One Week with Windows: A Mac User's Adventure

If you had windows 11, did you use copilot? That is actually a huge game changer. Many things become very, very easy to do because you could just tell copilot to turn something on or off or find something for you. I use it literally every day at this point

I don't think i'd use this every day but it's improved a lot.

I can now actually type in the box and it actually goes to youtube if I ask it to.

It can't seam to open file paths just yet but it did open explorer for me.

A lot of your issues are hardware specific. I don't doubt there are better laptops out there with quieter fans, better keyboards, faster wake from sleep, etc, but this is another gap between mac and windows. The mac experience, in theory, is the same across all mac devices, choosing a windows machine is a much more difficult proposition due to the number of options and wild variation in price and quality.

I'd be interested to read a comparison based purely on the OS though do realise it will be hard to do this comparison in isolation.

As someone who has used both systems, and is quite comfortable with both, I can say that your experience will largely be based on hardware. I am currently back on Windows exclusively, and with an Android phone, specifically the Galaxy S22 ultra, and with the Microsoft phone link app, we get a very similar experience to the integration of Apple devices. There are a few things that brought me back to Windows full time. First, being that I run an online radio station, all the good radio automation is Windows based. Second, I really didn't like virtualization on a mac, and even when I got an older macbook that would still let me do Bootcamp, I found myself mostly inside Windows anyway. So, while there are things I absolutely love about the Mac, for me, Windows just makes more sense.

While I still have my old MBP, I have not touched it in over a month. I too am using a new HP PC and do not have any of the issues mentioned in the OP.

Sad to say, but it sounds like you got a bad build with your Spectre. If there is one universal truth regarding Windows-based PCs, it would be that build matters. 😣

I love my HP desktop. Hardware technically isn't up to Windows 11 standards, but a little tinkering and it was up and running. I will also say, doing that hack didn't seem nearly as hard as putting Mac OS on unsupported hardware. So that model has a 6th gen I5, 32 gb ram and a 512 gb ssd. Also, using the ElBraille 40 (2018 model). Specs on that aren't anything all that impressive, but I was able to trade a friend for it, and wanted it mostly for the Focus 40. Once I get my iPhone 13 pro sold, I have my eye on a renewed HP Elitebook. I can't afford anything brand new, and even though those Elitebooks have really decent specs, they get resold for super cheap. Those have good enough specs on them that I could run all my radio stuff from the laptop. Most of my automation is done in the cloud these days, so just need to be able to handle live broadcasts. I like the idea of being able to hook up to a dock while in studio to use my broadcast console, better webcam, etc, but then from the same computer be able to go do a remote event somewhere, with more portable equipment, or also be able to edit audio while sitting in my recliner. If I can get something with decent enough specs, it will be so nice not having to worry about having both a studio desktop as well as a travel machine, remoting in, keeping files all synced up.

This is a really good website for Windows users, specially if you are just starting out. I did not have the time to go through the whole site, but I got this page for you to explore Windows Search feature. I have never used a Mac, don't think I will ever; not because I have anything against it but because I lived most of my life with a Windows Desktop PC. Hope this helps: https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/windowsbasics/finding-files-on-your-computer/1/

I never really had any issues with the start menu or search. I was not the biggest fan of the Windows 10 start, and would always install classic shell, but I actually really really like Windows 11. Being able to reorder items in the start menu is pretty nice.

HI!
Well, I belong to that group of people who, after trying the Mac for a few months, really asked myself how it is possible that anyone could use it seriously.
So, I certainly can't say I'm objective.
You're absolutely right about one thing: Windows search is horrible.
Really.
It is not possible that if I press the start button and want to search for something, all the results relating to the web will come up.
Sure, it can be fixed a little, but not much. Better to use a different program like "everything".
However, generally speaking, I find that the advantage of Windows in everyday operations is so evident that, so to speak, I feel a bit of pity for the poor Macs.
And, of course, I'm certainly not talking about the hardware, where the Macs are simply a spectacle, the best of the best!
it's always the same old story, Voiceover is too far behind.
For me, reading books, audiobooks, and PDFs are things that, on a scale of 1 to 10, have 10 as importance.
And Windows lets me do all this on the fly.
However, it is perfectly right that you use the operating system that makes you feel better.
Just consider that maybe a week is too short, especially to learn NVDA add-ons and third-party software. In Windows, yes, it is important to install things different from what Microsoft offers, especially for reading, audio, etc.

