Is Anyone Here Who Uses Their Mac to Run Windows Only?


How Many People Here Use They Mac's To Run Windows Only?  

264 members have voted

  1. 1. How Many People Here Use They Mac's To Run Windows Only?

    • I Use Windows As Primary OS on My Mac
      76
    • I Use OS X As Primary OS On My Mac
      188


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Actually, your trolling attempt not withstanding, many Apple users are extremely proud of our ability to run Windows, Linux, and other operating systems along side of Mac OS X. I'd venture to say that very few of us actually have a problem with people deciding to use their Apple Equipment to run Windows, after, the best Windows Vista machine on the planet is a Mac! :)

He wasn't trolling. The very few who have a problem are the fanboys.

And you wrong about the last part. The best Windows Vista machine on the planet is the SYSTEM I BUILD! MWA HA HA HA!!! :)

I can't believe that people have their mac running a garbage OS like Windows, it's a shame.

I can't believe people used to have their mac running a garbage OS like Mac OS 9, that was a real shame.

Actually, your trolling attempt not withstanding, many Apple users are extremely proud of our ability to run Windows, Linux, and other operating systems along side of Mac OS X. I'd venture to say that very few of us actually have a problem with people deciding to use their Apple Equipment to run Windows, after, the best Windows Vista machine on the planet is a Mac! :)

And you’re trolling for seeking drama in a forum that's universal. Look at your signature "The Female Steve Jobs", that there is grounds for negativity. And so what if people want to run windows as their primary OS on a Mac. I think it's really cool that people are at least doing something with their Macs that is not always related to what Apple really wants people to use it for. Oh and your false information about a Mac being the best windows vista machine ever is just an opinion from not only the Apple editors but Apple only people who only spent money to buy Apple only products. I know PC setups that will whip circles around the performance that a Mac has when running Vista on it.

Edited by jesseinsf
And you?re trolling for seeking drama in a forum that's universal. Look at your signature "The Female Steve Jobs", that there is grounds for negativity. And so what if people want to run windows as their primary OS on a Mac. I think it's really cool that people are at least doing something with their Macs that is not always related to what Apple really wants people to use it for. Oh and your false information about a Mac being the best windows vista machine ever is just an opinion from not only the Apple editors but Apple only people who only spent money to buy Apple only products. I know PC setups that will whip circles around the performance that a Mac has when running Vista on it.

My title is humor given what I do for a living, I'm sorry it missed you.:):)

Regarding your Windows Vista comment being from Apple Editors, actually, it came from (I believe) PC World Magazine which is, without a doubt, a PC oriented magazine, not an Apple Publication. If memory serves me right, the title of best came from a list of criteria, not simply the fastest but the most stable and several other items all listed in the article, I'm sure someone around here has the actual link to the article:):) Might want to read it, was a great read no matter which side of the fence you pull for, Mac or PC.

My title is humor given what I do for a living, I'm sorry it missed you. :)

Regarding your Windows Vista comment being from Apple Editors, actually, it came from (I believe) PC World Magazine which is, without a doubt, a PC oriented magazine, not an Apple Publication. If memory serves me right, the title of best came from a list of criteria, not simply the fastest but the most stable and several other items all listed in the article, I'm sure someone around here has the actual link to the article. :) Might want to read it, was a great read no matter which side of the fence you pull for, Mac or PC.

You are right it comes from PC World, but for a very long time now PC World's quality has gone down. Almost every single of their articles are crap or filled with incorrect information ;)

So don't trust everything you read =)

You are right it comes from PC World, but for a very long time now PC World's quality has gone down. Almost every single of their articles are crap or filled with incorrect information ;)

So don't trust everything you read =)

Specially when it came from John C. Dvorak the biggest idiot in the tech world. :laugh:

ummm nope

Why would someone do it anyway ? I mean i won't say i don't run Windows at all. I do run Windows Xp in Vmware Fusion but thats because i have some very crucial Windows based applications plus its easier for my Windows Mobile Device to sync with Win Xp. I love OSX and can't even think about running something like Vista on this baby ;)

My title is humor given what I do for a living, I'm sorry it missed you. :)

Regarding your Windows Vista comment being from Apple Editors, actually, it came from (I believe) PC World Magazine which is, without a doubt, a PC oriented magazine, not an Apple Publication. If memory serves me right, the title of best came from a list of criteria, not simply the fastest but the most stable and several other items all listed in the article, I'm sure someone around here has the actual link to the article. :) Might want to read it, was a great read no matter which side of the fence you pull for, Mac or PC.

