Over the last couple of months, I could tell the end was near – my PC would crash any time I gave it a stern look. This last crash looks permanent. On powerup I now get a “Please insert boot disk” message and the diagnostics say I have a RAID failure with all volumes unreadable (I ask you, now, what’s the point of a RAID system?) Of course, I should have made a backup, but last time I tried the built-in HP backup software, it went through a stack of DVD’s and still didn’t complete. So my joy of buying a new PC and trying out Windows 7 will be tempered by trying to reconstruct my work environment.
In contrast, when my Mac crashed last year, the replacement asked me if I’d like to plug in my Time Machine drive and restore my previous account. And it worked! The only thing I had to manually reinstall was my Unity license. To my surprise, even my Flash CS3 license was restored.
More recently, the Mac saved my bacon, or at least some embarrassment, with the Keychain Assistant. I lost a login that I was using for a client and really didn’t want to bug their IT guys. But you can bring up Keychain Assistant, select the appropriate username and Show Password (it will ask you for your system password).
A decade ago, I’d given up on Macs (and Apple) as too unreliable. Now, I wish I didn’t have to use anything else.