Hey Justin,

That is interesting, how many of us use HP. I think Tara on here does as well. This is what I have. It was purchased for me by my states Dept. for the Blind, as I am now officially back in school, since February, working through multiple Certs via Cisco Networking Academy. Just finished Cyber Security and now working through a 6 month network Engineer Cert.

Good times.

Alas, below is my machine. Its not the greatest, but it is so much more powerful than my tired old MBP.

link https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BY3PGDZR/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?

Sounds like a good machine. My hp desktop is using an old i5 6th gen, 32 gb ram. I almost got an HP Elitebook 830 G6, which is a 13 inch laptop, business class, but that only has an 8th gen processor, but I was able to find a Dell Latitude 5320 with an 11th gen i7, 16 gb ram and 256 ssd, plus an sd card slot which the HP didn't have, and all that for pretty much the same price of $285, so couldn't pass up the newer machine, even if it isn't HP. I've also had good experiences with Dell.
Now just waiting for the new machine to come in.
The goal is to have something powerfull enough that I can replace the desktop, and when I'm doing radio stuff, since most of it is from the cloud, I don{t really need a desktop anymore. Only need something for live programs, and so a laptop will be better so I don't have to manage two computers, keep music synced between the two, etc.
Kinda excited because I was doing some research, and even though it's a mobile processor, that 11th gen blows the 6th gen in my desktop out of the water.

My ex used to worship are the Altar of Dell. She swore by them.

Regarding my HP, it too has an SD slot, but between the 1TB SSD and the 1TB of OneDrive storage, I do not know if I will ever use it. 😇
I am hoping this machine can do some light to moderate gaming. Not sure if the link above mentioned this, but i am running a Radeon GPU on this laptop, so I am kinda excited to see if I can incorporate some of my fighting games from my Xbox to the HP.

Fingers crossed. 😁

Not exactly on topic but are there any accessible wrestling games? I don't have any consoles but if there were good WWE or other wrestling games, I might have to change that, or even better if I could just run on the laptop.
In other news, laptop is set to arrive some time between Friday and Monday.

Ironically, why the hell do we call them "Laptops"? Ever sat one on your lap for any extended length of time?

Good way to burn your britches. . . 😏

As for 'accessible' wrestling games, I am unsure, but will keep a lookout for ya. I am not sure how much accessibility is out there for that particular sub genre, but games are ever so slowly begining to show promise. Just look at Mortal Kombat 1. Reportedly it has audio described cutscenes and finishing moves. As well as a fully functional TTS engine for menus, etc.

I play a lot of the earlier MK games on my Xbox, but the accessibility is little to non-existent. For me, it took a bit of note taking with a sighted friend to learn to count how many ticks per screen to access different menus, and a whole lot of patience.

I am persistent though, as I love fighting games.

Back to the OP topic, everyones experience with a computer, be it Windows-based or Mac, is going to be different. Having said that, I think Windows 11 is the best version of Windows ever. Cannot wait to see what Windows 12 is like. 😎

Not sure about sound issues, but it is entirely possible. I do know my ex used to complain about the loudness of her fans on her older Dell PCs, as they were earlier versions of AMD processors.

Maybe there is a correlation? 🤷

The problem that I had with my HP laptop is the audio driver. The sound was always changing from loud to quiet and again... It was really annoying. Luckily I could change my laptop to Lenovo and there are no such issues. Turning off enhancements, reinstalling drivers nothing helped.