Thanks for clarifying everything :)

28% is a lot. More than I thought there would be.

Isn't that the entire point? Your poll ASKS windows users to vote for the first option, then you complain about it? I don't quite get your logic there... obviously people who use Windows as their primary OS on their Mac hardware uses... windows.

lol yea i see what you mean, I meant that I think that most of the votes for 'Primarily Windows on Mac hardware' have been made by ****ed off Apple haters, then I wouldn't doubt that some with mac hardware run primarily windows either. I wasn't complaining, was just saying .. I mean I used to be a die-hard Windows user and hated anything to do with apple just for the sake of it, its something I probably would have done a while back.

lol yea i see what you mean, I meant that I think that most of the votes for 'Primarily Windows on Mac hardware' have been made by ****ed off Apple haters, then I wouldn't doubt that some with mac hardware run primarily windows either. I wasn't complaining, was just saying .. I mean I used to be a die-hard Windows user and hated anything to do with apple just for the sake of it, its something I probably would have done a while back.

Why this rabid hatred of Apple?

Sure, I loath Windows (because I come from an Amiga/Atari background, MacOS X seems to be more logical than Windows), but that doesn't mean I don't love using Office 2008, Messenger or any other application available to me on MacOS X.

There seems to be alot of Windows zealots who have this 'hell bent' hatred of anything that isn't Microsoft - it is pathetic and childish to see quite frankly.

Edited by kaiwai
Why this rabid hatred of Apple?

Sure, I loath Windows (because I come from an Amiga/Atari background, MacOS X seems to be more logical than Windows), but that doesn't mean I don't love using Office 2008, Messenger or any other application available to me on MacOS X.

There seems to be alot of Windows zealots who have this 'hell bent' hatred of anything that isn't Microsoft - it is pathetic and childish to see quite frankly.

Just like there seems to also be a lot of Apple zealots who have this 'hell bent' hatred of anything that isn't Apple, or the Linux zealots who have this 'hell bent' hatred of anything that isn't FOSS.

There are far more Apple and Linux zealots than MS zealots.

That seems like it could be rather hard to do, other than Xbox people, I don't ever see a lot of love for Microsoft.

Personally:

I love Office 2007, but hate 2008.

I like Vista a lot, but question where they're going sometimes with Windows.

But I don't like Apple though either outside of OSX; the Mac apologists tend to rub me the wrong way, and also tend to suffer from myopia on all outside of things Apple. It's really turns me off the whole Apple bandwagon, as I don't want to be considered an elitist dip**** because I can't see things without rose-colored glasses. Like MS, Apple does some things really well, screws up others, and sometimes just does stuff to screw their customer base over.

But that could be because of my IT/engineering background, but an MCSE that I worked with said it best about the different OS', "they all suck, they just suck differently at times". And after working on Linux, OSX, and Windows, that's the only acceptable thing I can say anymore.

And I don't see the point of running Windows solely on a Mac - you can get better spec'd, cheaper PCs elsewhere.

lol huh, dude I use a mac man. Dont know how you got that I hate Apple from my post :huh:

Sorry, I phrased it wrong. It was more a question about when you were an anti-Apple zealot, why did you hold those views?

There are far more Apple and Linux zealots than MS zealots.

Based on what metric? I can assure you that there are a hell of alot more Windows zealots who will grasp at any straw when bashing Apple/MacOS X - some will go so far as to bringing up MacOS 9 issues that are no longer relevant today. Some will even go so far to whine about applications that aren't available on MacOS X which they don't even use.

Sorry, I've seen the straw grab dance by Microsoft zealots. Sure, I can't stand the Mac zealots, but then again, I tend not to hang around them anyway - and when I do listen to Steve's keynoted to see if there is anything interesting, I deliberately fast forward through all the hooting and hollering by the Apple zealots whom seem to be high on some drug.

