Is Windows 7 finally halting the Mac migration?
blogs.zdnet.com
blogs.zdnet.com
Title might be better as "Is Windows 7 finally convincing XP users that they're not upgrading to a version of Windows that doesn't suck?"
That's a fact. The speculative part here is Why. Is it that Windows 7 doesn't suck? For all we know, Microsoft could have a new ad campaign, or had bought a sales lead sheet made of gold.
Time will tell, but I predict this is not a permanent reversal in the longstanding trend.
It doesn't solve the lack of a good command line, unix development tools, or a package manager, but most users don't care about such things. They just want to surf the web without crashing or getting viruses.
If I only used my computer for an hour or two a day, say to listen to music and go on Facebook, then Windows 7 would surely be good enough. I doubt I would look for an alternative OS.
Am I going to switch back? No, but you're right that for most users win7 is just fine.
(I prefer linux to both Windows and OS X, so I don't think I'm particularly biased here. :)
I ask because if it appears to be system wide it could be indicative of a hardware problem or a misbehaving 3rd party driver.
Healthy stock Macs running stock software don't go tend to go spinny system wide (excepting the disappearing network filesystem mentioned elsewhere in this thread, although even that is less of an issue in 10.6), at least in my considerable experience. Your mileage may vary with 3rd party software and drivers (although in my experience, most of those play quite well).
I've had similar experiences with Windows: if you stick to software supplied by Microsoft, the system tends to be fairly stable. Perhaps I'm just lucky.
Sadly the Apple supplied interface to S.M.A.R.T. data only gives the rosiest outer level summary so it showed "verified". Third party tools that show all the data confirmed the failing sectors, including another half dozen as I refreshed my backup.
-- No, Steve Jobs is!