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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.
ask your son he probably knows more about computers then you do
give em Linux and tell them to figure out how to run Windows games
And then tell the rest of the world how he did it.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
One reason pc laptops get a bad rep is the good deals are full of crapware. Pay a bit extra for a Microsoft signature edition (usually less then $100 more then same hardware) but these have ZERO crapware and have had extra driver testing.
I would recommend the Windows 10 Field Guide by Paul Thurrott : https://leanpub.com/windows10fieldguide
God help you. I'm been through this, and it's ugly. My daughter destroyed her machine in minutes, multiple times. By the 5th wipe/reinstall she started to learn to avoid the crudites. (she started on linux, moved to mac, then Windows... for games of course)
1) no admin rights, and make sure no one ever runs as admin
2) firewall shit up
3) turn on windows defender, and grab a copy of webroot
4) remove IE, install chrome
5) get steam, only let games install from there
You'll save about 30% actually. But hyperbole is fun.
However - you'll spend far more time fixing that POS Windows with monthly patches that break your apps, applications that corrupt the registry, drivers that aren't compatible, hardware that was poorly designed and tested, and after all this time no one seems to be able to replicate Apple's trackpad design and functionality.
Have fun! Suddenly paying a little more doesn't seem so bad.
First up gaming laptops have a real problem, overheating to death. Basically whilst they last they last, but once warranty is over don't expect them to last more than say three times the warranty period. They run hot, real hot and system elements will fail. That is a high powered gaming laptop. Reality is for gaming get a good desktop and for school and other stuff get a cheap near disposable notebook. Cheapest notebook pretty much anything running Linux and a range of free open source software will be good enough (for computer learning experience they now have a foot in both games, windows for gaming all it pretty much can sort of be relied on for and Linux for everything else). So desktop to play games and the cheapest possible Linux notebook for school work, some of the work can still be done on the desktop. Just remember to remind them M$ will be spying on them and not to 'you know' in front of the microphone and camera that M$ is monitoring.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
If cost is not an issue, why not just get him any thunderbolt-equipped MacBook and an eGPU box with a GTX970(unofficial) or Radeon RX580 (official support) in it? all I do is reboot into windows and game in bootcamp, then reboot into MacOS for everything else. it's super easy to do and solves all my problems.
Good god no. Mac graphics cards (if it has anything more than integrated) and thermals are terrible.
You couldn't pick a worse price to performance laptop for gaming.
Surface
Greed is the root of all evil.
Usually, the solution is: use a cracked copy (even if you have a DRM-encumbered one).
Not running adequately in Wine is in most cases self-inflicted.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
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.
You install Windows in the VM on a Linux host, not the other way around.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
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.
What is this, AOL? This such ridiculous FUD I can't believe it.... the shame!
- Good computing practices are good computing practices, regardless of which platform you use
- Teaching your kids safe computing practices, again, irrespective of platform
- I don't consider MACs significantly more or less secure than PCs running Windows, but I doubt we will ever know...
- How fast were MACs hacked in the last hacking contest?
- If MACs had a 90+% market share, they would be under attack too...
Now, I am in the Windows camp, because that and VMware is what pays my bills, but I am just as likely to recommend MACs, I have been using computers years before either came along. It all depends on use case.
So, for "safe computing" advice, and again, regardless of platform:
- Practice least privilege, so yeah don't run as admin regularly, only when you need to, and only when you initiate it
- Use "defense in depth", don't rely on any one method
- Run a good anti-malware / anti-virus program, possibly more than one, (Malwarebytes, etc.)
- Run an ad-blocker, which has other benefits as well
- Run a good router / gateway / UTM (like Sophos), rather than the one from your ISP or Best Buy so you can filter the Internet for your kids and so forth
- Use a password manager + physical two-factor authentication
- Learn how to properly secure your wireless networks
- Back up your data, with one copy preferably off-site
- Run the latest supported OS you can, keep up to date on patches
- You might want to use a local firewall, especially if it is a laptop
- I am sure others can chime in with additional suggestions....