Based on what metric? I can assure you that there are a hell of alot more Windows zealots who will grasp at any straw when bashing Apple/MacOS X - some will go so far as to bringing up MacOS 9 issues that are no longer relevant today. Some will even go so far to whine about applications that aren't available on MacOS X which they don't even use.

Sorry, I've seen the straw grab dance by Microsoft zealots. Sure, I can't stand the Mac zealots, but then again, I tend not to hang around them anyway - and when I do listen to Steve's keynoted to see if there is anything interesting, I deliberately fast forward through all the hooting and hollering by the Apple zealots whom seem to be high on some drug.

Most of the Mac-bashing Windows users who I personally know have never even used a Mac. Frankly, they don't know about any specific issues affecting Macs. Typically, their argument is that Macs look "gay" and they can't play games, so they suck. Of course they are being ignorant, closed-minded, and stupid; however, on the internet, you don't typically see too many of those arguments.

And honestly, how many times do Apple and Linux fanboys (emphasis on the term "fanboy". I'm not referring to users of those OS's) constantly bring up Windows 98 errors for Vista and XP? The fanboys constantly mention BSOD's, and that all Windows systems have viruses and other problems. BSOD's very rarely occur out of the blue. If you get a BSOD today, it's because of 3 main reasons: 1.) You have a physical problem with your hardware 2.) You have a problematic driver or 3.) Malware

Security problems and viruses only affect people who do not follow safe computing practices. I've been using Windows for years, and I don't have issues with security.

You must not visit the front page news much--at least not the comments.

I always do. I typically count more "zealotry" posts coming from the Apple and Linux crowd than I ever do from the MS crowd.

If you both honestly think there are more MS zealots out there, then you are very naive. Go to any techy website out there. Try looking at the comments and articles posted on Slashdot, or OS News, or Digg, or Engadget, and the list goes on and on...

It's not uncommon for a fair MS comment on Slashdot, Digg, or OS News to be completely attacked by fanboys.

To be honest, Neowin is rather balanced. That's one of the main reasons why I read the articles here and post on the forums.

Edited by Mikee99

You honestly can't take comments on Digg or Engadget seriously? Majority of them are prepubescent kids who have nothing better to do. But Neowin is far from balanced--it is a Windows based site of course. You just don't see the majority of it since I'm such a great mod. ;)

