Extensive edits lost

[kewms]

Yup, there always will be people, who will take the blue pill, and then there are those who value freedom above all.

My father-in-law seems to value the freedom to visit sketchy web sites that deposit malware on his system. Which is fine, as long as he's not asking us to clean up the mess.

Katherine

[devinganger]

If anyone read my comments as putting down Windows or being dismissive of it or in any way doing anything to fuel the stupid Windows/Mac religious flamewar, stop. I am very, very tired of energy and shade being thrown to argue over stupid crap or imply that people who do things differently are somehow making a bad decision.

I have both Windows 10 and a Mac on my desktop and use them for different tasks (I literally bought a used Mac mini so I could use Scrivener 3; the fact I can also use it to help troubleshoot work scenarios is just icing on the cake). I use Windows, Linux, and Mac for work. I like Microsoft Office and love its subscription model as a good fit for my family, but have good friends who can't stand Office and swear by other productivity packages. Who is right?

The process of design is the process of compromise. You can't have everything; therefore, to design something new (whether it's a computer, a phone, an operating system, an application) you have to pick the requirements and traits that are important to you and go from there.

ALL hardware sucks (in some fashion, from some viewpoint).

ALL software sucks (in some fashion, from some viewpoint).

You pick the flavor of suckage that you can live with and then you take the consequences of that choice. This will be a different point for everyone. Part of successfully using Scrivener on Windows is having to be more aware of the effects that third-party software has on the overall system, recognizing potentially risky practices, and being aware of the extra troubleshooting steps you may have to indulge in if something goes wrong.

(For what it's worth, the big enemy is expecting to be able to just run something without having to think about it or put any effort into understanding it. If you're that kind of user, you will garbage up any device, OS, or app you use. I have made a great career out of architecting for and cleaninup after these people at all levels. I've seen the most messed-up stuff you would never believe on Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and every other operating system -- except maybe BeOS, and maybe that was because you couldn't do anything enough to really screw it up. Hell, I've seen exotic levels of weaponized stupid on *Arduino* devices...)

[devinganger]

Yup, there always will be people, who will take the blue pill, and then there are those who value freedom above all.

My father-in-law seems to value the freedom to visit sketchy web sites that deposit malware on his system. Which is fine, as long as he's not asking us to clean up the mess.

I started charging a "friends and family" rate that was 250% of my normal corporate rate. The only two family members who get free tech support from me any more are my mother and my sister, because neither of them abuse the privilege and both try their hardest to learn and research before they call me.

[Major Major]

If anyone read my comments as putting down Windows or being dismissive of it or in any way doing anything to fuel the stupid Windows/Mac religious flamewar, stop. I am very, very tired of energy and shade being thrown to argue over stupid crap or imply that people who do things differently are somehow making a bad decision.

I have both Windows 10 and a Mac on my desktop and use them for different tasks (I literally bought a used Mac mini so I could use Scrivener 3; the fact I can also use it to help troubleshoot work scenarios is just icing on the cake). I use Windows, Linux, and Mac for work. I like Microsoft Office and love its subscription model as a good fit for my family, but have good friends who can't stand Office and swear by other productivity packages. Who is right?

The process of design is the process of compromise. You can't have everything; therefore, to design something new (whether it's a computer, a phone, an operating system, an application) you have to pick the requirements and traits that are important to you and go from there.

ALL hardware sucks (in some fashion, from some viewpoint).

ALL software sucks (in some fashion, from some viewpoint).

You pick the flavor of suckage that you can live with and then you take the consequences of that choice. This will be a different point for everyone. Part of successfully using Scrivener on Windows is having to be more aware of the effects that third-party software has on the overall system, recognizing potentially risky practices, and being aware of the extra troubleshooting steps you may have to indulge in if something goes wrong.

(For what it's worth, the big enemy is expecting to be able to just run something without having to think about it or put any effort into understanding it. If you're that kind of user, you will garbage up any device, OS, or app you use. I have made a great career out of architecting for and cleaninup after these people at all levels. I've seen the most messed-up stuff you would never believe on Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and every other operating system -- except maybe BeOS, and maybe that was because you couldn't do anything enough to really screw it up. Hell, I've seen exotic levels of weaponized stupid on *Arduino* devices...)

