[AlpineWhite_SJ]

Originally Posted by MKSixer

My 80 year old mother uses a Mac like an IT expert. They are infinitely usable and highly reliable.

And you can go weeks without rebooting without issue. A coworker was late starting a meeting/webex because she had to reboot her Win10 notebook and me and the other Mac user in the room looked at each other and shrugged. Neither of us could remember the last time we had rebooted our MacBook pros

Now that they fixed the keyboard issues, I’m looking to get another one.

Still have my gaming desktop with Win10. Can’t wait until the next time an update downloads and kills off a device from loading the wrong drivers. Last time it was the Ethernet driver

[MKSixer]

Originally Posted by AlpineWhite_SJ

And you can go weeks without rebooting without issue. A coworker was late starting a meeting/webex because she had to reboot her Win10 notebook and me and the other Mac user in the room looked at each other and shrugged. Neither of us could remember the last time we had rebooted our MacBook pros

Now that they fixed the keyboard issues, I’m looking to get another one.

Still have my gaming desktop with Win10. Can’t wait until the next time an update downloads and kills off a device from loading the wrong drivers. Last time it was the Ethernet driver

All of this.

I try to reboot once a week just to keep it clear but I've gone a over a month without rebooting without any problems, whatsoever.

[mxchris727]

I bought a $1,500 Lenovo X1 Thinkpad through my work, it came with zero bloatware which was nice. However, after being prompted with "tips", updates, and errors non-stop every time I went to use it, I had enough. The final straw was when the fingerprint scanner stopped working so I sent it in for service. The had to replace the mother board and upper part of the case to fix it. The laptop came back all scratched up from the depot.

I literally dropped the computer on the counter, got in my car, and drove to the apple store to buy a Macbook Air. I can tell you that it's like owning your first computer all over again. The features are actually useful, everything is perfectly thought through, and Apple does not try to upsell you software within their own platform. It's a night and day difference. I can actually use the computer focusing on my work/leisure without noticing the OS in the background. And, the compatibility with the iPhone is bar-none. Handoff is instantaneous and I get call/text through the laptop (which I never realized is so beneficial). The other thing to note is then you first set up the Mac, it will transfer ALL of your documents and and settings automatically via WiFi. It's smart enough to create its own hotspot for the PC to connect to so that file transfers happen instantly.

I swear I wish I had done mac years and years ago. Apples commitment to privacy should win anyone over. The price you pay is for the software.

[M_Six]

I run Macs, but my non-techie FIL was able to get this to upgrade his ancient Dell laptop to Win 10. Be advised, if it's a Dell, the wifi driver will not work. Once it shows up as Win 10, you'll either need a LAN cable connection or have a thumb drive with the Win 10 Dell wifi driver on it.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/new...while-you-can/

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by AlpineWhite_SJ

Now that they fixed the keyboard issues, I’m looking to get another one.

Whhhatt is thhis keybooardd issue fix that yoou speak ooof? My Macbook Pro touchbar/butterfly keybooarrdd is in serioous need of fixing, and web feedback seems ttoo inddicate ttthat the replacement keyboards fail the same as the originals in about a year.

Turning thhird-party Unshaky keyboard app back on, soo that readers don't think I'm an illiterate moron from my typing above.

Oh, and FWIW the only way that you'll be able to take away my work/office iMac or my personal MBP is out of my cold, dead, twitching fingers.....

[Dang3r]

I had around end of december last year to switch to W10 because my new built gaming rig requires this OS; but actually Im a still fan of W7 and have it still installed on one of 2 laptops w/o issues so far.

The cheapest way to upgrade for me was downloading W10 pro from MS, buying a key on ebays for around 5 bucks and it works like a charm.
Plus I added brand new office 365 version as second hand version for around 20 bucks from a dealer which is rebuying licenses, works also very well, just downloading the software and activate it like recommended into the also delivered installation sheet.

[243Racing]

Originally Posted by Dang3r

I had around end of december last year to switch to W10 because my new built gaming rig requires this OS; but actually Im a still fan of W7 and have it still installed on one of 2 laptops w/o issues so far.

The cheapest way to upgrade for me was downloading W10 pro from MS, buying a key on ebays for around 5 bucks and it works like a charm.
Plus I added brand new office 365 version as second hand version for around 20 bucks from a dealer which is rebuying licenses, works also very well, just downloading the software and activate it like recommended into the also delivered installation sheet.

How have you gotten around the 100% CPU issue?

[PINeely]

Originally Posted by BeastieBombRacing

How have you gotten around the 100% CPU issue?

I'm curious what hardware you are running? Unless I'm gaming I rarely see over 10% utilization. Ryzen CPU a couple of years old.

Are you using Chrome?