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It must be noted that the Security Advisor still contains (in my opinion) a pretty major bug in that if you enable SPC and then do the required rebooting, the Security Advisor still says that SPC is disabled. TerraMaster provided the following statement about it: It is disappointing that TOS 7 has been in beta since December, and this OOBE issue is still there. Shutdown option has moved Instead of a Taskbar option to manage the NAS, all of these options have been moved to the Control Panel, initially I did not see it and my contact had to show me how to power off the F4-425 Pro. To logout, reboot or power off you can find those controls at the top right of the Control Panel. It is also possible to power off through the TNAS mobile app beta. Storage setup Above, you can see the steps I took to create the Storage Pools and Volumes. I made a second Storage Pool using TRAID on two 4TB MP44Q SSDs (which, in this instance, is similar to RAID 5), and finally, I added the 250GB 970 Evo Plus drive as Hyper Cache on Storage Pool 1 in Balanced mode. Registering If you decide not to lock down the F4-425 Pro in Security Isolation Mode (blocking all external connections), then you could set up a TNAS device ID through the Remote Access setting in the Control Panel (which must be unique). This works in combination with an online TerraMaster account. TOS 7 TNAS Online Creating a TerraMaster account and linking the device online activates the warranty when you provide proof of purchase and the serial number, but it also gives you access through the TNAS mobile app, which allows you to complete certain operationsб including powering off and restarting the NAS remotely. A TNAS mobile update is required to gain access through TOS 7, and this is provided on the TerraMaster website, as it is not yet on Google Play. The app is evolving all the time and has made leaps and bounds since I first started reviewing TerraMaster devices almost three years ago. It is not quite there yet if you are comparing the likes of Synology, which, sadly, a lot of users online do all the time. OpenClaw setup One of the main selling points of the new F4-425 Pro is the inclusion of OpenClaw, with TerraMaster claiming that it is "powered by the world's first AI-native TOS 7 OS, supporting local-first smart workflows and independent data control." However, I immediately ran into problems trying to enable OpenClaw. After waiting 20 minutes at the "Enabling" message of the OpenClaw app following installation, I decided to do some searching online and discovered that it couldn't complete the installation process due to SPC being enabled, which is something TOS 7 immediately recommends to be enabled on first boot. SPC for NAS (TOS 7) is basically the same principle as UAC in Windows; it blocks executables from being launched by non-Super Users. After reaching out to my contact about these issues, I received the following response: Anyway, this only became clear when I closed the OpenClaw app screen and clicked on the OpenClaw icon in the taskbar; that is when I saw the message about disabling SPC. I think, due to the fact that this is a requirement, this should be a prompt during the installation process, not when closing the App Market and then trying to launch OpenClaw. There's also no 'Getting started' guide for people like me who have never used OpenClaw. I tried to add an LLM and discovered the tutorial led nowhere. That's when I started looking around the official TerraMaster forums, and I found a guide that helpfully explains that you won't get anywhere with OpenClaw unless you have a paid plan, which is disappointing because I imagined there would be an option to use a local LLM as I do in SubtitleEdit with Whisper-XXL. In addition, with the marketing imagery on the official site, it says that the OpenClaw feature is "all processed 100% locally for absolute privacy." which led me to believe that I could install a local LLM, not one that required paid tokens. In any case, TerraMaster does not provide guidance for this new feature, which was also a selling point of the F4-425 Pro! My contact also provided clarification about the above points I raised with TerraMaster Since it is not in the scope of the review to add paid services, I'll leave that to the people who are more qualified with OpenClaw. F4-425 Pro Surveillance App TOS also comes with a Surveillance app, which is not installed by default; it can be found in the App Market recommended section. In addition, after installing, it doesn't drop a shortcut on the Desktop or top taskbar, but you can "Send to Desktop" from the App Market listing for the app for a quick way to open it. Adding my Reolink POE doorbell camera was painless. TerraMaster doesn't appear to have a repository of preconfigured cameras; instead, the camera must be added using ONVIF or RTSP. No mobile Surveillance app TerraMaster still doesn't have a dedicated Surveillance app, although from searching online, Surveillance can be used and managed through the TNAS mobile app. I tried this with the updated TNAS mobile app beta in combination with TOS 7 and got a message that Surveillance was "Only accessible through web browser," so I reckon this must be limited to the stable versions of TOS 6 and the mobile app. More quirks In addition, whenever I minimized the Live View window in the browser Surveillance app, the feed appeared to switch to the Low-bandwidth stream, and there was no way to get the High-quality stream back. To get the High-quality stream back, I had to close Live View and then reopen it. Benchmarking A pretty cool feature of the TOS 7 is that it allows you to install directly to the NVMe M.2 SSD. In order to do that, you would have to leave out any HDDs during initialization, and even then, the system partitions are always written to two HDDs when they are eventually added. With three NVMe slots, this also gives an interesting scenario where you could build a TRAID storage Pool for installing all your apps and Docker on, and keep the third for SSD cache on the HDD pool. Limitless options! SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 A CrystalDiskMark test on a mapped network drive from within a Windows 11 25H2 PC (image above) connected over a 5 GbE hub was well within acceptable ranges. Although the read result on SATA was a little less than with the F4-425 Plus, for some reason, while writes