“Apple provides OS X users a slick feature called Setup Assistant, which lets you move everything from an old machine to a new one quickly and painlessly. Switching from one Windows machine to another is a time-wasting, teeth-gritting task. You can transfer your files and some settings relatively easily, but thanks to unintelligent design, you generally have to reinstall your software, which can create any number of headaches–even if you can find the original disks you need to do the job,” Stephen Manes writes for Forbes. “…new Macs urge you to use their Software Update program right away. Windows machines have so many update options that you can’t be sure when, how, or even if updating will happen–though you can be sure you need it when you start your new machine and at least once a month thereafter, and you can expect a productivity-sapping reboot will be involved… as we trade horror stories, those of us who write about these matters for a living repeatedly ask each other: If we can’t figure this stuff out, how can people who don’t want to become techheads hope to get it right?”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: The full article is worth a read, if only to see how Manes jumps through hoops to find something, anything wrong with the Mac while giving nice accounts of Windows PCs’ many problems. Manes’ best Mac “problem” was when he tried to use the Help system for iMovie, its screens came up blank (an issue we’ve never encountered). After “some floundering and fiddling,” he reports that he got them to deliver the information for which he’d been looking. His Windows PCs fared much worse, ranging from a Dell with an onboard surround-sound system that wouldn’t work and that Windows wouldn’t recognize, to an HP with Media Center software that twice “froze so hard” he had to resort to holding down the power button to restart the computer both times.