How can I put it....

OSX is like a building. The building looks cool and it's useful for the tenants, but a good storm will bring it down on top of everybody. And there's a loading dock, but there are no elevators and the only storage rooms are on the 30th floor.

Edit: and the mice move erratically.

So Macs are Southern California?

No the trick is getting it to accept the key, it won't accept an upgrade key on a clean install. If you skip that step you get the 30 day timeout which you can extend but only a limited number of times. Your upgrade-only key won't work on a clean install without the trick...

I don't wanna say it here, probably wouldn't be permissible. >_>

Everyone is just going to google the "trick" anyway.

Can you provide me w/ sources that'll show me what exactly is wrong w/ OSX? I'm not trying to be lazy & I don't at all doubt what you're saying but I'm finding it difficult to locate any in-depth documentation on the subject. If you don't have the time, a quick & general overview would be helpful so that I'd know exactly what to look for.

That's if you're trying to clean install without having a previous OS.

I don't really have time.

Security: The guys who competed at Pwn2Own said OSX security is a joke and they haven't fixed anything in Snow Leopard. OSX is (and always has been) the first to fall, and Safari is the most insecure browser on the market.

There have even been security bugs in HFS+! If you run a web server you have to add specific hidden files and hidden folders to your server's deny list, otherwise a user can read (or possibly change) the source code of your web apps. As far as I know this is an outstanding bug.

General performance: In thread scheduling performance Linux is king, followed by Windows, followed by a barren wasteland, followed by OSX.
The main reason Windows shows a lower benchmark performance is because its thread scheduler is designed to make user interface threads more responsive. Linux and OSX don't do this. OSX really is the biggest loser, whether you're running a GUI or a dedicated server.

Game performance: To put it simply, hardware calls are expensive. OpenGL is designed to split the display driver into two parts: one part that runs in the kernel so it can access hardware quickly, and another part that runs in the application so it can optimize hardware access.
On Windows and Linux, the GPU vendor supplies both parts. That way performance is optimized for the specific hardware you're using.
On OSX, Apple provides the application half of the driver. GPU vendors are forced to implement one inefficient kernel interface.

Between this and the threading issues, WoW performance in OSX vs. Windows has historically been as low as 50%. Blizzard has optimized some things (sometimes even disabling things,) and Apple has done some work on performance, but there's still a huge difference.

Could keep going, but you get the idea.

(Edit: To give some anecdotal evidence of this, back in 2008 I ran the demo of the first Penny Arcade game on my brand new 8800 GT, 2.8 GHz octocore Mac Pro running Leopard. The framerate was so slow and choppy the game was unplayable - and these were definitely not detailed graphics for the time.
At the same time, my girlfriend was playing it on her 4 year old Athlon X2 system and something like a Radeon X1600, running XP. Totally smooth.

It's not like this is some edge case app that was badly optimized for OSX, either. The game was built on Torque. I encountered very similar performance characteristics while porting my apps over.)

How can I get internet explorer to quit ****ing making icons on my desktop? Every time I delete it, it pops up in about 5 minutes. I keep a clean desktop and sure as hell don't EVER use IE, so I don't want it there and any help would be appreciated. Google did not help.

Wait, what? It keeps appearing on your desktop, without any kind of user action?

You're not talking about how, after IE-related updates, there's a shortcut that appears in your quick launch (or maybe your desktop) some of the time?

No, I am talking about how it keeps appearing on my desktop, without any updates or anything. Since I posted that it's reappeared twice.

Hahahaha

IE is malware :smug:

Stop using that :smug: nonsense. It's not funny, and worse, you're not using it right.

Just found the weirdest behavior in Windows 7. Sorts justifies the price tag I guess. </sarcasm>

Rename or move the Computer Management shortcut in Administrator Tools. Right click Computer > Manage. It will be broken. Move the shortcut back and the right click option will work again.

What's better is they wrote a dedicated EXE file to launch this shortcut instead of, say, directly linking to it from the registry entry for the menu, or even directly linking to the .msc file the shortcut launches.

So the Manage menu option is a shortcut to a shortcut to a shortcut to the Computer Management tool. Take one out of the chain and it breaks.

Haven't you heard!? :smug: is the new lol

Sure I am, think of a smug mac lover saying it.

He's already been told multiple times by multiple that he isn't using it right, I don't think it's going to change

I'm just trying one more time. I thought maybe he hadn't seen the 2 other times I've told him.

Hah, you're right.

I don't know how it's "supposed" to be used, fellows, but as a sarcastic mimicry of the type o' person who would smugly make that claim, he's using it technically correctly...? Don't worry about it.

It's definitely superior.

I don't know what OS your using, but in XP you can download Tweak UI, and remove the IE icon from the desktop that way.

7, and Vista I think-
Right click on desktop, View "Show Desktop Icons"

QFBTWIWGTS.

Oh, and Joncy - I understand the gist of what you're saying and I'll work on the assumption you're right - where I'm coming from is this:

I could get by on a crappy old XP machine for my home use (email, browsing, a couple of old games) and indeed I do dual boot to XP to play things like System Shock 2. For light stuff like that, and organising my photos and generally just arsing about I love OSX. I find it more intuitive than windows and it suits my way of doing things, and I like the way it looks and behaves. I love expose. I love quicksilver (but not launchy for some reason).

It may be inferior in many ways to 7 (I've seen it, and it looks great) but I just find it nice.

OS X has a simple and extremely consistent UI, which is its biggest strength.

Apart from iTunes.

Which is a law unto itself.

Enter to open a file rather than CMD+O! Blasphemy!

Aha I think the weird behavior I saw is due in part due to Microsoft wanting the UAC dialog for Manage (which only appears on the most restrictive UAC setting) to say "Computer Management" and not "Microsoft Management Console". Still doesn't explain why it relies on the Start Menu shortcut though...

??

Quoted For Because That's What I Was Going To Say

apparently Quoted For Because That's What I Was Going To Say, but

Quoted For Being That Which I Was Going To Say is better -_-

No, Tibby was wrong, you were right.

It works both ways really, although I will agree his way sounds better.

Well, one of the way's doesn't make sense grammatically, so I would argue it only works one way

Because it's M$ man, get with the program and get linux. Don't let the man tell you that you have to pay for something man.

I know someone who once said "it's the internet. nothing costs money if I don't want it to."

I can't remember who that was....

Yeah who was that...?

Who the **** was it we must get to the bottom of this

It was me, but I didn't think that many people were in the chatroom.

Actually Tibby was right.

I invented it after Q.F.T. was banned.

It was meant to sound nonsensical.