were generally better. SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 I also ran the NAS Performance tester, which tests the link speed performance. As you can see, it pretty much maxes out the 5GbE connection. Of course, you can also opt to bond the two 5 GbE connections for a bit more umph, but I didn't do that. TOS 7, which, as of testing, is still in Beta, comes with an App Center that has a bunch of handy programs you can install right off the bat, such as Emby, Plex, Docker, as well as in-house Backup and Surveillance solutions. As you can imagine, any media streaming services you would want to host off the F4-425 Pro will work great, thanks to the Intel Core N350 CPU and its 16 GB of DDR5 memory. Accessing from mobile is only possible if Security Isolation Mode is disabled, which can put your NAS at risk from external sources, so there was no way to access it from the TNAS Mobile app. It's also quiet. I had this sat next to my computer on my work desk for the past week, and I did wonder if the noise I was accustomed to with NAS devices would annoy me, but all I could hear was a soft whirring of the rear fan (which was a little annoying) when the disks were not actively copying or reading data. Conclusion So what have I learned? Unfortunately, this release raises a few important questions and concerns that I feel haven't been adequately addressed. What I didn't like Our variant shipped with TOS 7 beta, and it's advised not to use it in a production environment. I feel that's a bit limiting on an $800 device. The mobile app is also still in beta and does not support some of the first-party apps, like Surveillance, and it still has quite a few bugs. I am a bit confused about the OpenClaw marketing along with the F4-425 Pro. I feel like that if it's going to be a main selling point, then offer official guidance on how to get started with it. TerraMaster recommends enabling SPC, but then markets the NAS for use with OpenClaw, which requires disabling SPC to be able to use it, opening up genuine security concerns for the NAS; and that's before you get into the security concerns of OpenClaw itself. Of course, the above issues won't be a problem if you decide to install something else on it, or even go back to the stable TOS 6. I wish TerraMaster had just given TOS 7 as opt-in rather than shipping with it. TOS 7 has been available as a preview since December 2025 (so well before my last TerraMaster review), and according to a thread on Reddit where a user shared a screenshot from the TerraMaster Facebook page, it is scheduled to launch today, June 23, but there's nothing about that in the TerraMaster news blog. My contact confirmed over email that TOS 7 exits beta today. The rubber feet also deserve a mention as they continue to be a problem, with them coming unstuck the moment you shift the F4-425 Pro anywhere on your desk. What I liked What it comes down to, though, aside from what I already mentioned, you are still getting a quality, affordable device here, so recommending it will depend on the individual's use case. If you're just looking for a relatively small NAS device to manage virtual machines on, backup your files, and take care of your home theater streaming, then it is a great device that will certainly futureproof you for some time. It provides good performance, takes up little space, and is, on the whole, very quiet. Four bays afford proper redundancy using TRAID or RAID 5, and you can even expand on storage capacity by adding the 2-bay D5, or 4-bay D8 Hybrid DAS over a USB 3.2 (10Gbps) link. Considering the 2024 releases were more about power, with the likes of an Intel Core i5-1235U high-end laptop CPU under the hood, I asked my contact last time if we could expect more of the same in higher-end models and was told: It makes a lot of sense to use Intel's N350 chip inside a NAS; it is more than capable of doing what the F4-425 Pro is intended for, media streaming and backup. The only downside is still the clear lack of community and even staff support on the official forums. In the past, I have had topics go unanswered for days, or there would be generic-type "we've noted this and passed it onto our developer team" type responses. Along with the other things I mentioned, it all ends up costing it a couple of points. If you are comfortable with the command line, Docker, and setting up TrueNAS or Unraid, you'll be fine. You can do great things with this hardware. In TOS, the apps are a bit lacking, and things don't always work as expected.\ AI NAS?! What has become clear to me this year is that we are going to start seeing all kinds of "AI NAS" come to market, and while that might be good for us consumers, be diligent and research these claims. Although the F4-425 Pro technically comes with AI, it is really using a cloud service that is externally sourced off-device through the third party OpenClaw app. My colleague did review a newcomer to the NAS space earlier this year, and it includes a local AI assistant inside the Zettlab D4 NAS, and they do not even use AI in the product name, check out Chris' review here. Where to buy and a discount coupon However, it does not change the fact that this is truly a great entry-level home media-class NAS that you can buy right now. TerraMaster is having a 20% off launch discount, plus you can also still apply our unique 10% off coupon on checkout, which only works on the official website. So here is a breakdown of the pricing that is only valid on the official TerraMaster website. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $575.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $503.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £525.59 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £460.79 Use NEOWIN coupon code during checkout for 10% discount Over on Amazon US and UK, the F4-425 Pro also gets a 20% launch discount, but here, the above 10% coupon cannot be applied. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for $639.99 at Amazon US (was $799.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for $559.99 at Amazon US (was $699.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for £583.99 at Amazon UK (was £729.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for £511.99 at Amazon UK (was £639.99) As an Amazon Associate, when you purchase through links on our site, we earn from qualifying purchases.
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