Replacing my old MacBook Air to a new Windows 10 PC Laptop...

After 15 years using MacOS only, I am giving up Apple and just bought a PC machine. Now I need to update me regarding the Windows 10 environment and try to make the switch as smooth as possible. So, what do you guys recommend to backup and transfer all my data to the new PC? What software you recommend as essentials on the PC nowadays? What anti-virus I should use?

Any help is very appreciated. Thank you guys!

 

Microsoft defender included with windows 10 is fine for anti virus etc. I never had an issue with that. As for software, what are you looking to do? If you use iPhone/ipad devices still I would look at getting a dell computer since they have mobile connect, essentially allowing your computer to send and receive texts/call/imessage through your computer just as imessage would do on your macbook. For photo editing Affinity photo from the MS store is an awesome photoshop alternative, Vegas is a great video editing app also available in the store. Office 365 subscription is a no brainer since you get so much for your money there. You get all the office suite, plus 1tb of onedrive storage included. One note, one drive etc are all available on iOS as well making it a great package for all platforms. For music, good ole apple has that pretty well nailed and the light version of iTunes is available in the MS store now too. Making it automatically updating so you don't get all kinds of pop ups etc.

 

We could also go the free route and have extremely powerful stuff such as:
- Instead of Word -> OpenOffice
- Instead of Vegas -> HitFilm 4 Express

 

I don’t mind paying for good software. I get a lot of value from 365, and affinity and Vegas are two great programs.

 

You mean LibreOffice right? OO is made by Apache, right?
As for vegas alternative I'll give it a go.

 

My "conversion" preference is to copy files over using network or external drive. You can then organize your files into the proper places and such on your new computer.

Programs? Sounds like you're using Office 365, just keep using that, otherwise libreofice works quite nicely as well.

I tend to go from Linux <-> Windows quite a bit. I generally find myself using the same open source apps on both platforms. Firefox and Chrome both sync preferences & bookmarks across devices. Thunderbird with IMAP on both platforms....

Windows 10 has pretty much everything you really need built-in. Defender is good enough for malware protection, Photos is a good viewer & basic photo editor, media player is still there...

 

I have a 2016 Macbook Pro touchbar (First Edition) I have not really seen any improvements worth upgrading that system so this year I purchased a Razer Blade 15 and I have to say either Razer or the Windows Community have really caught up.

I enjoy using both systems but Windows 10 isn't nearly as bad of an experience but I will state that I will NEVER have confidence in Windows to have the sleep ability like Macbooks do. Yes there are people who state that it's alright and there are systems that can handle it, however after watching this video in 2018 I again have ZERO confidence in a Windows machine's ability to wake up from sleep.



I've had two systems that needed mother board replacements due to not being able to wake up from sleep, and I've had multiple experiences of having to do a hard restart as a wake up from sleep mode. I bring this up because I feel like it's rarely discussed but is definitely one the largest upsides of OSX systems. Yet... I still own the same razer blade (With a 1060, due to heat reasons) but I never put mine under sleep mode because there are chances it will sleep like sleeping beauty... Literally...

Still it's pretty bad ass to have both a Macbook and a Razer Blade as your go to systems.

 

I never put to sleep using Lid Closed. I put action Do nothing when closing the lid. With NVMe SSD PC boots/shutdowns in mere seconds.

 

My dell goes to sleep with lid closed and wakes up when I open it. Takes like 3 seconds for my log in screen to appear. EVERY TIME! I have no problems with this feature.

 

We AW users had a bug that'll make the PC to sleep permanently if lid is closed. Haha...

 

weird. Mine never did that at all. Gotta love the 500 dollar inspiron 13 5000 2 in 1. deal of the year!

 

Sleep is actually a very complicated ACPI procedure that requires EVERYTHING to be programmed correctly in the DSDT with proper driver interaction with the SMBUS, LPC, and video cards. If any of these things is broken, so goes sleep. I had a M17x R3 that killed its 6990M because it didn't sleep when I closed the lid and put it into the bag at school, walked to class, greeted by black screen of death indicating GPU failure. My friend lost his razer blade the same way, and another who lost his 2011 MBP this way. Sleep is not a mac/pc specific problem, its a low level coding problem

 

Cool raidriar for the insight on how it works. I just know mine works.

