Is Photoshop less buggy on Windows or on Mac OS?

[tonysiciliano1]

I have always been a Mac user. Currently using a 2013 Mac pro with 32 ram and OS 10.14.6. Before that, for 8 years I used a Mac Tower that was reasonably well fitted out. My desktop is used for LR and Photoshop and little else. I have always kept up to date with OS upgrades (except the current Catalina). Photoshop and LR are on my boot drive, and my photos live on a spinning external drive connected by USB 3. I have checked my hardrives frequently for problems and never have found any. With my old grey desktop, I noticed that over the years Photoshop became increasing fussy, and I had to reset Photoshop preferences often, in the last year about once a month. The same thing is happening now with my 2013 Mac Pro. For the last year I have had to reset preferences about once a month, and currently it is unusable because of some sort of problem (the subject of another post here) that I cannot explain or fix, in spite of uninstalling and reinstalling it multiple times. I have had to create another user and it seems to work OK for now. So, I have questions. What is causing PS to become buggy with age? Is it aging hard drive problems that don't show up with testing? Is it the upgrades in Adobe and Apple that are creating the problem, ie, a software issue between two complicated programs that just become increasing pronounced with age? Is it inscrutable hidden corrupted files that don't disapper with uninstalling and reinstalling? And, I would like to know if PC users have had the same problem, Photoshop becoming buggy after a few years and well equipped hardware. It is only a matter of time that my 2013 Mac will not be compatible with the latest Mac OS upgrade and I will need to replace my computer. I am seriously considering jumping ship to a PC, for all of the well described deficiencies in Apple desktops: lack of much of a choice, inability to upgrade components, and cost. Is there any consensus out there regarding ease of use of Photoshop on aging PCs verses Macs?

[John Nollendorfs]

Tony:
I think you are opening up a real can of worms with your post! ;-)
There are a lot of MAC fan boys on this forum, and of course a lot of PC veterans also, so it will be interesting to hear what comes of this thread.

I was a MAC fan until about 15 years ago, when my 3 year-old MAC tower mother board went south, and they wanted $800 to replace it. Went to Best Buy, picked up a $500 HP PC tower, that lasted about 3 years before needing a new power supply. Since then I built my own, using quality components, that has been humming along just fine with PS6 which I own--no continuing payments to Adobe! Seems to do all I need for printing Art reproduction prints on my HP Z3200 printers.

The transition in using Windows, was probably the hardest part. Photoshop itself basically seemed to be the same.

Look foreward to the comments!

[PeterAit]

About 12 years ago I bought a (then) high-end PC from Dell and used PS and LR on it for many years without issues. Then a year ago, realizing my hardware was way out of date, I had a local computer shop build me a super-fast system and I have been running the programs there ever since without any issues. So there you have it. Maybe I have just been lucky. But one of my approaches is to keep this computer just for photo work and it has almost no other programs installed beyond MS Office.

[luxborealis]

I’ve been using Macs, mostly MBPs from the beginning with never a problem with bugginess from PS or Lr. I know Windows folks who say the same of their system. The hiccup along the way has been the need to upgrade when OSs have gone to ew-bit and now 64-bit, but again, never a problem. Hopefully I’ve not jinxed myself.

The (rhetorical) question I have is for John: why are Mac users “fan boys” but Windows users are “veterans”?

[kers]

In the mix:   I have a Hackintosh- basicly a PC-tower with components in it that alows OSX to operate.
No stability problems...
But I do have sometimes a problem with painting with a Wacom..., but that is a wacom-OSX problem.

[rdonson]

I used to make my living with computers of all sorts all the way to mainframes. I guess that dates me.

I’ve been using personal computers since they started showing up.  That predates Windows. I’ve owned and used a wide range of IBM, Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. machines and several brands that no longer exist.  Honestly, I wasn’t a Windows fan boy.  I disliked their approach to operating systems though I used them daily. Things have changed a lot though in the last 7-8 years for Windows and mainly for the better.

I moved my personal computers about 8 years ago to Macs. I appreciate that the operating system and hardware are designed and created by the same company. I’ve had no issues with Adobe products on my Macs that weren’t created by Adobe.

Which way you choose to go these days is a personal choice.  I don’t think you’ll see a huge difference either way.  Some people choose Windows machines because they don’t want to learn something new. That’s a perfectly legitimate choice.

[BobShaw]

I have a 2013 iMac and have not noticed any Photoshop problems.
One problem with Adobe is that it fills your computer with rubbish.
I just went through the exercise of removing Adobe bits and pieces like AAM that were superseded years ago but did not get removed in upgrades.
If you have CC then everything should be 64 bit now so do the About this Mac / System Preferences / Applications thing and have a look for old bits. Also check your Library and Preferences for old printers, etc

Use applications / Font Book to check for broken fonts also.

I am concerned about Catalina too but would sooner buy a recent Mojave machine than any PC. I have VMware Fusion and am trying that but a second basic machine for my various older programmes may be the go.

[John Nollendorfs]

The (rhetorical) question I have is for John: why are Mac users “fan boys” but Windows users are “veterans”?

In the beginning (of personal computers) IBM provided a vast library of manuals for their machines and they didn't believe in mice. The MAC made a lot of sense to me back in 1984, and it was cute and WYSIG. I was an unabashed "fanboy". Typically I perceive, MAC users tend to have fanboy coments. PC users, I perceive have more user rich comments as to operating system options, etc.

But in the end, they are both just tools that we get to know how to use. It is good to have multiple options. Maybe someday, I will explore the Linux option too, but without some handholding with an experienced operator, I am quite reticent.