And separately from this, for this use-case:
- Get a laptop if you must, but for gaming Windows Desktops are still at the top of the food chain
- But, which games are we talking about specifically? MACs can run more than they used to... (again, use case)
- If you have a Windows desktop/laptop, but you like MacOS, run a nice hackintosh, only use Windows for the games if you like
- How about just dual-booting your MAC into Windows? Not perfect, but might do the job just for games
- Lastly, you will save a fair bit of money, I don't think anyone really disputes that MACs are more expensive, unless it is a very high end Windows box
- Plenty of Windows laptops with sexy hardware similar to or rivaling MACs
-RoS
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!
14 is a kid. He needs a disposable high school laptop, NOT a gaming laptop.
Gaming laptops are expensive, large, heavy, have shit battery life and attract thieves when in the hands of 14 year olds.
An obsolete toughbook might be just the ticket, not disposable, useful as a weapon in case of zombie apocolypse.
Kid likely already has newest console and gameable phone. Let the kid learn to build his own gaming desktop. Cast off desktop parts will be faster than almost any laptop. Find a PC person. You want a Core 2 Duo (or better) motherboard, a Nvidia graphics card, a fist full of RAM and a good power supply (last item to save kid from himself). Let the kid take it from there. (He'll find a better graphics card himself, horse trading etc.)
Software? Nothing will really help. The kid will roast the OS monthly. Obviously avoid the software that comes on it (McAfee/Norton).
Whatever brand you get, run PC decrapifier or similar. All the vendors crapify their machines for profit. None of the demo crapware is worth what you pay for it, much less what it will want in 30 days.
Sit down with him and let the machine get updates, pick your antivirus, install, then image it. Discuss where you can find mostly malware free software, start his mental whitelist.
Consider getting him a portable drive and teaching him to restore windows and backup his data himself.
Never look there. You're happier not knowing. Remember being 14.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
the primary reason he wants Windows instead of a MacBook is gaming
If you want your kid to use the laptop for school and life, but he wants a PC primarily for gaming, the clear solution would be to get him a Mac. If there's one thing I regret about my teenage years, it's the hours I wasted away playing Starcraft. Get your kid a guitar, enroll him in sports, buy him books, get him a chemistry set. There are all sorts of intellectually stimulating activities that aren't a total waste of the human brain.
I know this opinion may not be popular here, but I firmly believe that there are two distinct types of behaviors that both receive the "nerd" label. One is a pursuit of intellectual interests while the other is an obsession with games and fantasies. While there are many individuals who represent an overlap of these two stereotypes to varying degrees, the former traits are commendable while the latter are not. The nerds portrayed in The Big Bang Theory, who fully embody both of these stereotypes, aren't realistic.
Video games, like casino games, are designed to be addictive. Teenagers are especially susceptible to this addiction. The most hilarious thing about the video game critics who try to demonstrate that video games lead to violence is that it doesn't matter. No studies are necessary to demonstrate that they're a waste of time—especially for children, who have such an aptitude for learning.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
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.
boy, i left windows for greener mac pastures in 2009, and never looked back on the SW side (on the HW side is another matter). Having said that, I keep a Windows BootCamp partition for work, but my "windows skillz" are fuzzy, so I do not know if I'll be much help
Here are some basic sugestions in no particular order:
Get Windows 10. As long as he is going to windows, my as well go to the newest one. Do not heed the siren chants of "Downgrade". You know what happens to those sailors who heed the sirens chant...
Use Windows Defender as antivirus, is light on resources, good enough, and updates through the same mechanisms as the rest of the OS. Schedule scans agresively.
Do not let the guy be admin.
Set up some backup solution. Having said that, windows backup solutions do not hold a candle to timemachine, so expect to work your ass out on this one.
Make a full image of the HDD every 4 moths or so.
