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Choose only one.

Now that I have switched to Mac OS X, believe me or not, what I liked the most in Windows was:

The ability to discover menu itmes by pressing "ALT" key and keyboard arrow keys.

Most of the time I don't know what the options of the current program are, in Windows I used to press and hold ALT key and navigate the menu. In Mac OS X I can't do that.

What is the feature you like most in Windows?

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perhaps this should be a community wiki – jtimberman Jul 15 '09 at 9:06
I would say so yes. Go Wiki! – Svish Jul 15 '09 at 9:08
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FIY: in OS X, you can select the menu bar of the current application by pressing CTRL+F2, then use the arrow keys to navigate the menus. It's not as 'visual' as the ALT and underlines of Windows, but it is possible. See also: xvsxp.com/misc/keyboard.php – Daan Jul 15 '09 at 9:48
Tapping the Alt key, rather than holding it down, also works. Tap it again to leave the menus. – Steve Melnikoff Jul 21 '09 at 9:53
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closed as not constructive by Gareth, Nifle, random♦ Sep 27 '11 at 2:29

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16 Answers

up vote 18 down vote accepted

Being able to do almost everything from the keyboard. Used a Mac once when the mice died... totally lost =/ Also it is often a lot faster than roaming around looking for things to click on with the mouse.

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Depends on the software you use on Windows too (most seem to forget keyboard control completely), but yes, good point. – peSHIr Jul 15 '09 at 10:01
Ahh yeap, this is my biggest complain. Actually this menu feature I'm talking about is related to this. I guess it just a re-learn issue – OscarRyz Jul 15 '09 at 10:41
@peSHIr: That is true, but on Windows it is more the exception that the rule that they don't. And the ones that don't are stupid applications anyways :p – Svish Jul 15 '09 at 16:42
You can do anything with a keyboard on a Mac, but you probably don't want to : the good old Unix..shudder...Terminal. LOL – GeneQ Jul 20 '09 at 16:26
Baloney. I'm a unix geek and a keyboard centric user, I don't shudder at the Unix command line, but you just can't do anything you want. I switched from Windows to Mac. I love my mac and won't switch back, but it's true that you can do a lot more from the keyboard under Windows. – Doug Harris Aug 18 '09 at 15:46
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up vote 10 down vote

Games.......

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Games are not a feature of Windows. Unless you're talking Minifield and the fricking card games. ;-) – peSHIr Jul 15 '09 at 10:00
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You can see it as DirectX support... – Drake Aug 25 '09 at 10:14
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up vote 9 down vote

I actually miss the ability to cut and paste files. On Mac, there's no such thing as "cut" -- you'd have to drag files manually. Presumably this is to prevent accidental file loss, but it would still be a useful feature.

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For files, that makes no sense, because on Windows if you "cut" files, they're never "removed" from the original location until you paste them somewhere else. – DisgruntledGoat Jul 15 '09 at 10:04
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@DisgruntledGoat For files I would say that that is a very good thing! – Svish Jul 15 '09 at 16:43
i hate when OS's, or anything in general, that limit what you can do because of stupid users. – Petey B Jul 20 '09 at 15:27
-that* (15 chars) (also, i think there should be a 5 minute edit period on comments, digg style) – Petey B Jul 20 '09 at 15:28
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up vote 8 down vote

Maximize the window by double clicking on the title bar.
I hate the little (+) button on Mac OS X windows, which can act in a very inconsistent way in different applications!

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The + on a Mac is the zoom button, not a maximize button. – Arjan Jul 15 '09 at 11:24
@Arjan: Can you tell me then what the maximize button is on a Mac? If it exists at all? – fretje Jul 15 '09 at 12:35
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The maximize (+) button on a mac makes the window bigger. Or smaller. Depending on what the window feels like. All in all, I find it very annoying :p – Svish Jul 15 '09 at 16:44
@Svish: exactly what I mean – fretje Jul 15 '09 at 16:47
There is no maximize option. Just a zoom. (I've heard there's third-party software to maximize any application, often --wrongly-- referred to as "kiosk mode". But given the big screens nowadays, I actually prefer the zoom over a maximize; I actually stopped using Firefox for my daily work, as it has implemented zoom as maximize, not being the Mac way -- bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=232919 But I know many people feel different.) – Arjan Jul 15 '09 at 19:53
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up vote 5 down vote

Program uninstallation. (At least in comparison to Mac OS X, where it's not always a straight-forward process.)

