Return to Windows?

      by Wyatt Walter

Since last Tuesday when CrossOver offered their products for free, I’ve been installing all my old Windows games to see if they’d run on my Mac. I plan on reporting my results, but I ran into an interesting situation in one of my tests. It was a battle of wits greater than The Princess Bride.

The game I was experimenting with was one that I’d played thousands of times in my former Windows life. Dirt Track Racing 2 from Infogrames ran beautifully under CrossOver with one small exception. When you hit escape while racing, the menu didn’t display. If I hit the up arrow which would “move” the “cursor” which did not exist to the “quit” button that didn’t exist and hit enter I could still exit the race. Only a minor workaround was required. However, when using the menus to exit the game itself was where it got interesting. I was prompted by this intriguing question:

I came to an impasse. Clearly I can’t choose “Yes”. I can’t in my right mind go back to Windows after seeing the light with Mac and Linux. Of course, even if I wanted, I don’t have Windows installed on this machine. This answer truly went against my deepest convictions and desires of my heart. Yet, if I answer “No” it takes me back to the game menu. So, logically, I can’t answer “No” or I’ll get nowhere. However, if I answer “Yes” then I am admitting that my *NIX diversion was just that: a diversion. It was like I was somehow admitting that I needed to come back to Windows. But still, I can’t answer “No” because then I’m back to where I started and can’t get out of the game. While trying to escape Windows, it had backed me in to a corner. Obviously, Windows wanted me to say yes but I couldn’t in good conscience answer “Yes” to the question “Return to Windows?”!

In the end, I ended up just shutting down the machine to avoid answering the question. I’d rather lose data then go back to the list of troubles I had with Windows. :)

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Filed under Just for Fun : Comments (0) : Nov 5th, 2008