It was long coming but I made the switch back to a Windows machine the other day, and it’s great

My old MacBook Pro had reached end-of-life already a while ago and it was time for a replacement and ultimately time for a change. My computer usage and preferences have changed, and I have grown bored (and to some extent frustrated) with Macs for various reasons, so it was time to look elsewhere. I have been itching to switch to Windows for quite some time and now was a very good time to do so.

Last week I got a very nice Acer laptop from my lovely wife and now I am in the process of getting to know and explore the operation system. It is a very nice computer and so far everything is going smoothly. The latest Windows is very nice. I enjoy the light feel of the OS and the use of colors. Considered, that I mostly spend time working in Chrome it’s not been that different.  And oh my, working in full-screen mode in Chrome is awesome here.

Windows is full of useful keyboard shortcuts, there’s no news here. I especially enjoy the ones for window-snapping and going into the full-screen mode. It is very easy and fast to adjust application-windows to my liking. No fiddling with the mouse required.

Funnily though, keyboard shortcuts are also the cause of some minor problems.

Last time I used a Windows machine is more than 8 years ago and not only has a lot has changed since then, I also have forgotten (if I ever knew that is) many keyboard shortcuts. Ever so often I find myself confused on how to do something rather simple with a keyboard shortcut. An unwelcome bonus is, that muscle-memory is playing tricks on me. So far, I’ve gotten very good in invoking non-existing shortcuts, or worse, invoking some that do something totally unexpected.

That is code for: I have to relearn, i.e. retrain myself, quite a bit here, but it’s going to be worth it. I just have to tell myself enough times that the alt-key, even though positioned in the same spot, is not the CMD key.

While it still feels as if I have never used a computer before, this is fun experience and I am looking forward to get to know the OS as well as I did macOS, and really make it my own. It’s not going to last long.