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On the other hand OSX has an advantage in program installation. – GameFreak Jul 20 '09 at 18:58
For un-installation - osx has AppCleaner Utility. – Spark Jul 15 '10 at 5:47
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up vote 5 down vote

Being able to resize a window by dragging its edges

And by edges I mean all edges, not just the tiny bottom right corner. I find it very annoying when I have window in the bottom right corner of my screen, and I would like to make it bigger. On a Mac I first have to move the window up and to the right so I have some space to resize on. On Windows, you just resize.

Being able to resize (or move) a window by pressing Alt+Space and s (or m)

Very handy when you don't have a mouse handy, or if a window has gotten to a screen where you can't see it and all you know is what direction you have to move it to be able to see it again.

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up vote 4 down vote

Right click

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Mmhh not really that Windows exclusive. I guess it was a major complain because right now it is completely supported on OSX – OscarRyz Jul 15 '09 at 10:40
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Macs have full support for right clicking. Apple just doesn't really seem to believe that mice should have more than one button. – GameFreak Jul 20 '09 at 19:03
I prefer the two fingers on touchpad for right click than the windows way. – Rich Bradshaw Aug 25 '09 at 11:10
No problems with right-click at all here, and yes, two-finger on trackpad is much better than two buttons on the mouse! – The Tentacle Sep 3 '09 at 12:40
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up vote 4 down vote

Intelligent copying between folders. (At least when compared to OSX.)

When copying a folder to a location containing another folder with the same name, the contents of the source folder are merged into the destination folder, only overwriting when necessary. (OSX just overwrites the destination folder.)

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up vote 3 down vote

The main thing I like is the sheer number of great applications. Unfortunately this is only because Windows is the most popular OS.

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Never missed that when I switched, Mac software community is very vibrant, and I tend to find more great apps, compared to the large numbers of mediocre Win apps (coming from a shareware/freeware/utility junky). – The Tentacle Sep 3 '09 at 12:43
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up vote 3 down vote

ClearType.

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I've found that ClearType is better for smaller text (readability), and OS X's font rendering for larger text. Personally, I think ClearType wins by a longshot, but it's a matter of preference I guess... – Sasha Chedygov Jul 22 '09 at 0:32
This is a preference thing, mac users prefer os x hinting and win users are used to cleartype. I personally don't find cleartype hinting always makes small text any more legible, only under certain font/size/distance combinations. – The Tentacle Sep 3 '09 at 12:42
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up vote 3 down vote

DirectX. I find it superior to OpenGL in so many ways I often use it even if it's windows only.

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up vote 1 down vote

Windows Media Center. Most people completely discount(ed) Vista, but it is the single most compelling reason to buy it. The Vista version is far better than Media Center Edition of XP. The Windows 7 version is even better than Vista's.

You said only one, but there's really two for me. The second is Games. While an Xbox 360 may be inexpensive in comparison to just a video card for a PC, I've been a PC gamer for 18 years, and I have no intention of stopping just yet, though 360 makes a compelling platform... Maybe Project Natal.

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Two questions should be made in to two answers so that we can pick which one to upvote ;) – sirlancelot Jul 20 '09 at 16:32
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up vote 1 down vote

Sane default fonts (for windows/desktop/etc).

The default fonts on Linux (mint) leave something to be desired; though maybe I'm just saying this because I got used to the windows fonts.

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The default Linux fonts are terrible, but there are some almost-as-good-looking free fonts out there. – Sasha Chedygov Jul 22 '09 at 0:33
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up vote 1 down vote

It's popular

The best thing about Windows is that it's popular. This means there is lots of software for it, and nearly every device you can find has Windows drivers. Which in turn, makes Windows more popular.

It isn't necessarily the best operating system - actually, I like Ubuntu better - but there are some advantages to using what most other people use.

On the other hand, popularity is a curse, too. Not many people bother writing viruses for Mac or Linux, but Windows is a big fat target. It's nice to load Ubuntu and not have to run an antivirus program. Those things are almost as bad as viruses themselves.

The ideal situation, I think, would be for Windows, Mac, and Linux to have about equal market share. Then all of them would have a good selection of software and drivers, and they'd have to compete on other features.

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up vote 1 down vote

Graphics drivers that just work. I miss fullscreen YouTube.

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up vote 0 down vote

What I absolutely like about the new Windows 7 is that you can finally ZOOM using Windows Key & + / - . It is a blessing for presentation purposes!

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Hold down Ctrl and use the mousewheel to do this under Mac OS X. – Alex Angas Sep 2 '09 at 14:52
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