Random problems versus those with a cause

It would be stupid to claim that buying a Mac will solve all your computer problems, because though they’re endowed with a better operating system than your average Dell, they’re just machines, and machines break or behave erratically from time to time. No, as a Mac user you will still have problems. You’ll still run into annoying glitches and bugs and irritating behaviors, and while there may be fewer of them, you’ll still be annoyed by them.

Example: after playing a game that required me to reduce my screen’s color depth to thousands of colors, OS X retained that setting after I quit the game, despite telling me that it was set to millions. Annoying. But ultimately, it was obvious what caused the problem: the game. Another example: every time I disconnect my laptop from my printer (to take it somewhere) and then reconnect the printer, OS X’s printing subsystem creates a duplicate printer. Very annoying. But also 100% consistent, and the problem’s origins are again obvious–the printing system is stupid and gets confused when I re-plug in an existing printer.

However, there’s one a theme here: on a Mac, every problem has an obvious cause. Many are really aggravating, and a few high-profile ones I could name can be a royal pain in the butt to work around, but every single one of them is obviously broken for a reason that’s easy to divine. Even somewhat nebulous causes such as “there’s a bug” are obvious because most of these bugs exhibit their behavior 100% of the time in a very consistent manner.

On Windows, not so much. Windows will forget which of my screens is the primary one approximately one out of every five times I restart my computer; no cause has ever been found. Sometimes, Firefox in Vista will randomly shake (like its teeth are chattering because it’s cold or something) when I first open it. After a restart, it will stop. Three restarts later, it’ll start again, for no apparent reason at all. Occasionally, my mouse won’t move after the computer’s started up until I unplug it and re-plug it in. Again, no obvious cause. I always install driver updates from the manufacturer when they come in through Windows Update (a nice touch, and Microsoft should be commended for this), but none of them have ever solved the problem.

Experienced Windows users know that restarting, doing the uninstall/reinstall dance, or removing the offending piece of hardware and putting it back in will probably solve the problem, whatever it is. Why? Who knows! But it worked, that’s all that matters! The problem is that this contributes to an overall atmosphere of fragility. If your computer randomly freaks out and dies every once in a while, you’ll be less likely to experiment or push it to its limits, and you’ll be more tolerant of random faults. In short, you’ll be trained into accepting mediocrity, and that is a terrible thing.