Configure defrag if you have an HDD. Completely disable defrag if you have an SSD. (it should be done by the OEM, but, check nonetheless)
Windows has a niffty feature (that MacOS does not have) which allows you to mark a connection as "Metered", meaning that is charged per GB, or subjected to Data caps. use accordingly.
Get Windows Pro. Enable Updates. DO NOT DISABLE updates, but Deffer updates.
Do not unistall ie11 and Edge, but HIDE them.
Install CCleaner (is analogous to Onyx or Yasu on OSX), use it bi-monthly. Aaaaaand install Recuva (allows you to recover files even after they are purged from the recycle bin/trash) on day one. You will thank me (eventually).
Restrict telemetry. There are tons of guides on the net on how to do it.
Just like on a mac, install a better compression/decompression uttility than what comes standart from the OS. WinRAR, 7Zip and Winzip are popular choices.
Install VLC (but then again, you do that on OSX too).
Install irfanview as a complement to the preview utilities.
Put at the very least uBlock Origin, EFF privacy Badger and HTTPS everywhere in the browser (browser being chrome or Firefox ESR).
Configure the browser as you would do on a mac from a privacy standpoint.
Windows has very rich parental controls (richer than mac's). Use them as you see fit (I am not a parent, so, aside from knowing they exist, and thart are better than mac's, can't say much more).
Install window on a bootcamp partition of YOUR mac, and make it so that this partition can ALSO be used from your Parallels/Fusion/VirtualBox. Many of the parental controls benefit from a second machine for control and supervision.
Do not trust the parental controls on Windows alone. A determined 14yo looking for porn will defeat them on ANY OS. Do something in the router as well (and he will defeat that too, but at least make it hard, so that he learns something along the way, trust me, I was a 14 YO once, I got my porn [also, talk to him about sex and porn, before "the internet" does the talk]).
Install some office suite. Libreoffice or Office 365, HIS choice (not yours, HIS).
Unistall all the trialware/bloatware, including antivirus trials, office365 trials (unless the guy wants office 365 and you want to save a few bucks), and all other shit. (Macs also have bloatware, we just do not think of it as such, if you do not believe me, check how much space garageband takes on your SSD. Yes, for musicians, garageband may be great, but for nonmusicians, just check how much space it takes).
Win10 has built in PDF readers and PDF generators, but those are crappy. Depending on his usage, that will suffice, or you will have to install something different.
Since the laptop is for gaming, I assume you get a dGPU, update drivers and enable whatever autoupdater is there for graphic drivers.
As soon as you get the laptop out of the box, update all manufacturer utilities.
Enter the Bios (is like a primitive conbination of UEFI/NVRAM/PRAM) and do a quick sanity check.
Install DosBox (good games a
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
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.
Setup:
Admin access is necessary for a lot of the more advanced functions on Steam; keep it enabled first time around, if they keep screwing up, wipe and take it away.
Windows 10 is a much better out-of-box setup than windows once was; 75% of the hurdles that will catch you are from shitty manufacturers pre-installing malware, which can effectively be bypassed by wiping and installing with a vanilla copy of Windows 10 from a USB drive (MS has very simple utilities for this, the license is hard-coded in the BIOS so it's automatic). The other 25% are the damage from people who mindlessly click without any awareness of what they're doing, regardless of age.
Buying from reputable manufacturers (HP, Lenovo and Dell's business models, or Microsoft directly) is the safest bet.
Wiping a Windows PC is a rather painless affair nowadays, if shit goes wrong, it doesn't take much as long as you approach things presuming you will wipe the PC in 6-12 months (dropbox/google drive for schoolwork etc.). Windows has changed a lot, it's really a mature and solid OS now (admittedly with an immature layer on top with the app store, but that's easily avoided).
get a console
Fan-created game mods do not install on PS4 versions of games. Indie games* also tend to be PC first or PC only far more often than PS4 first or PS4 only.
* As defined by ceoyoyo: video games from studios with no access to venture capital.