 

Okay so although I understand it isn't a MAC/PC related issue I do know that it simply works on a MacBook, I close my MacBook at any point no matter what I'm doing and I'm able to come back to where I left off without any issue. That alone is one of the primary reasons why I have still kept my MacBook Pro 2016 even though I have a 2018 Razer Blade.

I had some serious considerations of getting rid of it but it's still a great machine for my purposes and is definitely more mobile then my Razer will ever be as that's more or less a mobile desktop but still for the most part a "Desktop"

 

I'm not understanding quite clearly here, other than a couple hour battery difference between MBP and RB, the form factor is the exactly the same, the razer keyboard is leaps and bounds better than the MBP, and has more processing power than the MBP could ever dream of having. I've owned dozens of computers over the years, sleep has never been a fault with any of them? I don't know what you mean when you say "I close my MacBook at any point no matter what I'm doing and I'm able to come back to where I left off without any issue", as that is the essential function of sleep.....I don't know a computer that doesn't do that unless it has some sort of driver or BIOS problem. You have this problem with your RB?

 

If you watched the video I posted the guy did exactly that and it broke and he had to get it replaced. I don't want to experiment with it, even if I do have a warranty and could perhaps get the system replaced I just don't even want to try it...

Oh and also the power adapter isn't exactly the same the MacBook Power Adapter is very travel friendly the Razer One is so-so not terrible but not great either. And the heat the Razer gives off is kinda overwhelming the only game I play is Hearthstone and for a silly card game the Razer gets hotter then you'd expect it to. But I absolutely love the keyboard on the Razer. For the people who say they don't like the Razer Keyboard, I'd love to hear what they have to say about the MacBook Keyboard...

Speakers are also better on the MacBook when listening to music

 

I cannot vouch for windows 10 behavior because I do not use that system, concern may be warranted. If your power adapter is still magsafe on the MBP, then I could understand your sentiment, magsafe was actually the one great innovation Apple had, and I'm still extremely disappointed that the industry never copied it. To add salt to the injury, even Apple has abandoned it in favor of cost savings.

 

While I agree Magsafe was great, it is rather nice to be able to fully disconnect the cable from the actual adapter as I'm very OCD on cable health and how they breakdown over time. Hence why I perhaps hate the Razer one because even after 3 weeks of usage it's beginning to fray away. It is also nice to be able to plug into your system on both ends, the only gains of the USB Type C Charging.

Oh and although the Razer Blade touchpad has come along way the MacBook Pro is still superior in both feel and usability.

 

That's ****ing insane for a computer that costs as much as it does. It's already a proprietary adapter, replacing it won't be cheap, and with poor quality to boot. My M18x power adapter is as nice as the day I unpacked it in 2012.

RB trackpad is now a copy of the mbp trackpad aka glass physical pad with multitouch "ms precision" support. Give it 2 years and it will be interchangable with mbp trackpads

 

For the record when I say Fray, I mean the Cloth aspects of it. the cord itself is probably okay but the cloth is beginning to fray and show hairs (If you know what I mean) and I try not to touch it or stress it. The 90 degree Ange on that cable is (To be nice) debatable...

 

Thats what happens to fabric. IF it gets repeated rubbing in one spot it will fray. No way around it. The cable is fine, just looks like it's failing. it's just a dumb design choice, nothing will happen to your charger.

 

Except it will just get hairy and need a Waxing :`(

 

ha ha..thats a not needed thing though..

 

Waxing? so you just shave it? You know it comes back thicker and fuller when you do that though.

 

that's the lie they told us when we were children....

aside: i've picked up a razer blade pro 1060/1080P myself (more or less traded an ancient alienware m15x +15$) so it seems the two of us are going to keep each other company for some time going forward.