[243Racing]

Originally Posted by PINeely

I'm curious what hardware you are running? Unless I'm gaming I rarely see over 10% utilization. Ryzen CPU a couple of years old.

Are you using Chrome?

On both of my gaming builds, I've had an issue where the CPU will be pegged at 100% at startup (Before anything is loaded), or randomly during use.

I've been able to mitigate it by turning off services and scheduling a task that disables certain services every hour. But I still have to deal with it from time to time.

[PINeely]

Originally Posted by Dang3r

The cheapest way to upgrade for me was downloading W10 pro from MS, buying a key on ebays for around 5 bucks and it works like a charm.

Windows reuses their product keys. If you have an old Vista or Win 7 key laying around it should activate your copy of Win 10.

[PINeely]

Originally Posted by BeastieBombRacing

On both of my gaming builds, I've had an issue where the CPU will be pegged at 100% at startup (Before anything is loaded), or randomly during use.

I've been able to mitigate it by turning off services and scheduling a task that disables certain services every hour. But I still have to deal with it from time to time.

Weird. How long does it stay pegged?

[243Racing]

Originally Posted by PINeely

Weird. How long does it stay pegged?

Depends. If I can get the services killed, it stops. It rarely resolves on its own.

https://www.maketecheasier.com/fix-w...100-cpu-usage/

They keep renaming the service(s) that cause this. I think in Win10 pro or enterprise you can control some of this via GP.

[AlpineWhite_SJ]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Whhhatt is thhis keybooardd issue fix that yoou speak ooof? My Macbook Pro touchbar/butterfly keybooarrdd is in serioous need of fixing, and web feedback seems ttoo inddicate ttthat the replacement keyboards fail the same as the originals in about a year.

Turning thhird-party Unshaky keyboard app back on, soo that readers don't think I'm an illiterate moron from my typing above.

Oh, and FWIW the only way that you'll be able to take away my work/office iMac or my personal MBP is out of my cold, dead, twitching fingers.....

It's not a fix for existing models that had the crappy butterfly keyboard design. It's the newer 16" models that went back to a more traditional keyboard design. Sorry that probably doesn't help if you already have one of the older macbooks

[AnOldBiker]

I run Mac and since the wife prefers Office, I bought it thru:

https://softwarekeep.com/office-for-...iAAEgKLMPD_BwE

and save a bunch of money. Best of both worlds.

[wdb]

I use Win10 and Mac. Neither is perfect, but neither really gives much in the way of problems. I occasionally have to reboot them both. They both constantly push updates that REQUIRE reboot as well. But I don't see one as buggier than the other.

MS Office files should transfer fine between Mac and Win. If you're a keyboard shortcut maven like me you'll find that none of them work on the Mac, and some of them don't even exist in Macworld.

MS was pushing Win10 upgrades for eons, maybe you can hit their website and see if it will do something for you. If you really want to keep the laptop it's worth a go.

[Dang3r]

Originally Posted by BeastieBombRacing

How have you gotten around the 100% CPU issue?

Say what? On laptop an old Intel CPU is running fine with W7.
On gaming rig a i9-9900K is doing its work very good w/o issues with W10.

[bigrum]

Unless you are running a business off of it/them and it could be a liability, what's wrong with still using Win7? I still use it on computers, nothing has happened (knock on wood). Sure you won't have robust support but if you back up your data how much will it matter? There are people out there still rocking XP...

I fought the macbook pro long and hard at work (had a Lenovo Carbon X1) but when I finally decided to give it a try, it's pretty awesome. Never crashes, never needs a reboot, great keyboard shortcuts and multi-finger navigation on the pad. I do use Linux shell daily so Mac is more natively set up for that too.

One warning, Outlook client SUCKS on Mac. I find the search to be half-working and a lot of features are missing compared to the windows version.

[243Racing]

Originally Posted by bigrum

Unless you are running a business off of it/them and it could be a liability, what's wrong with still using Win7? I still use it on computers, nothing has happened (knock on wood). Sure you won't have robust support but if you back up your data how much will it matter? There are people out there still rocking XP...

I fought the macbook pro long and hard at work (had a Lenovo Carbon X1) but when I finally decided to give it a try, it's pretty awesome. Never crashes, never needs a reboot, great keyboard shortcuts and multi-finger navigation on the pad. I do use Linux shell daily so Mac is more natively set up for that too.

One warning, Outlook client SUCKS on Mac. I find the search to be half-working and a lot of features are missing compared to the windows version.

Outlook search doesn't work half the time on my W10 PC either, lol.

Office 365 caught the aids from windows 10 and has become buggier than hell.

[CTinline-six]

I work in IT.

