I’m pretty good at bootstrapping a new PC. Taking it from the box, installing all my software, changing all my preferred settings takes me about three hours. I have nobody who does it for me, but I also have nobody who messes up my setup with corporate policies. My PC does not behave like your PC.
I have also been a Mac user for more than ten years, but I gave up when it became clear that Apple was never going to build something as innovative as a Surface Pro. Laptops that do not have a touchscreen and do not accept pen input are just stuck in the last Millennium. I have tried working on an iPad Pro only, for a full year.
I am also a Linux user, and I have been when Linux still had 0.x version numbers. I have met both Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman as in ‘I know how he smells’. 🙂 I have worked with Sinix, VMS, MVS. I have also worked on Burroughs B1700, which you probably never heard of. I have written JCL and COBOL. I even tried Prolog and PL/1.
I was also on MS-DOS, Windows 1.x and everything Windows since, with the exception of Windows Vista. For a decade I was on OS/2, from 1.x onwards. I have seen Clippy fail, I have seen Watson fail, I lived through three different versions of “Workplace”.
I am a Windows user, and I don’t like what Microsoft is doing to it. I routinely switch off everything that tries to nudge me into MSN, Bing and Copilot.
Stay away from me with your advocacy for your favorite platform. I can live on all of them, but I happen to get stuff done on Windows.
I‘m about to start at a new company next month and was asked if I prefer Mac or Windows as work-machine. I chose Windows although I use Mac/Apple stuff privately, so I absolutely feel you.
Same here. Windows at work and Windows (on Arm, SP11) at home. Occasional bouts of nostalgia when faced with the sheer beauty of certain Mac apps. Linux? Maybe after retirement 😉
I worked 20 years for a large tech company, using macs for 10 years. First as BYOD then as an official platform. Company claimed to have massively reduced support costs by switching to Macs. Yes, there was almost no support any more, did almost everything myself (and supported co-workers)
Since 2022 I’m working in a total Windows / O365 / SAP environment. Everything is totally integrated, I only authenticate once at the laptop. For productivity it’s a total boost. As I’m in a total management role, I’d like to switch to ARM based devices, they are looking quite appealing.
A for tinkering with hard- & software I have a Mac mini at home. I think I found my ideal setup.
Congrats! Your old company was very conflicted about support for Microsoft platforms because it was both partnering and competing. Once you get into an environment that fully utilizes the Microsoft platform, you reap the benefits.
Windows on ARM is wonderful, if you do not need hardware that requires special drivers and if your software stack is completely ARM64. Curiously, the only x84 App I have is Click2Run, made by – tadumm – Microsoft. 🤣