Well, we'll see come Monday.This is a business class laptop from a few years ago. Hope the problem does not persist. Will keep you all posted.
I'm super annoyed. Computer is coming from California, and looked yesterday afternoon and it was already in Nebraska, and this morning it made it to Lenexa KS. Which is only 2 hours away from me, and still delivery is not expected until Monday. When I saw it was already in Nebraska yesterday, I thought for sure it would get here today. But noooo, I gotta wait until Monday. Darn it!

I'm just curious what problems regarding Braille you've encountered on macOS? I'm using macOS all-day with Braille only, speech is mostly turned off.

We can't turn off cursor blinking as far as I know which is very very bad as depending on the display you have it can become noisy at time?

Uggggggh, I never used Braille on the Mac back when I had an Orbit 20, but I can only imagine how loud and distracting that would have been. I actually traded my Mac for an ElBraille, mostly for the Focus 40 display, though the ElBraille works decently for basics. But having said that, once I got the Focus 40, I then didn't have a Mac to test it on. But, I do find Braille support on NVDA to be decent, though the Spanish Braille code needs lots of work. It all reads well, but writing it is another story. In this sense I give Apple an edge, as I never found them to have any issues with Braille codes in iOS or iPad OS.

I too use a lenovo laptop, which i'm quite content with. It has no audio or performance issues for my use case, which is mostly watching videos on youtube, surfing the net and reading mails. it's more than enough for me.

Several years ago my ex purchased a 2-in-1 Lenovo directly from Microsoft. It was called a Signature Edition, and essentially ran Stock Windows 10 with absolutely no 'branded' software, aside from Microsoft stuff.

It was a neat laptop, and the lid could be flipped all the way around until the back of it touched the bottom of the device, making it a tablet pc, though one with an exposed keyboard on the back.

Still, it was one of the best laptops she ever owned, even though she still to this day swears that Dell is the end all, be all for PCs. 🙄

How do you do this? Can you improve on iBooks and VoiceDream? Scribe or any number of other tools for extracting text and converting it? Seems to me the Mac and iOS are pretty well served, but I'd be interested to know what Windows users are getting that's particularly notable.

Concerning the thread in general, yes, I think it's true that hardware is important, but ultimately Apple have simply won the competition for energy-efficient notebooks, so whatever else one might say of Windows, it's unarguable that if battery life or speaker quality is your kink, you can't beat a modern Apple Silicon Mac, regardless how you feel about macOS. Which, unsurprisingly perhaps, I'm rather less than thrilled with when its bugs bite, but otherwise, also unsurprisingly, I still end up using most of the time and can't understand why Windows users put up with so much nonsense in all but a very few clear cases where it's superior. But that's just me.

And that's in no way to disparage good commodity hardware either, even the later Intel Macs, because it's true, you can get decent hardware. You just have to work a thousand times harder to make sure you get it, particularly for notebooks. This is simply a consequence of the competetiveness of the commodity hardware ecosystem. I would probably end up going Lenovo too, if I were in the market right now. For desktop, Minisforum or NUC. For a server, Supermicro. However they all have pretty shitty audio out of the box, not unusable but you probably want an external interface for high-quality audio IO. If you can, clean install with WHQL drivers, so you don't get the applets and enhancements and other crap. These are meant to work, not to be great at anything beyond simple playback and recording.

For PDF files, they can often be read in Edge or in Acrobat, which works fine. For books, I really don't know as I've never really done that even on the Mac. For Audio books, I would just use Audible, probably from an Amazon echo, but if I absolutely had to listen on the laptop, Audible does have a web player. That's good enough for me.

I cannot say what is viable on Windows regarding books, as I tend to use either my iPhone, or my Alexa. There are a handful of indy authors who have their own websites, and produce both e-book and audio books, and can be played on 3rd party apps such as 'Book Funnel'.

PDFs in my use case are done with a loverly NVDA add-on called 'Nao'. It is absolutely a game changer for reading PDF files in Windows.

Nao link: https://nvda-nao.org/

I've turned off sound enhancements, if you've not done that i'd recommend trying it.

Also; you might want to try the bluetooth addon from the NVDA addons store.

Brad, several brands have been mentioned here. Which brand are you using that you mention we might want to disable sound enhancements? Thanks for the tip, just need that bit of clarification.