I love my Mac, but it simply isn't 100% compatible with the environments I'm usually working in (school districts, municipalities or medical offices). I can use it for most things, and prefer it from a user standpoint, but the Windows machine I know I won't have issues with as far as compatibility in these environments.

I use a MacBook Air for home, and a Lenovo X1 carbon for work. With the specs your current laptop has, it should be fine running Windows 10. Try it out and see how it does. If everything else with the device is fine, it's worth trying it before buying an entirely new laptop. My luck with Lenovo hardware has been pretty good. The SSD will make a big difference as will the i-7 and 8GB RAM. In fact when my company updates laptops in a school district we only purchase machines with SDDs because the difference is night and day (especially on start-up) with Windows 10. My X1 Carbon I'm typing this on has an SSD, i-5, and 8GB of RAM and is running very well, especially considering all of the things I have running in the background right now.


Side note: I also never buy anything new anymore. The last "decent" new laptop I bought was a $1200 Samsung in college. 2 years later the power supply died and it was of course out of warranty. For the remainder of college I bought the cheapest $300 laptop WalMart had and it lasted 4 years.

My Thinkpad I bought on ebay as a refurbished unit for $400, and my MacBook Air was a similar price I believe. Both refurbished, both significantly cheaper than buying new, both working flawless for 2 years now.

[UncleWede]

I've been updating all our Win7 machines at work to 10, at least the ones that have more than a year to go for replacement. A few little issues came up, like I had to get EaseUS to slightly expand the size of the Recovery partition on a few.

Look for the 1903 upgrade, it's still available and Micro$soft hasn't yet turned off the free upgrade. Times for me are running about 60-90 minutes to complete an upgrade, depending on the hard disk speed.

Then you MUST go looking for "decrapifier" It's a bit of code that removes masses of the .app bloatware. It takes all of 30 seconds to clean up a system.

For your specifics, I'd be a bit worried about 8GB RAM. I'm waiting on all our 8GB systems, hoping to find another 8 from machines we are replacing to upgrade to at least 16.

IF you stay with Win7, AND are doing business client files and get hacked, it will cost a lot more than a new laptop/Office.

[RickFLM4]

Originally Posted by CTinline-six

I work in IT.

I love my Mac, but it simply isn't 100% compatible with the environments I'm usually working in (school districts, municipalities or medical offices). I can use it for most things, and prefer it from a user standpoint, but the Windows machine I know I won't have issues with as far as compatibility in these environments.

I use a MacBook Air for home, and a Lenovo X1 carbon for work. With the specs your current laptop has, it should be fine running Windows 10. Try it out and see how it does. If everything else with the device is fine, it's worth trying it before buying an entirely new laptop. My luck with Lenovo hardware has been pretty good. The SSD will make a big difference as will the i-7 and 8GB RAM. In fact when my company updates laptops in a school district we only purchase machines with SDDs because the difference is night and day (especially on start-up) with Windows 10. My X1 Carbon I'm typing this on has an SSD, i-5, and 8GB of RAM and is running very well, especially considering all of the things I have running in the background right now.


Side note: I also never buy anything new anymore. The last "decent" new laptop I bought was a $1200 Samsung in college. 2 years later the power supply died and it was of course out of warranty. For the remainder of college I bought the cheapest $300 laptop WalMart had and it lasted 4 years.

My Thinkpad I bought on ebay as a refurbished unit for $400, and my MacBook Air was a similar price I believe. Both refurbished, both significantly cheaper than buying new, both working flawless for 2 years now.

Thank you, this is helpful. I am leaning towards just doing the upgrade to Win 10. Ruled out Mac, so it’s upgrade or get another laptop.

My main hesitation is having an issue with the upgrade part way through it, and then being left without a functioning PC until I spend time getting it resolved. (I use this laptop for self employment work.). For example, getting into a situation where I need to wipe the drive, look for software licenses and reinstall everything.

[RickFLM4]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

I've been updating all our Win7 machines at work to 10, at least the ones that have more than a year to go for replacement. A few little issues came up, like I had to get EaseUS to slightly expand the size of the Recovery partition on a few.

Look for the 1903 upgrade, it's still available and Micro$soft hasn't yet turned off the free upgrade. Times for me are running about 60-90 minutes to complete an upgrade, depending on the hard disk speed.

Then you MUST go looking for "decrapifier" It's a bit of code that removes masses of the .app bloatware. It takes all of 30 seconds to clean up a system.

For your specifics, I'd be a bit worried about 8GB RAM. I'm waiting on all our 8GB systems, hoping to find another 8 from machines we are replacing to upgrade to at least 16.

IF you stay with Win7, AND are doing business client files and get hacked, it will cost a lot more than a new laptop/Office.

Yeah that last part is what is pushing me to do something. Thanks for the other tips.