Amen (sorry to quote so much for such a brief post, but in this case I think it's justified).

[kewms]

(For what it's worth, the big enemy is expecting to be able to just run something without having to think about it or put any effort into understanding it. If you're that kind of user, you will garbage up any device, OS, or app you use. I have made a great career out of architecting for and cleaninup after these people at all levels. I've seen the most messed-up stuff you would never believe on Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and every other operating system -- except maybe BeOS, and maybe that was because you couldn't do anything enough to really screw it up. Hell, I've seen exotic levels of weaponized stupid on *Arduino* devices...)

Yep. Computers have gotten smarter but humans mostly haven't. -- Katherine

[KarenBlehm]

Wow! I bought scrivener a while ago ... set it aside due to my 8 AM- 9PM day job. When I get a chunk of time off (like now) I want to learn about use of scrivener and hopefully write. Reading about folks losing their work is scary. Reading the responses and trying to determine what it means is too. I do not want to be a victim of lost time/words/work since my time on scrivener is inconsistent. How does one know when a sync is finalized? How can one "save" when working with windows and know it is saved? What does it take? Is it true that going Mac is really the only way to prevent loss of time/writing? Is there a trick to ensuring the whole project gets saved and not just parts of the project? Now I'm just nervous about writing on scrivener and losing it all.

[krastev]

Wow! I bought scrivener a while ago ... set it aside due to my 8 AM- 9PM day job. When I get a chunk of time off (like now) I want to learn about use of scrivener and hopefully write. Reading about folks losing their work is scary. Reading the responses and trying to determine what it means is too. I do not want to be a victim of lost time/words/work since my time on scrivener is inconsistent. How does one know when a sync is finalized? How can one "save" when working with windows and know it is saved? What does it take? Is it true that going Mac is really the only way to prevent loss of time/writing? Is there a trick to ensuring the whole project gets saved and not just parts of the project? Now I'm just nervous about writing on scrivener and losing it all.

No, Mac computers have the same issues as the Windows one. If you search this forum you'll notice there are an equal number of people on both platforms, that have the same problems.

The only strategy that can save your a** is to back up your work every day, on and off-site. That mean to have local and cloud copies of your backup files.

[kewms]

Wow! I bought scrivener a while ago ... set it aside due to my 8 AM- 9PM day job. When I get a chunk of time off (like now) I want to learn about use of scrivener and hopefully write. Reading about folks losing their work is scary. Reading the responses and trying to determine what it means is too. I do not want to be a victim of lost time/words/work since my time on scrivener is inconsistent. How does one know when a sync is finalized? How can one "save" when working with windows and know it is saved? What does it take? Is it true that going Mac is really the only way to prevent loss of time/writing? Is there a trick to ensuring the whole project gets saved and not just parts of the project? Now I'm just nervous about writing on scrivener and losing it all.

How to know when a sync is finalized? That depends on the synchronization service you're using. Dropbox has a little icon on the menu bar that changes. Other services may have other indicators.

How to "save" and know that your work is saved? Scrivener does it automatically, whenever you've been idle for a (configurable) number of seconds.

Is going to a Mac the only way? No. Nor is switching to the Mac a guarantee.

How to ensure the whole project is saved? Scrivener does that for you. You only get in trouble if you move parts of the project independent from the rest of it. Easiest way to avoid doing that? Use ZIP backups if you need to permanently move a project between systems. Use the Save As command if you want to create a copy of the project in a synchronized folder, such as a Dropbox folder.

Also, as Krastev said, backup your work. Automatically. Every day. But that's true with *any* work you don't want to lose, whether created with Scrivener or another program. FWIW, I've been using Scrivener since the first commercial release, and I've never lost a syllable. Remember that people don't generally bother to post "I've written 100,000 words in Scrivener and nothing bad happened," so there's a very significant selection bias in the forum posts.

Katherine