One program you might want to add to your “Writing Software for Windoze” list is IdeaMason:
Actually it may have some useful features that could be incorporated into Scrivener…
This seems to have disappeared without much comment on this forum. By the brief demo I looked at, IdeaMason looks pretty close to the top of the pile of writing software for Windows.
Having a writer friend with a Windows laptop I really want to help them find something as close to Scrivener as possible; IdeaMason impressed me immediately, but I’ve yet to spend much time with it…
EDIT: as always, windows apps seem really busy with tabs, buttons and colours everywhere. As a recent switcher, I’m amazed at how subtly important a unified and elegant interface is - thank you OS X!
nontroppo,
It depends what your friend requires the Windows writing-tool for.
IdeaMason is an excellent if expensive piece of software. The developers seem very responsive. Like Scrivener it’s designed for gathering research, outlining and drafting, but not polishing. I own a copy, and before moving Mac-wards, I used it for both factual and fiction writing. However, it’s factual writing it’s primarily suited for, with its various citation tools, and it lacks some of the functions that make Scrivener so attractive to a fiction writer.
For fiction writing on Windows I recommend PageFour ([url] softwareforwriting.com/pagefour.html [url])- as also recommended on the links of this site. A simple but steady and less expensive piece of software, padding along in the footsteps of Scrivener but several miles behind it.
H