A week running Windows for work
So a bit over a week ago I installed Windows 8.1 on the MacBook Pro that I use for work. Largely because I spend a fair bit of time dealing with Office documents these days and having to run those applications in a virtual machine was annoying me.
It took some getting used to, despite being quite used to Windows on my gametoy.
The biggest thing -- and it remains an issue -- is the different ways that Windows and OS X handle multiple windows from a single application. In OS X you have a separate keyboard shortcut to switch between windows that belong to the same thing and the main alt-tab switcher applies only at the higher "application" level.
In Windows alt-tab switches between windows, not applications.
This may seem like a subtle distinction, but when you're used to one (either of them, really) and then find yourself faced with the other it sure isn't subtle at all.
The other thing that I thought may turn out to be a big deal is the lack of a UNIX-like command shell. While most of my command-line time is running on servers out in the cloud, I'd gotten into the rather un-Mac-like habit of launching my editor from the shell and fiddling with git that way too.
It did take a little bit to get used to instead using the GitHub Windows client for the git bits, and opening files in my editor from File Explorer, but it wasn't a difficult adjustment.
I still have a local development environment, that's always been sitting inside a Linux virtual machine anyway so not much has changed there.
It's a bit sub-optimal in the way that Windows interacts with power management -- if I simply close the lid and stick the laptop in my bag it'll sometimes go into overdrive rather than go to sleep and it'll be quite hot with the fan running like a crazy thing when I get it back out -- but otherwise it pretty much just works.
None of this is to say that I won't switch back, particularly once there's an updated version of Office for Mac that isn't so far behind the Windows version.
The original is over at Dreamwidth, there are
comments.
It took some getting used to, despite being quite used to Windows on my gametoy.
The biggest thing -- and it remains an issue -- is the different ways that Windows and OS X handle multiple windows from a single application. In OS X you have a separate keyboard shortcut to switch between windows that belong to the same thing and the main alt-tab switcher applies only at the higher "application" level.
In Windows alt-tab switches between windows, not applications.
This may seem like a subtle distinction, but when you're used to one (either of them, really) and then find yourself faced with the other it sure isn't subtle at all.
The other thing that I thought may turn out to be a big deal is the lack of a UNIX-like command shell. While most of my command-line time is running on servers out in the cloud, I'd gotten into the rather un-Mac-like habit of launching my editor from the shell and fiddling with git that way too.
It did take a little bit to get used to instead using the GitHub Windows client for the git bits, and opening files in my editor from File Explorer, but it wasn't a difficult adjustment.
I still have a local development environment, that's always been sitting inside a Linux virtual machine anyway so not much has changed there.
It's a bit sub-optimal in the way that Windows interacts with power management -- if I simply close the lid and stick the laptop in my bag it'll sometimes go into overdrive rather than go to sleep and it'll be quite hot with the fan running like a crazy thing when I get it back out -- but otherwise it pretty much just works.
None of this is to say that I won't switch back, particularly once there's an updated version of Office for Mac that isn't so far behind the Windows version.
The original is over at Dreamwidth, there are
comments.