Flopped

I keep flip-flopping regarding the Operating System I run on my PC.

I have OS preferences, but I am not necessarily loyal to any one. I am a bit of an OS enthusiast having used and worked on a variety of operating systems ranging from VMS on a mainframe to the BeOS, OS/2, Mac OS X and of course Windows. I can generally find something to like about any operating system. I do actually have a favorite, but my favorite is obsolete and does not work well with modern hardware (altho' there is an effort underway to faithfully reproduce this operating system as an open source clone. It will enter an alpha state in 2 weeks or so if all goes well).

For the past six years my primary operating system has been OS X, on a mac. I like the hardware Apple creates. It is a form of art. The operating system is gorgeous as well and while Microsoft stood still with XP and then rushed Vista out the door before it was ready, OS X improved in many ways. There is, however, one way that Windows out performs OS X.

The company I work for loads MS products onto every desktop. They are still actually running XP, but even the networking components (VPN, domains, etc.) are all Microsoft Windows-related. The problem this poses is that for some reason there is NO RELIABLE way to tunnel into our network from OS X. Oh there are ways, OS X has built-in VPN capability, and there are products one can purchase as well. I find that no matter how I connect to our company's network from OS X, it falters, sputters, and disconnects at random. Not surprisingly, Windows, in particular Windows 7 which I am now using, does not suffer this problem.

I can happily tunnel into our company's network from Windows 7 and leave the connection active for days at a time. I also get better download times, and file shares are more responsive in general. I've asked our network people to look into it but they just say "OS X is not supported. You are on your own." Ah well.

I refuse to call this a failure on the part of OS X, more a prejudice toward to how Windows manages its network connections when tunneling into a Microsoft Windows network.

One other benefit to running Windows 7 again: games. :)