Leaving the Comfort of a Windows Operating System for Pastures New.

I’ve been in IT for years…. 20 odd if you’re counting and I’ve always been a big fan of the Microsoft Windows Operating System. Granted, some have been pretty dire, but I’ve gone through the motions with all of them to try and immerse myself in the Microsoft dream and to be fair I have enjoyed it… 

That being said, over the years I have from time to time dipped my toe into what is known as… ‘The Dark Side’.

I’ve always thought of it as more of a standalone operating system. I’m not sure why, but many of the companies I’ve supported over the years have nearly always had Windows environments.

The odd Mac that sat off the network, wasn’t controlled by Active Directory and was generally left alone by all the IT bods that visited site.

This was mainly from fear of not actually knowing what the hell they were doing with it.

It’s that age-old thing. Once you’ve touched it, that’s it. You touched it last and therefore it’s your problem if it breaks again.

Over the years I’ve owned several Apple laptops and desktops and just seemed to have a fiddle, put it back in the box and that was that.

It never really clicked in my head what the fascination was with Apple… Just use Windows. It’s easier, right?

I’ve always been an iPhone and iPad user, they just work. So, what’s so different with the MacOS?

So, the new Mac arrived on a Tuesday morning, I made a start on running through the setup, and to be fair I have done this many times before so it didn’t take too long.

After about 20 mins I was done and logging into Office 365 via the web, pretty straight forward.

It was approaching 11 o’clock and I was due to attend a meeting with an existing customer.

I decided I’d take the Mac with me on a little road trip and see how I got on with it whilst out and about.

So, I shut the lid and out I went.

I arrived at the customers site, sat down in the meeting room, opened the lid and pressed the power button.

And nothing.

After about 5 minutes of repeating this I finally got some message about a failed or corrupt operating system which was just what I wanted. Not.

So back in my bag it went, and I ended up taking notes with a pen and pad…

Now who does that in 2019?

On arrival back to the office I erased the disk and reloaded the operating system from the recovery partition and proceed to set it back up again. 20 mins later I was done and back working, I then proceeded to setup and install all the applications that I required, such as office 2016, antivirus, our Two-Factor Authentication product and various other bits and pieces which to be fair was pretty painless.

I then setup various other system preferences such as being able to unlock the device via my apple watch and finger print reader etc… Again all pretty easy.

Now the fun began. After years and years of working with Microsoft Office on a windows operating system I thought, how different can it be?

5 days in and I think I can live with this. I have learnt that despite the different interface, the use of completely different terminology and a wrath of other stuff, the Mac Operating System is alright.

It doesn’t take THAT much getting used to and if I’m honest it’s pretty simple. It’s quite intuitive to use and I actually like it.

Yep I said it.

It’s still early days but I’m determined to give it a good go. I’m sure along the way I will find things that I think: ‘how rubbish’ and I can honestly say that I’ve already found things that I thought…

‘Why don’t they do that in Windows?!’ 

Anyway, so that’s it… I have finally made the jump and at this stage I’m not going back.

Famous last words.