[citation][nom]norbs[/nom]First off, you seem like a level headed guy and i respect that, most of this was aimed at the Mac bashers who don't have a single idea what they are talking about and spew out so much garbage. One example is people talking about Mac's don't have a right mouse button... Just because the design hides it does not mean you can't right click.The purpose my hackintosh is mainly to do everyday tasks, I find it i have never had a problem with the system not starting because of a bad install of a program or some update gone wrong (*well besides that fact its a hackintosh and some updatex enable the DRM functions of the OS again which would not be an issue on a real Mac). The appearance of it looks great and all the options are well organized. Also the appearance and effect of the OS is not a skin but built in and it does not take extra resources or much resources (unlike aero). You may think it's good to have this option, but when a program is written to do multiple thing it tends to not be as efficient as it could be at doing one thing well.There is less malicious code around the internet built for OS X, and I know that has a bit to do with popularity of windows compared to mac's (but why not take advantage of this), and you know that awesome feature called "user account control" in Vista? well that has been in mac's for a while now, it basically asks for your admin password on major OS changes. It's also compatible with all my windows equipment, even though I'm on a Mac i can still remote into my PC's and I can use all my windows shares, it's not a problem. Overall i just think its a more polished tool that can be used day to day without worries, and the options that are available are not going to blow up your system or make you reboot into safe mode just so you can undo them. Of course it does not do everything but it's very good at what the programs it does have for it. I too have a vista machine as a media center for multiple reasons. First off as a media center it just sits there and i don't have to run many updates or install many programs (and i have had an update corrupt all new HD recordings). But after disabling all the garbage like aero, readyboost, prefetcing (which always crashes) and making media center instead of explorer the shell it doesn't run too bad. Secondly I don't install or uninstall programs, so once i get it right it stay that way as long as nothing changes. Lastly because mac tv just sucks right now as a media center.I also have a XP machine for the occasional left4dead and countrstrike source. I don't have any problems with that but it's an old platform... and i have high hopes for windows 7, it hopefully can take over for my media center and my gaming machine.Anyways the whole point of this is... I don't understand why people pick one side and well it seems like windows users are more guilty of this. Mac made a very nice and polished OS and they can charge whatever they want for it as long as people are willing to pay... who know's where it will lead and competition has never been a bad thing (unless your competing for your girlfrinds love or something but then again maybe you just shouldn't be with her if you gotta compete...) LOLHave a nice day =][/citation]
+1 for that rather lengthy, but well written explanation. i have been waiting for a long time in this forum for someone to reply without an opinion, but instead reasoning.
I too disable aero, simply because i like the plainer look and snappier feel. UAV control is kind of annoying to me, so i disable that too. I was using readyboost, but with 4 gig of ram i actually felt that it was slowing down my system by putting my flash drive as a priority over the ram. Prefetching i do find useful simply because it seems to make all of my most used programs load faster. I first noticed this when i downloaded firefox. I had used IE for so long that i was used to it opening up really fast. when i started using firefox, it felt like the program was taking forever to respond. But now it is "prefetched" i guess and loads just as fast as IE.
I try to stay away from choosing sides, but it makes it more difficult when i feel that other people are not making statements with logic or any kind of fact behind them. If more people explained things instead of popping off "PC's OWN" or "Everyone knows mac has the best notebooks", then a lot of these forums would be better suited for real communication. I know it probably seems as if the Windows side is more guilty of this, but you have to keep in mind the number of Windows users versus mac users. I think proportionally it is about even, but then again i haven't been in these forums for very long. I think you did an awesome job explaining how well your system works, and im glad there is some maturity in these posts.
On a last note, i agree that having Apple in the market is a good thing, as it does increase competition which is good for the consumers. And really everyone should be entitled to their own taste, whether it's a mac, a pc, or a hackintosh lol.
I can't believe i am typing at 3AM. Goodnight everyone.