“In the first head-to-head comparison of trying to accomplish a task with Mac OS and Vista in this series, the new Windows operating system fell flat on its face. Migrating from an XP installation was halted by repeated failures of the Windows Easy Transfer application when used with a network connection and a so-called Easy Transfer Cable ($49 from Belkin, which was useless),” Mitch Ratcliffe blogs for ZDNet.
Ratcliffe reports, “It took almost a full day to successfully move 5.6GB of user settings and documents to a Vista system. The Mac, by contrast, took less than an hour for migration of 60+GB worth of user settings, documents, and, unlike the Windows utility, the moving of applications from an existing Mac OS X install to a new one.”
“Given that Windows systems depend so heavily on application software to add functionality, it is a mystery to me why migration of applications would not be a keystone of acceptable user experience for the Vista Windows Easy Transfer application. Ah! But the problem is that Microsoft doesn’t really want you to move your applications. Instead, it wants you to buy new ones from Microsoft, so none of the tools in the OS make it easy to move an existing installation (you can move application settings, but not the applications themselves). Really bad user experience,” Ratcliffe reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Tiger Setup Assistant makes it easy to upgrade when you buy a new Mac. Copy over all your saved settings, files and folders at the speed of FireWire. More info: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/setup/
Ready to end the suffering? Info and tips on migrating from Windows to Mac here: http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/migrate/
Related articles:
Forbes: ‘Windows Vista utterly unimaginative, internally discordant and woefully out of tune’ – February 09, 2007
Wow: Microsoft’s Windows Vista already hacked – February 09, 2007
Computerworld: Windows expert dumps Windows, switches to Apple’s Mac OS X – February 08, 2007
Windows sufferer spends six hours trying to ‘upgrade’ to Vista, says: ‘I should’ve bought a Mac’ – February 07, 2007
Windows Vista woes push BBC News editor to regret never having ‘defected’ to Apple Mac – February 06, 2007
Bill Gates unhinged with Apple envy; Microsoft on path to become high profile casualty – February 06, 2007
Apple takes dead aim at Microsoft’s Windows Vista in latest ‘Get a Mac’ ad (with video) – February 06, 2007
Digit: Don’t buy Vista; Microsoft may be driving millions to stick with XP or move to Apple Mac – February 05, 2007
Bill Gates has lost his mind: calls Apple liars, copiers; slams Mac OS X security vs. Windows – February 02, 2007
TIME Magazine: Microsoft’s Windows Vista ‘an embarassment to the good name of American innovation’ – February 02, 2007
Microsoft’s Windows Vista: Five years for a chrome-plated turd – January 30, 2007
Those unfamiliar with Apple’s Mac OS X may be impressed with Windows Vista – January 29, 2007
Digit: ‘Microsoft’s Windows Vista may be the best reason yet to buy an Apple Mac’ – January 29, 2007
Pioneer Press: Windows Vista shows ‘Apple is an innovation engine; Microsoft, not so much’ – January 29, 2007
Windows Vista disappoints, so get a Mac – January 29, 2007
Microsoft emails reveal serious Mac OS X Tiger envy – January 26, 2007
Analyst: Microsoft’s Windows Vista could be an opportunity for Apple – January 26, 2007
CNET Reviews Windows Vista: Is that all? Clunky and not very intuitive vs. Mac OS X; warmed-over XP – January 24, 2007
Mossberg: Microsoft’s Windows Vista offers lesser imitations of Apple’s Mac OS X features – January 18, 2007
Windows Vista disappointment drives longtime ‘Microsoft apologist’ to Apple’s Mac OS X – January 17, 2007
InformationWeek Review: Apple’s Mac OS X shines in comparison with Microsoft’s Windows Vista – January 06, 2007
NY Times’ Pogue reviews Microsoft’s Windows Vista: ‘Looks, Locks, Lacks’ – December 14, 2006
Unlike Microsoft’s Windows Vista, Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard will create no new jobs – December 12, 2006
15-year Windows vet tries Apple Mac: ‘My God! This is amazing!’ – December 04, 2006
Dave Winer: ‘Microsoft isn’t an innovator, and never was – they are always playing catch-up’ – December 01, 2006
Harvard Medical School CIO picks Mac OS X over Linux and Windows – November 30, 2006
Apple Macs can run more software than Windows PCs – October 30, 2006
Microsoft’s Windows Vista is basically Microsoft’s version of Mac OS 9.3 – October 11, 2006
Top Windows developer dumps Microsoft’s ‘pile of crap’ for Apple’s Mac OS X – September 12, 2006
$399 for Windows Vista Ultimate?! (Hint: Get a Mac) – August 29, 2006
Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard is 64-bit done right, unlike Microsoft’s Windows Vista kludge – August 14, 2006
Microsoft Windows Vista: If you can’t innovate… try to impersonate Apple’s Mac OS X – August 10, 2006
Analyst: Apple’s new Mac OS X Leopard sets new bar, leaves Microsoft’s Vista in the dust – August 08, 2006
Microsoft botches another copy job: Windows Vista Flip3D vs. Apple Mac OS X Exposé – June 26, 2006
Windows Vista rips-off Mac OS X at great hardware cost (and Apple gains in the end) – June 13, 2006
Computerworld: Microsoft Windows Vista a distant second-best to Apple Mac OS X – June 02, 2006
Dude, you got a Dell? What are you, stupid? Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows! – April 05, 2006
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness – December 20, 2003
WOW!!
“Really bad user experience.”
From Microsoft??
Surprise, surprise!
and this is news because??????
TR
Lovely, lose a day transferring files and _then_ have to reinstall all your applications. That’s a great way to start being productive using Vista.
The world must really be full of masochists!
i have serious doubts about the viability of the human race when so many people willingly do stuff like this.