While I cannot speak for Brad, my sound card is by Realtek. My laptop has something called "Realtek HD Audio Universal Service".

I actually have mine running, but then again I don't think I have ever noticed sound issues as has been described in this thread. 🤷

Well, we'll see soon enough how well it is on the Dell. Was supposed to get it today, but.... FedEx strikes again. 🙄🤐😤😭😭😭😭😭

You get it in the next few days. Regardless of make or model (omg are we talking abbout automobiles?) it's always a nice and warm feeling to tinker with a new computer, albeit Mac or PC, or whatever's clever. 🙂

It just departed Lenexa, so should make it to me today.
Not brand new mind you, but new to me. It's a 2021 model, so amazing that someone was tossing already, but that's what happens a lot of the time with these business focused models, companies with deep pockets will get them, use them for a few years, and then get rid of them. Fine by me, because it allows for me to have something far better than my budget would otherwise allow for. Seriously, for the price I paid I could get something with that brand new computer smell, but with probably a Celeron and 4 gb ram, or I could shop used and get a beast like what I've picked up here. 11th gen i7, 16 gb ram and 256 gb storage, plus sd card slot. And for under $300. Not bad. Will post a review of it once I've had it a few days.

Yeah, thats not bad at all. With an SD slot and cloud storage, you will be hard pressed to run out of storage. Not to mention if it was purposed for business use, it will likely be in very good physical condition. 👍

It's fantastic!!!! I love the size. Not sure why I was expecting a metal body but thinking I confused this with the HP Elitebook I was looking at before this. But, while not metal, build quality is solid. It's actually a two in one, where you can flip the screen all the way around. Not something I'm all that sure I'll use, but interesting and unexpected nonetheless. Specs are all that was claimed. No complaints there. Granted, it's a darn good thing everything runs on usb C these days because even though the listing said it would come with a charger, one was not in the box. Only a slight setback. lol I do still fully expect the seller to make that right, but at least it's not keeping me from using the device.
In the process of upgrading to Win 11 now. One of the very few times I've ever done it with no hacking involved to bypass the hardware checks.
Already got all my programs installed though, and really enjoying it. Dual thunderbolt, two USB A ports, micro sd card, audio jack, even a smart card reader though I have no idea what I would do with that. I think it even has a slot for a sim card though I haven't found exactly where that goes.
Keyboard on this thing is great!!! Good travel and comfortable.
I am experiencing the sound issue where volume seems to lower and raise on its own. Annoying, but hopefully as I continue to customize and learn the ins and outs of this thing, I will figure that part out.

First, happy for you getting your new PC. Sounds like an overall good deal, bang for your buck and all that. Second, in regards to the sound, once Windows 11 is running, try highlighting the start button and pressing your Applications key, or Shift plus F10 to open the start button Context menu. From there choose the very first item (Installed Apps).

From here you can review and edit/uninstall apps as needed. Look for any 3rd party apps regarding Audio and once you find something, go to Settings (Windows key plus 'i') and type Start in the search box, then choose the first item (Startup Apps.

Finally, find the list of apps and see if any of the 3rd party audio apps are running, if so try turning off, and vice versa, then reboot.

might help with audio inconsistencies.

As an alternative to uninstalling apps through Settings, most apps can be uninstalled by locating them in the Start menu and choosing "Uninstall" from the context menu. This is one of the first things I do when setting up a PC or updating Windows, as especially with bundled apps that I don't want, there are no extra steps besides the confirmation dialog to uninstall them, unlike some Windows apps that have their own dedicated uninstallers or require a restart to clear all traces.

