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Ask Slashdot: What Should A Mac User Know Before Buying a Windows Laptop?
New submitter Brentyl writes: Hello Slashdotters, longtime Mac user here faced with a challenge: Our 14-year-old wants a Windows laptop. He will use it for school and life, but the primary reason he wants Windows instead of a MacBook is gaming. I don't need a recommendation on which laptop to buy, but I do need a Windows survival kit. What does a fairly savvy fellow, who is a complete Windows neophyte, need to know? Is the antivirus/firewall in Windows 10 Home sufficient? Are there must-have utilities or programs I need to get? When connecting to my home network, I need to make sure I ____? And so on... Thanks in advance for your insights.
Seriously. There aren't any that come close to even a decade-old Macbook Pro.
I would recommend the Windows 10 Field Guide by Paul Thurrott : https://leanpub.com/windows10fieldguide
God help you. I'm been through this, and it's ugly. My daughter destroyed her machine in minutes, multiple times. By the 5th wipe/reinstall she started to learn to avoid the crudites. (she started on linux, moved to mac, then Windows... for games of course)
1) no admin rights, and make sure no one ever runs as admin
2) firewall shit up
3) turn on windows defender, and grab a copy of webroot
4) remove IE, install chrome
5) get steam, only let games install from there
If he wants a 12" screen, X220s can be had for about $150 refurb. Plop in an SSD, 8GB of RAM, price is under $250. Fast, solid, indestructible laptop.
If he wants 14"-15", the Thinkpad T4x0 and T5x0 series are great.
These machines aren't sexy or "cool", but they'll last him 4-5 years, can run Linux or even MacOS if he wants to tinker, and (with an SSD), will take a lot of abuse (falling down dorm stairs, etc).
Last virus I got on windows was about 15 years ago.
I run with a lower priv user and do not do stupid shit. Use a VM for the unsafe things or experimental. You know the exact same things that you do on a mac and linux. My wife also runs in a lower priv user account also and has several hundred games she plays. Only one or two need admin rights. Run with no-script and some sort of ad blocking for surfing (where 99% of the viri come from). Have them run it by you when they want to install something. With an eye on them becoming independent and able to make the judgment call themselves. Make sure all updates are turned on (MS is fixing your computer let them do it or suffer the pain). Security is only as good as the user of the computer. It takes personal discipline with an assist from the computer.
Give the kid what they want. If you want them to not play games with their friends and be the odd one out then give them a mac. Which is what they really want it for. Then let them explain to their friends how you are a douchebag and have no clue. Or let the kid have what they want and enjoy being a kid with their friends.
To the original poster get virtualbox or parallels and put windows on it and give it a spin. Read up on locking it down a bit then show your kid how to do the same. Read up on how to do a restore. Which windows is pretty good at. By default windows ships in a fairly unsecure state. It needs a bit of work to make it usable and 'locked down'. Once you get it in that state it is just as good as the other OS's. It launches the programs you want to use. All of the open source is just as open and available. Learn how to get around the control panel and the registry. Currently in windows 10 the settings are split between the old windows vista/7 way and the newer win8/10 way. So it is a bit painful there and a sore spot.
You are going to get a lot of advice to not do what your kid wants. Ignore them. Give your kid what they want. Eventually if they are actually interested in computers (which may or may not ever happen) look into getting them a mac or show them linux or a MSDN license if that is what they are into. For example my niece wants an apple. Me being a windows guy is helping her mom get her a nice mac. If you get them what they do not want they probably will never develop any interest in it and just resent you.
A lot of that, patches that break apps, applications that corrupt registry, driver issues, were real and extremely annoying issues a few years ago, not so much now. It's like jokes about Harleys leaking oil. It was a real problem. Back in the eighties.
The workstation on which I do business (photo and video post processing) runs Windows. This is because Adobe Creative Suite runs on (a) Windows, or (b) Mac. (It *almost* runs on Wine, but not close enough.)
I switched from Mac to Windows back when Apple and Adobe got into a pissing contest, I believe about that very same trackpad you like so much. I work with a mouse in my right hand and a midi controller with motorized sliders under my left hand. A trackpad does nothing for me. It's just something to accidentally touch when I'm using the keyboard. Typically the first thing I do on a new laptop is disable the damned trackpad.
The computer on which I do everything else, runs Mint.
I've got two elderly, high-end-at-the-time G series Macs parked under my desk. I need to remember to take them to freegeek.
I'm not a Windows fan. The moment Adobe comes out with a native Linux port, it'll be a pox on both your houses. I'll dump the Big Two and never look back. But until then, I have to put up with Windows.
And I have to say truthfully, although I've pushed my current and previous Windows 10 boxes pretty hard, both in the work I do, the ancillary apps I run, and the hardware I attach, I have yet to have a single blue (or whatever color it is this iteration) screen of death. I've never had a hang. I've never had a USB device not be recognized. It Just Works. Windows used to be a heaping pile of garbage, and with one release to another the heap just got taller or shorter. But right now, it appears to be dead nuts stable. Imagine my surprise.
It does a lot of things I find annoying, like constantly begging me to use Edge instead of Firefox, and shamelessly promoting Cortana at every opportunity. But it runs Adobe CC acceptably well. And it hasn't crashed since I "upgraded" to Windows 10.
In summary, that patter is getting a little stale. You might think about harping on lack of privacy and interrupting one's work with "Ask Cortana a question! Go on! You know you want to!" instead. There's still lots of reasons to hate Microsoft. Your arguments would carry more weight if you used ones that were still valid.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The menus don't float at the top of the screen, they're attached to the window. Closing all the windows will quit the app.
The filenames are case insensitive. This can cause some problems if you're moving them back and forth between the OSX and Windows machines.
Microsoft will try to convince you to get a hotmail account to use your machine. This isn't necessary, but I don't recall how to avoid it. Play around on that screen to keep your accounts local (unless you want them tied together).
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Ever notice how they always get viruses
Spare me this tired meme from 20 years ago.
We've got five Windows 10 machines in our family, used by me, my wife and my two kids. I just let Windows Defender do its thing and I haven't seen a virus in years.
Our 14-year-old
the money he makes working at his after-school job.
In other words, you're making him sit on his hands until age 16 when he becomes legally eligible for an "after-school job." Though many jurisdictions allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work as an employee in occupations free of hazard, at least one duty of most entry-level unskilled jobs is 16+ by law or by insurance policy. In fast food, for example, every position other than cashier is 16+ by law because of hazards involved in food preparation, and cashier is 16+ because the business insurer doesn't think children under 16 can accurately handle money. That leaves newspaper carrier, but with the contraction in print news following a decline in readership and the relatively jobless recovery, grown-ups tend to crowd children out of those few newspaper carrier positions that remain.
In addition, the school's principal needs to issue a work permit for any employee under 18, and as I understand the law of my state, he can refuse to for any reason.
With Windows 10, the license is stored in the EFI. Just download the Media Creation Tool and install your bare Windows 10 with no need for even a product key.