“The WOW Starts…. Tomorrow!”
This is so true but when you have a bunch of people who love to spend time trying things out and feel like they are troubleshooting and fixing things then it is hard to convince them to realize that their time is wasted.
All my Windows friends act like a Help Desk at home… and they never have anything productive to talk about unless they are really IT experienced. The average Windows user plays solitaire only.
I used the Migration Utility and a plain old Firewire cable to transfer my stuff to my new work machine a few weeks ago. It was ridiculously easy (it was actually the first time I’d done it) and took under an hour. All my apps worked, even all my Adobe apps that I thought I’d have to re-register.
I also use Carbon Copy Cloner to do live backups to FW drives, or a second internal, so if a machine goes down, all I have to do is reboot to the other drive and away I go. Works well when you need to migrate to a new internal drive, too.
The Mac crushes Windows to a bloody pulp in this area. I have not done a fresh install of OS X in… I can’t actually remember the last time I did it. So there.
“WOW!”
-c
I have two PC loving brothers. I was the sole Mac user in the family. Both of their computers are getting slower and slower and it is pissing them off. It would piss them off even more when I would laugh at their misery about the lack of need for malware and virus detector software. At Xmas they both used my core 2 duo iMac (they used XP naturally). Both were stunned and now BOTH are thinking of getting an iMac and following the new trend….XP for their stuff and Mac for internet.
Still a stupid attitude but hey its a start right?
Inteerstingly both have no desire to play with Vista….(psssstttt..the revolution is starting)
Mixed feelings
From my G4 500 powerbook to my 2.1 core duo iMac – did not work.
From my grandparents Cube (G4 450) to 1.8 core duo Mac Mini – that did work.
ChrissyOne….your Photoshop CS migrated properly? Photoshop 7.0 has worked but not CS. Wonder what the difference is?
“The WOW Starts…. Tomorrow!”
“The OW!! Starts Now!”
This is a perfect example of the kind of make-work Microsoft designs to keep those IT departments busy.
See how NECESSARY all those IT geeks are!
Just like 2 parasites living off each other.
And we wonder WHY IT departments HATE Macs and spread so much Mac related FUD?
one thing for me is rigth,apple blows windows away in many areas that windows as to explore,but hey windows programers only make bad copies,so what time is to waste with this theme:none,we all know apple is the best,so lets talk about putting some extra things to the iphone,like ichat mobile remenber…or some features like a number cellphone detector to have all numbers from ppl we know w/out typing and writing then in the list via BTO.
The reason that Windows Easy Transfer doesn’t transfer applications isn’t nefarious, it doesn’t transfer applications because it is too hard to do. Windows has rules about where applications get installed, what goes into the registry, and where user settings and documents go, but Windows doesn’t enforce the rules and application developers frequently break them. One of the things Microsoft is doing in the transition from XP to Vista is to start enforcing those rules, so users don’t have to be administrators just to run their applications. Quite a lot of programs that won’t work in Vista break the rules; XP doesn’t care, but Vista does.
Consequently, there is no way to predict where all the pieces of an application are located or how to move them to a new machine.
In the next version of Windows, I’m sure this will all be straightened out; but by then, I won’t care.
From a dual mirror 1.2 G4 to a G5 2.3 it somewhat worked. Halfway through the process I got a kernel panic and from their on could not get the thing to work. Some of my applications got jumbled up and would not start. I ended up moving the missing parts manually and I got everything working good, but it took a lot longer then one hour.
Many months ago already, migration of some 30GB from my trusty old G3 (“Pismo”) laptop to an iBook G4 via Firewire 400 was a snap. Only one app needed to be re-registered. In about an hour, I was back in production mode on my newer machine, with all my files and settings just as before.
I recently told this little story to a procurement person at a federal agency; he was astonished.
–PK
Migrating from my old Powerbook G4 to my new MacBook Pro last November was flawless. The only extra steps required were to re-enable some DRM-based dependancies (big surprise).
This report does not exist, says the BBC…
from a lampstand iMac to my new core 2 duo macbook worked seamlessly. Less than an hour.
@ Buster
Not sure about CS1, I don’t have it installed at the moment. The CS3 beta asked me for the serial number again and re-activated, but everything else but Version Cue (which I don’t use) loaded fine.
Not all IT personnel should be considered Windows Trogs (troglodytes). I’m part of our IT organization, but have a Mac next to my XP box and a Solaris box in the corner. They pay me to keep our Windows boxes working, but my early work was with UNIX servers, networks, etc. So I was exposed to that greener grass long ago. A few of my colleagues with comparable backgrounds also mock the “Windows standard” pushed by our decision makers. Those pushing Windows may not have malevolent or selfish intent; they just don’t know anything else – which means they shouldn’t be the ones making the decisions.
Actually, there’s a missing test here!
What if it’s actually faster to migrate from Windows XP to Mac OS X than it is to migrate to Vista.
Sure you can’t migrate the applications per se, but is it quicker to install MS Office 2004 on a Mac than to install Office 2007?
Equally, I seem to recall that either Parallels or VMWare were promising (or have delivered) functionality that would, to all intents and purposes, import a Windows XP system into a “virtual” machine. The important thing here is that if a company has a ‘locked-in’ line of business app (CRM, ERP, CAD/CAM/CAE, whatever) that cannot be run under a Macintosh environment, is it not actually quicker to assimilate the XP machine into a virtual environment than it is to test, debug and package the app for deployment under Vista?
One of the Macintosh sites really ought to do a full-on migration test.
What if it’s actually faster to migrate from Windows XP to Mac OS X than it is to migrate to Vista.
— Fanatic Realist
You read my mind (or I read yours), proving that telepathy is the fastest transfer of them all.
If we could only harness that power!
Wittend:
Brilliant!