Your Mac-mini detour echoes my own OS hopscotch: cut my teeth on MS-DOS, laid out high-school yearbooks on a set of four Beatle-named beige Macs (Ringo, John, Paul and George) then spent years shuttling print files between both worlds. I still default to Windows—compatibility is king—but I miss macOS’s application structure, its easy system font management, and the way ColorSync keeps images honest. My biggest hurdle is muscle memory: Cmd-versus-Ctrl swaps and Finder’s take on file paths.

If gaming is the pain point, maybe a streaming service (GeForce NOW, Xbox Cloud) or a Parsec link to a Windows box can save you a reboot. Boot Camp on an external SSD is another “both worlds” fallback that keeps the internal drive clean.

What macOS quirk is tripping you up most—shortcuts, settings, or the app ecosystem? And for anyone who ping-pongs between OSes, what single tweak or mindset shift finally made macOS click?

So I used to work in the newspaper business. During my long career I had to learn how to use Macs and Windows PC's. What I always tell people is that a computer is a computer. I like Windows better because it's more customizable. I use Stardock products. I also use Rainmeter and Rainlendar2. 

Both of those computers have a lot to offer. Once you learn how to use both systems it isn't that hard to go from one to the other. That's my experience.

I bought a used Mac just so that I could use both but I found that the Mac was just collecting dust so I gave it to my daughter. She quickly learned how to use the Mac. She had always had Windows computers. She likes it.

Always wanted to try a Mac, but never had one available to play with.

Now I wonder if it's really worth it because I'm thinking of abandoning Ps...dissatisfied/angry with Adobe's nonsense.

I'll probably end up going with a tablet...maybe an iPad.

Its funny oftentimes..

A Mac user loves Apple and dislikes Microsofts

A Windows user dislikes Microsoft, but dislikes Mac even more

A Mac just works but at the cost of software / hardware freedom and flexibility

A Windows OS kind of doesn't work, but with the software / hardware flexibility you can make it better regardless of what Microsoft is trying to do.

In spite of ....

In the late 80's into the mid 90's, I used the Mac exclusively. Mac was a different beast back then. The UI was similar to Windows during that time period, but the CPU architecture was RISC instead of 8086.

As far as reliability goes, a total system crash at least three times every day was normal. So many times I lost work since most software didn't offer auto-save and I would forget to save.

The UI is so different now, I'm not sure I could easily jump back and forth between Windows and Mac.

I believe most of the new Mac's run on an Apple proprietary ARM chips, which seems to be the direction personal computing is headed. Once the major software vendors offer native ARM compatibility, the industry will make the switch.

So after following a few tutorials I actually managed to get Windows 11 installed on the Mac. Runs flawlessly. Very stable. A bit more stable then Windows 10. I even managed to get my old games to run on the Mac, even a few of the new ones. 

Congrats, Kona! Installing Windows 11 on your Mac mini and having it outperform Windows 10 is no small feat. It sounds like you’ve struck gold with stability and game compatibility. One thing that’s helped me in similar setups is simply disabling any unnecessary startup apps before booting into Windows—frees up RAM and cuts down on background noise without diving into driver tweaks.

Which game surprised you most with its performance? Did you notice any hiccups in longer play sessions, or has everything stayed rock-solid? I’d love to hear if a particular title ran unexpectedly well, or if you discovered any easy adjustments that made a big difference for you.