- If macOS is the only OS that you use regularly that gets in a fucked up state, then either you're not using Windows or it's gotten a lot better in the last few years. :) (I mean, it undeniably has gotten better, but I have Windows-using acquaintances who still kvetch about this issue pretty regularly.)
- I've been using Macs since 1999 and I don't think I've had to reset the PRAM to fix a problem since my Titanium MacBook Pro circa 2007. I've had to nuke other settings on occasion, but still generally have markedly fewer problems than I did in my Windows-using days. (Which were more recent than 1999, but still not that recent, so back to the "I'm sure it's better now" disclaimer.)
But, Apple definitely needs to have a better mechanism for managing config file updates than "yeah, we've put a few old config files in subfolders of this 'RecoveredFiles' folder, maybe they're useful, maybe they're not, good luck."
Windows definitely allows you to shoot yourself in the foot, but nowadays those settings are hidden away by non-flashy applications, which has now become synonymous with "advanced user shit I probably shouldn't be touching".
Though the difference is, if something gets royally screwed up on MacOS, at least there's a sane enough way to reset it. On Windows, it often entails a reformat.
And let's not get started on the Windows Updates. They too have the whole "reset settings" problem (e.g. "don't f&!king restart my computer randomly", which gets reset every somewhat major update).
Computing has changed since 2007, so you have to include Android, iOS, iPadOS, ChromeOS, and various flavors of Linux in that lineup to be complete, not just Windows and OS X.
Well, in my admittedly anecdotal experience, Linux has less of a chance of getting FUBARed up by mysterious settings glitches. (I have had a Linux install get spectacularly FUBARed at least once from a broken update process, but usually it's happened through operator error, albeit sometimes aided and abetted by some program's spectacularly bad UX.)
As for the rest, my suspicion is that the newer "mobile generation" OSes both tend to get messed up much less often this way and tend to have much less recourse to the user when they do. That's certainly true for iOS/iPadOS and I suspect it's true for ChromeOS; I suspect Android is probably somewhere between iOS and Linux on that scale.
- If macOS is the only OS that you use regularly that gets in a fucked up state, then either you're not using Windows or it's gotten a lot better in the last few years. :) (I mean, it undeniably has gotten better, but I have Windows-using acquaintances who still kvetch about this issue pretty regularly.)
- I've been using Macs since 1999 and I don't think I've had to reset the PRAM to fix a problem since my Titanium MacBook Pro circa 2007. I've had to nuke other settings on occasion, but still generally have markedly fewer problems than I did in my Windows-using days. (Which were more recent than 1999, but still not that recent, so back to the "I'm sure it's better now" disclaimer.)
But, Apple definitely needs to have a better mechanism for managing config file updates than "yeah, we've put a few old config files in subfolders of this 'RecoveredFiles' folder, maybe they're useful, maybe they're not, good luck."