburo]

Sibling references interoperability with other firms as a reason to use AutoCAD. It's actually much deeper than this. Most large public agencies REQUIRE a specific AutoCAD or MicroStation version for you to even be qualified to do work for them. No substitutes. No converting file formats. We had to speed up our adoption of AutoCAD 2000 due to contract requirements.

Games

[biocute]

Play as many PC games as you like.

Re:Games

[Shihar]

The X-Box (or play station or nintendo) is fine for some games, but PCs simply are the no-holds-bar winner in many types of games. When it comes to strategy games, MMORPGs, FPS, and real time strategy games, consoles simply don't cut it. There is a damn good reason why when playing Halo online PC users and x-box users are not allowed to play each other. The reason ISN'T because they can't make the two talk. The reason why the two can't play together is because the keyboard and mouse combination is vastly more powerful then fooling around with those thumb sticks. Console users would get pwn3d.

That is not to say that console gaming is bad. In fact, console gaming kicks the piss out of PC gaming in many ways. I would never want to play Mario or a driving game on a PC unless I had a game pad. Consoles are awesome because you can invite a bunch of friends, crash on the couch with four controllers, and beat on each other. Console games have their place, but so do PC games.

This is sarcasm... right?

[Gribflex]

Right?

Seriously though, there is nothing fun or amazing about the windows world (aside from games that aren't available on OSX). The only 'must have' applications are only 'must have' because my IT department says so.

I'll tell you straight up - If you are using a mac happily now, you probably aren't missing anything.

Re:What software amazes me?

[catwh0re]

I'm finding this a remarkable piece of poorly thought out PR.

Let's take a realistic point of view. We have a computer user who seems to be well experienced. They even have a nicely designed blog online where you can write in your favourite Windows-only applications. Yet they claim that they have never been a windows user before (Making me wonder where they have been for the past 10+ years where windows has been the ubiquitous consumer & business software platform.)

Now let us pretend for a moment that this actually is some computer user who has already mastered implementing RSS+Atom into their blog, yet simultaneously never even noticed that Windows has existed alongside the Mac OS, nor ever even dabbled in it until the release of boot camp last week(I can hardly imagine them rushing out to a store and purchasing a copy of MS Windows for their not-even year old Intel Mac) So why would they be interested in beta software like MS Max? (Which is really only ever going to be as good as last years version of Apple's iLife?) And why is it that their top 10 Mac apps seem to resemble the top rated list from macupdate.com.

Now lets come back to the real world: If you haven't dabbled in windows ever then you're either a recent jail escapee or very good at digging one's own head deeply into sand. This story doesn't add up, and is coinciding with a new wave of windows advertising. Which is fairly interesting as it's before a major release is due. I think our friends in Redmond are just trying to peddle off some Windows sales. Now excuse me I have to drink coffee with a pretty lady from getty-images.

Re:"Elegant?"

[Farmer Tim]

Forgive him. He's a Mac user, so he doesn't realise that software is supposed to be obtuse to learn, frustrating to maintain and butt ugly.

Solution looking for a problem

[imidan]

TFA says that the OP wants these: Productivity (spreadsheet), Graphics, Utilities (spam, anti-virus, FTP etc), Games, Online enhancements (e.g. toolbars etc), Other.

I'm not entirely sure what he wants to do, but most of these categories are just as mature under MacOS as they are under Windows. A spreadsheet application? Well, you've got Excel, you've got OO, and that's about it, for the big one and the up-and-coming, unless Lotus/Quattro is still hanging around out there somewhere. I don't know what state of the art is for spreadsheets on MacOS, but it's gotta be pretty similar to Windows. It's much the same with graphics programs and online programs, really. Utilities? What are you going to do with them? Why do you need a spam filter under Windows if you're checking your mail under MacOS? Do you actually envision booting into Windows and using it for long periods of time?

The only category that I see here where Windows definitely has a lot of options above and beyond MacOS is games. So go for that. Go down to the local video game store and look for some things on the PC shelf that aren't on the Macintosh shelf, and buy them. Over all, you probably aren't missing much.

This post sounds like the OP has a solution (Boot Camp) looking for a problem. And unless you've got a specific problem that really needs solving with Boot Camp, what's the point in using it?

Re:Not needed

[Riquez]

Also, anyone designing a web site pretty much has to test it with Internet Exploder. Boot Camp is the alternative to wasting desk space for a Dell.

What?! Your crazzzzzy
Boot Camp would be almost useless to a web designer or developer - you have to reboot to test it.

padding: 3px 5px 2px 2px;
Perfect in Safari, right now lets reboot into windows & check IE (time passes..)
.. nahh, thats out, a bit less on the sides i think, ok lets reboot back to os x (time passes..)
padding: 3px 4px 2px 1px;
hmm, looks ok in Safari still, righty oh, reboot back to win (times passes..)

ARGGHHHH!

Re:Living off the grid -- easier than you think.

[TheNetAvenger]

I'm a software developer

I hope you don't mean you NEVER use Windows or a newer version than 3.1...

You owe it to yourself to fully understand what is out there, and the development division of Microsoft has done some really cool things in the past 10 years. Not always perfect, but different and worth knowing to at least get ideas or very least know your competition.

Even looking at the *nix market we see the classic 'taskbar' in everything from KDE to GNOME and other variants. It is kind of sad that MS was the first one with a taskbar like this, but it isn't such a bad idea, so I don't mind see others parrot it.

I find too many experienced IT people that I interview and they are non-Windows people which is fine, but when asked what they are working on or why they like one OS, etc.

I find that many times they have NO idea how much the industry has passed them by. I get answers like, I use XXXX because I want a real 32bit OS, or real Multi-Tasking, or I am developing this cool application idea (an idea that has been built into Window or other OSes for YEARS) and they think they are being innovative.

Basically you can't be innovative, unless you know what else is out there.

Getting off of Windows is great, but don't close your mind to the stuff from Redmond, they surprise many great developers sometimes, by statistics alone, it has to happen. For example at the PDC in September they shook up the way a lot of us developers view software, and even some of us are developing on other platforms, their ideas were something good to build from.

I assume you don't mean you haven't used Windows to at least explore the competition, but in case you haven't or others in here haven't, it is worth your time...

Nice VMWare or other tool and at least run a test version somewhere. (Hint, if you are using VMWare or another comperable tool, you can use the 180day Free version of WindowsXP and just reinstall it.)

Re:flame war?

[totoanihilation]

Hey
I don't mean to start a flame war here, but none of these apps are worth dual-booting for. They're mostly apps to "fix" windows, and small utilities. There are awesome equivalents for OSX. So what's the point?