I've already taken a look through the apps and haven't spotted anything. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Hi,
As regards sound, to get a better experience, uninstall Microsoft Automated Power manager, turn off all sound enhancements, if you're on HP uninstall something called HP Energy Star or something, and go to power, sleep and battery settings and make sure 'power mode' is set to 'best performance'.
As for reading books on Windows, I mainly use the Kindle for PC app, since most fiction books on Kindle are accessible with that app. As for Epub books, there is Blio
https://www.blio.com/
I haven't tried this yet but I've heard it's good. I was using Thorium for a while for epubs too.
https://www.edrlab.org/software/thorium-reader/
There is Adobe digital editions too.
https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html
I often use Firefox to read PDFs because it doesn't jump you to the page thumbnails like Brave and Chrome do. Edge is OK for PDFs last time I tried. I don't like Adobe Acrobat personally. PDF Reader from Webbie is another option.
https://www.webbie.org.uk/pdfreader/
If I want to convert large PDF documents or Epubs into Word documents,I use either Robobraille.org https://www.robobraille.org/or Convertio.
https://convertio.co/document-converter/
There is NAO for OCR as Brian said above, but for OCr accuracy I prefer Prizmo for iOS. I pay £4.99 a month for the pro plan I think and it's worth it for me since I OCR a lot of stuff
Edit forgot about audiobooks. I use VLC media player to play MP3 files, and there is Foobar 2000 too. I usually listen to Audible books on my phone, but if I really want something in mp3 from Audible I use Inaudible.

Hi Lottie,
Sure Microsoft aren't perfect, but I've been using Windows for about twenty years independently, and for most things it meets my needs. When you buy a Windows machine, it's full of bloatware you then have to remove, and then have to make sure your sound settings are sufficient for working with a screen reader. And hardware can vary wildly between systems. I had to take an Acer laptop back to the shop at the end of last year because the sound was so bad, even though the volume was turned up full, Narrator was so quiet I couldn't even set up the thing independently. Mac users don't have to worry about the above. I have to worry about Windows explorer crashing sometimes though. And yes before people say it, I've tried total commander but didn't like it. But at least I can browse the internet efficiently. On a mac computer it seems most blind people can't do that no matter which browser they're using unless they get lucky somehow. I would have thought that browsing the web is pretty fundamental for all users unless I'm missing something. Word processing not so much, well it all depends on your job and what you do in your leisure time, but browsing the internet? Surely that's something everybody has to do at some stage, blind or sighted. I should point out that I don't work with audio editing software, so I don't encounter audio issues daily apart from the stuff I specified on another thread which were dealt with by uninstalling stuff and changing some system sound settings. The closest I've got to servers is setting up my Windows machine to transfer files between my iPhone and computer. I like having more than one screen reader too. We don't live in a world where every website or app is accessible out of the box, if we did, then one screen reader would be sufficient for everybody. The only reason I'm happy with just VoiceOver on my phone is because I don't have to do serious stuff like fill in online forms and use a website to get important information, and I don't use my phone for work. As for backing up stuff and keeping it backed up, OneDrive is perfectly sufficient for me at least. Maybe in the next OSX release, Apple will fix all the VoiceOver bugs, at least the major ones, so a Mac computer will be more of a viable alternative again like it was years ago. I'm using an HP 250G9. I wish it had more ports, but apart from that I've got no issues with it. As for boycotting stuff, if it's tech-based and it does what I need, I don't care enough about a company's practices to refuse to use it. If something gets the job done, I'll use it. No company is perfect. Amazon is the absolute worst I think for the way they treat their employees, but I still shop there because of its accessibility, and I don't want to have to battle with ten different websites for stuff when I can just use one for most things. Oh and, Amazon music is one of the worst media platforms I've seen for accessibility. The iPhone app is just awful. At least it was the last time I tried it again a few months back.

Disclaimer: My subject makes no sense. That is intentional. Accept this.

First off, let me just say that, after reading the post above, I officially worship at the Altar of Tara. 'Nuff said.

Ok serious mode moving forward, and a funny story. . .

I have not been blind as long as most folks on here, from what I have observed over the years. Needless to say, I started out as a Windows fanboy. Thought Apple was the devil, and could not understand why anyone would use a computer you could not game on. Obviously, the younger me was hella intelligent. . . .