Ha ha ha, no. For most consumer laptops, youâ(TM)ll be lucky if you can even find replacement parts after the first year, never mind on the cheap.
Virtualization causes a severe slow-down
With kvm+gpu passthrough it's now native performance. It's still not completely trivial to set up and needs extra hardware(if you want to run X/Wayland in addition to Windows), but it's doable. Not something I'd recommend, but it's still more pleasant than actually dual booting. Linux for productivity, Windows for games.
-- Linux user #369862
I haven't seen a virus in years.
Then you couldn't possibly have one!
Most PC owners have these things called "screwdrivers".
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Why would i buy a copy of, say, assisns creed just to follow the same old story path that everyone else who had the games has followed. I'll stick to Rimworld where you never know when your colonists are going to be eaten alive by a rabid pack of squirrels or your base will be set on fire by some angry raiders, blinding your herd of Muffalo.
Mainstream games, in general, are crap.
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
The thermals are terrible. FTFY. I had a brief fling with Mac Pro desktops from 2005 - 2009ish. First one happily cooked its "good" video card twice before I ended up downgrading it to the "bad" one. Admittedly I stupidly tried to push 3D with it. If I'd stuck to 2D applications, it would have been OK, if a bit slow for the time. Both Mac Pro desktops I bought are still in service more than a decade later, though, both running as Linux servers. They installed multiprocessor xeons in those things, and they're still actually pretty fantastic for general purpose computing (Despite Apple's attempts to intentionally cripple the hardware.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
2001, huh? What's really sad is that this is the honest truth. Macs just don't get spyware. Yes, it is "technically" possible to infect a mac, but it is a very rare occurrence, indeed. I've been in computer repair for the last 20 years, and the total number of macs I have ever seen with some sort of virus or spyware/malware is less than 5. I can actually remember each one individually. On the other hand, I couldn't begin to count the number of Windows PCs I've cleaned up with malware over the last two decades. It's staggering, on the order of 10,000:1 ratio. Of the 4 I have personally witnessed, as well as the handful or so I've heard about through colleagues, not a single one was a "drive-by" infection. They were ALL from a user who downloaded a questionable file and opened it, then put in their admin password to complete the infection. Contrast that with the 100's seen every month from Windows users who swear that they did nothing but check their email and are now knee deep in an infection. My kids use an iMac to play games and do homework. Not because I'm an elitist (the iMac is 9 years old), but because I don't want to spend any more time fixing their computers. In the last 4 years, I have never once had to fix a virus issue on their PC. Trust me, they've tried. I can see the infectious EXE's in the download folder, but I've stopped even clearing those out because they can't do any harm. Regardless of the scary stories you read here on slashdot, the simple fact is Mac malware just isn't an issue. Windows malware is a daily occurrence.
This. Just make him a standard user, and then periodically run updates and scans (Malwarebytes & Defender should be plenty) with your admin account. You can try to tell him that he shouldn't just try to download random crap, or to not visit streaming pirate anime sites, but if he's like my teens that won't get fully absorbed. Just keep his user locked down.
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.
This has been the case for years. Mac OS is no more or less secure than Windows since XP SP2. The major cause of insecurity remains the user and almost all Windows malware is now user installed and its worse for the Mac because the Mac user believes it's automagically protected (and the cure for Malware on a Mac is to buy a new Mac*).
Also remember that almost all malware this day and age is intentionally non-destructive. They've taken a leaf from microbiology and if a virus kills its host, it cant propagate and send spam, DDOS or mine Bitcoin.
* OK, you could re-install OSX but having to do this for simple problems is why I stopped doing Mac support over a decade ago.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
This is great, I only have a few things to add:
Most gaming laptops have a button that will allow you to turn off the trackpad.
Upgrade to Windows Pro, you can turn off most the suggestions, notifications, and ads that are now embedded in Windows.
You should be able to get a pretty decent machine for about $1000 that will play all games.
Don't get a 4k screen, 1080p is plenty. More will only require more, hotter, hardware.