 

I heavily considered that one but the Bezels bothered me, it's nice that the PSU is very small on that which really helps and it has great weight I feel as if my system is pretty much the same thing but the 15 inch version, which is slightly more portable.And even then because I have a 15 inch Macbook Pro it was like... I really should get the 17 inch Razer Blade Pro

 

even I am moving from Mac to Windows. What concerns me more is the number of emails in my Outlook Mac that are not supported in the Windows side. How to fix this??

 

Outlook Mac files are not imported directly to Windows format. Outlook Mac mails are exported in OLM format while the Outlook Windows exports in PST format. At this point, you will need an application that can help you convert OLM files to PST mail format. This isn’t an easy task as most of my emails were in Chinese scripts and Outlook often skipped them from being exported. As a result, the converter tool could not convert my emails to the PST format. I gave a try to OLM to PST Converter Ultimate by Gladwev. This tool offered conversion for up to 10 emails per folder. Amazingly, it converted my Chinese emails as well. I have been owning it for the past few months.

 

This post reminded me of an important thing, before you move to the new system, make sure your files are backed up well. you can take help of Time Machine and similar tools for the same. I use Mail Backup X by Inventpure. It backs up all my emails instanty.

 

Idk my mails are saved on cloud storage so I don't need tools like that, but it's still good for people who save them locally.

 

I don't know I use outlook on both my windows machine and my Macbook and it's been easier than ever to get them both synced. Perhaps because my company has the mail server with Microsoft so I just login and it takes me to their special login pop-window and everything configures easily/magically.

It literally has never been this easy to setup for me in the history of Outlook for the last 10 years, so props to Microsoft for getting Outlook to this current point. No special how-to-guides required on setup.

 

Aren't everyone's mail use cloud server aka mailboxes(ancient days). I don't use retention for my inboxes on Thunderbird aside from few important mails.

 

I used to use Eudora and have all my emails archived from 1996-2013 when it finally lost support server side. I then switched to Thunderbird and archive all my emails and delete the remote emails every few months with a big fetch and store.

 

I too have picked up a Razer Blade Pro but I got the 1080 GTX version with 4k monitor. A friend let me take it off his hands for $1200 which I thought was reasonable. Granted he's a friend and over the years I've helped him out on things like food and other small things here and there. He went to a Macbook Pro and a Desktop and just didn't use or want the system anymore so here we are. One of the other reasons why we sell each other systems for a low price is to leave room for possible upgrades or fixes that we may incur (I sell all of my systems for great prices). I don't intend to use the system as my main or too much so I hope I don't overheat it as there appears to be issues with this particular system, or so I've been told...

 

i don't imagine it will last very long unless you made appropriate cooling modifications, as in applying liquid ultra and adding thermal pads to several locations.

 

Yeah I'll be taking the Liquid Metal Approach and running some modifications on it.

 

So after one month of using the Razer Blade 15 I've concluded that the Macbook Pro Keyboard sucks... It's weird that I actually feel that way but the Razer 15 has a much more enjoyable keyboard to use overall which leads to a much better "Everyday" experience. Even with the odd placement of the ? next to the shift button which is very troublesome for many I'll take it over using the macbook pro low travel keys

 

The "new" MBP keyboard gave me cramps, it is entirely unusable. No such qualms with the razer keyboard, though my favorite keyboards to date are the M17x/M18x keyboard and the T61p keyboards, though razer is a close third.

 

I am probably going to hackintosh my Blade 15 now that I have a Razer Blade Pro to see what thats like it. It should make for a very interesting situation especially when I go to Coffee shops ane people will be like what type of Macbook is that!??!?!

 

The new MBP keyboard also cramps my hands and wrists in a way I've never experienced before on any laptop or keyboard. It is unusable to me for long sessions.

 

What is with the coffee shop laptop craze, I never understood it.

 

I'm not sure myself, I experienced this all through out college, finding typically non-STEM students camping inside the library starbucks cafe, using macbooks nearly exclusively. It was strange

Conversely, you would never find a mac product issued by the engineering department or used as a personal computer by any engineer in the computer lab lol