Windows 8 and OS X Lion - Part 1

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Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 27 February 2012 00:35

Written by Christian Dunn

Now that I have my OS X lion 10.7.2 and my Windows 8 developer preview fired up let's find out what is going to be worth a buy late this year.

So let's get started.

Both operating systems were easy to install. These days most is wizard based the the windows machines often come with some vendor assisted wizards as well. Apple definitely have one of the easiest and cleanest install procedures without this and a wide range of inbuilt applications make this even easier.

I was very concerned that Apple still have an 'automatic logon' as a default setting and it took some hunting around for me to figure out how to turn this off. A secure password I see as a must on any business or personal computing device. Joining the OS X machine to our corporate domain was just as easy as the Windows machine.

I also discovered a neat feature. By default when logging on to OS X on a corporate network your network account is used. This is an online account and will not work out of the office effectively keeping your computer secure and making it more of a thin client device. When you first login you are prompted with the option to create a mobile account. This is an offline version of your account so you can login to your computer and continue working when outside of the office. You should answer yes on any laptops when you set them up.

Microsoft Office installed easily on both and I found myself in familiar territory. I have to admit that the Microsoft Document Connection on OS X is fantastic for Sharepoint and I want it on my PC.

So what did I think of Windows 8? Like Windows 7 was to Vista, Windows 8 is a great refresh of the product designed to improve performance, memory usage and provide a better interface for running on a wide range of devices. There are lots of great improvements to Windows Explorer and I like the look of the Metro Start interface... but ...

I NEED A TOUCHSCREEN!

I install hundreds of applications on my computer over the course of a year before it usually goes in for spring cleaning to return anew. I love Metro but scrolling through pages and pages of icons to find my program is not good. It used to be a couple of clicks in the old start menu. Scrolling is even difficult when using a mouse.

Before I despair, there is a registry hack to turn off Metro and bring back the Start Menu which at this stage I will recommend as a must for anyone planning on using Windows 8 without a touch enabled screen. I am looking forward to seeing whether Microsoft have a clever compromise to make it easy for power users to access a basic menu of applications while providing an intuitive interface for mobile devices and consumers.

By this time I had finally installed the printer drivers for my office printer on OS X and mapped the network drives (as my network login scripts won't work on a mac).

So let's call round 1 a draw. Let's see what happens when I begin to rely on them.
ps. I wrote this on my mac.