Fast forward to about 12 years ago, and a blind me was living in MI, and renting a room from a friend of the family, and working toward attending a school/training center for blind folks. By this point in my life, I had been not only blind for an undisclosed number of years, but also without any rea knowledge of what AT was even available.

Oh! . . . and i was using an Android smart phone.

Don't judge me. . . 😳

So, this individual I rented from owned a MacBook Pro, the kind with an actual HDD and an Optical drive. It was running Snow Leopard, and after some convincing on my part, she started letting me play around with it.

This me fell in love. Hard.

Two years later and i am working through college with my own MBP, this one runs OS X Mavericks, and ironically is the same damned MBP I use today, or at least until I ended up with my current beast. Alas, I digress.

Of course going through my blindness training, meant re-learning how to use a PC, including touch typing and JAWS screen reading software.

Over the years I have witnessed macOS go from being the single most influential piece of tech I ever had the pleasure of owning, to the over-priced paper weight it is today.

Thanks to being back in school. Again. . . I now have a beast of an HP and I have, once again, fallen in love; this time with Windows 11 and NVDA. And while this is not my first rodeo with NVDA, it is the first time in my 40+ years on this planet that I have ever owned a PC. . . laptop.

There is a moral to this story, but i am too lazy to spell it out for anybody. Figure it out. . .

Or don't. 🤷😜

I haven't used JAWS for years, and don't miss it. I refuse to spend money on something so expensive when NVDA has proven to be just as responsive and does absolutely everything I need. JAWS was great back in the day but for the last 10 years or so, I've stuck with NVDA. In fact, when I got my ElBraille, the first thing I did was put NVDA on it.
In regards to my audio issues, I've come to find that it only happens on device speakers, not through the headphone jack, which is a good thing. On the speakers it is a minor annoyance but nothing I can't deal with at least for now.
This new machine is working like a charm, running my broadcasting software. Just one question... Does anyone know a way to keep the computer from locking when a certain program is running? It doesn't fully sleep, as my audio keeps playing, but since I'm working with a Braille display, and not using the actual keyboard, it has locked on me a few times. Is it a major emergency? No, quick finger print scan and I'm back in, but it does seem to happen at the least opportune moments. lol If there is a way to keep that from happening only when this program is active, that would be great. Ideas are much appreciated.

Hi Justin,
If you type 'dynamic lock' into the search bar, then find the checkbox that says 'lock computer when away' and make sure that's unchecked. I know the computer is still active but my screen kept locking when I was reading a Kindle book, I can't remember exactly what fixed it, but that might have done it. I googled and that's what I found. As for JAWS, I hardly ever use it. I upgrade it just in case it'll work with something if NVDA has problems. but JAWS is bloated. I couldn't believe it when they implemented a thing called 'research it' which is Wikipedia. What a waste of time! And that Voice Assist thing, it only ever used to help you control JAWS, it never used to do anything else like open apps for you or navigate the system or websites. It really has some useless features. NVDA really is my primary screen reader these days.

Thanks Tara. Just checked this, and it was already off. Surely there's gotta be a way to do this easily, and it's probably one of those things that is so obvious it's not even funny, but so far I haven't stumbled on it.

Found the perfect solution! It's called Caffeine! Also available for Mac OS, though no idea how accessible it is with Voiceover. But for Windows, it just puts an icon in the notifications tray. A press of the application key brings up the context menu, giving you access to all the options, and you can set as active or inactive, and even tell it how long to stay active. Pretty. Stinkin'. Cool!

Sorry for the late reply. Well; I have a hp laptop but I figured the settings would be the same?

Here's the link I used: substitute microphone for speakers: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/topic/disable-audio-enhancements-0ec686c4-8d79-4588-b7e7-9287dd296f72

Try typing in power plan into the search box, then press enter.

Now you'll need to either tab or shift tab, depending on where it puts you, until you hear put the computer to sleep, arrow down or pres the end key to go to never, shift tab or tab again and you'll hear the same option but it wil say plugged in, do the same thing, tab to save changes and you should be good to go.

I used to use this a lot in macOS. Never knew it was available in Windows. Thats just crazy talk. 😄