I'm Gonna Toss This Thing -- So Slow

As someone who must work on both Macs and PCs every day, I would like to observe that a PC has a very limited skill set compared to a Mac but it executes those skills in a fairly zippy fashion. Except dealing with e-mail attachments ... oh my gawd. Go get a cup of coffee after you click on an e-mail with an attachment, any attachment, in the Windows environment. By the time you get back, probably it will have been determined whether the attachment carried a virus or not.

But I digress. Macs are easier to use on the outside, and more capable, but that means they're more complex under the hood. They don't fare well on the same amount of RAM as their more limited PC counterparts. Especially if the PC had a dinky amount of RAM to begin with. Macs like the high-octane fuel or they may indeed stutter and feel pokey.

Then, too, it may be that ween's favorite apps that zipped along in Windows are not yet coded for Intel yet, and thus running under Rosetta emulation. That especially calls out for a RAM boost, in addition to the standard optimization measures that others have recited here.

Your experience sounds exactly like what I see. But when I quit programs and restart them it goes back to being fast. The checking I've done put it down to Safari. Its memory usage just keeps growing. As far as I know, Safari is not unique in this regard. Try quitting and restarting your browser periodically and see if that helps. If not try Activity Monitor to see what's using your CPU and memory.

Unfortunately changing operating systems can't solve all performance problems. Browsers are often cross-platform, and even when not, most of them have the same problems.

Going to a Mac may well improve your stability, and probably makes malware a bit less likely. But it's not a panacea, and I always worry when I see fans oversell any OS. I think OS X is really neat, but I certainly don't expect using it to solve all my problems.

The stability improvement is mostly because of Apple's control of the hardware. Current versions of Windows are quite stable -- it's almost always device drivers to cause crashes.

OS X has some architectural advantages over Windows for security. But security issues are rarely in the core OS. They're caused by web and other application features intended to be convenient for users without careful thought about the implications (or in many cases, choices made by people who prefer neat features to security). OS X is not immune to this kind of thing, though it's probably a bit less common.

Ween--

I switched to Mac in June after 20 years of PC (Apple before that). I have a 20" iMac Dual Core 2.0GHz with 2G of RAM.

It isn't all that slow compared to my previous 3.0 GHz HP PC with 1.5G RAM.

It's is quicker running Windows with Bootcamp than it is on the Mac side, but I've concluded that's just the way the Mac is, a little more laid back, taking a little more time for the small and pretty pleasures that really define the Mac experience. OSX is just better looking than any Windows OS. THis goes for Vista as well, which I installed a couple weeks ago on the Bootcamp partition. Worked fine and it's like, copying Mac with all the fancy graphics, though it is a little garish by comparison.

At the same time, every program I put my hand to in OSX was quick but slower than the equivalent program on the Win side. In addition, the Mac has the annoying habit of presuming lots of things about the way you work, or want to work, so you end up working the way the Mac wants you to, not necessarily the way you want to. This has advantages and disadvantages, as you can imagine.

Since none of the programs I actually use to do web design and site maintenance, graphic design, photo touch up, writing, etc. actually work on the Mac, I was in the position of going through several learning curves--one for a new Web Design and maint program, one for desktop publishing (InDesign for Pagemaker), one for simple graphics/photo touchup (iPhoto for ACDSee), Word for Word (the Win version is MUCH quicker and better than Mac), Quicken for Quicken/Money (again, the Mac version of Quicken is 1980s software, whereas the Win version is up to date and very quick, and so is Money), and so on.

After four months I had work to do and couldn't wait to go through all the learning curves, so I repartitioned my iMac 20" to be 160 Gb Windows, and 70 OSX. I now boot into Windows XP all the time, and every once in a while, when I want to see all the pretty icons and the pretty borderless windows, and all the rest, I punch the Option button and boot into OSX.

I still use Garage Sale to do my eBay sales, but other than that it's all Windows all the time. I'll probably try to do some things in OSX from time to time, but it certainly isn't better than Windows for most tasks that computers are good for. Not for graphics, film, photography, design, writing, etc. Apple has an enormous advertising and PR machine and they make handsome machines and a handsome operating system and plenty of quality programs. But better? Maybe it's more like just as good.

So Bootcamp your machine and reinstall all your Win stuff on that partition, and see if that doesn't solve your speed problem.

Cheers--

P.S., if you'd like, go ahead and click the "Helpful" or "Solved" buttons on any of the posts / replies above if you feel they were helpful or adequately answered your question.