When I first bought Scrivener I did for my PC, but found it to be very unreliable and crash frequently (V3), so I ended up buying a MacBook which generally is rock solid. The downside is I hate Mac and do everything else on a PC. So can anyone tell me if the reliability issues on the PC improved, and about any other changes between the PC version and Mac as I would love to go back to PC, but that means moving thousands of files, so I do not want to do that unless everything is fixed now.
@Aricsdaddy in my experience (Windows) I have found Scrivener V3 (Windows 10) to be reliable and stable across three laptops over time. My laptop is fairly old (not upgradeable to Windows 11) and has 16Gb RAM. It sounds like there may be something else going on there that would either have gone away with updates or needs further investigation.
Having said all of that, I have considered stepping into Mac land-but most of what I do is better served in Windows. I certainly envied Mac world back in Version 1 days. I did have a period of non-optimum experience with the Beta release which was certainly less stable than present-but all of that was to be fully expected and long past.
To transition, I suggest using a cloud (I use Dropbox for working and Sync for backups) and see how you go. Remember to check the setting to force local save for all files in any directory you are using for Scrivener. That will give you the opportunity to seek further help should it be needed-without losing working access to your data.
All the best with any testing you do.
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Hi, and thanks for the feedback.
I have a few PC’s and a license for Mac and PC, so maybe I will make a copy of the files and try it again on Win 10 and Win 11, and see how it gets on. I really want to get out of the Mac eco system, more so since they moved to Arm; if they had stayed Intel I would have just dual booted the Mac, but these days I need a very powerful CPU for windows, and well…
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From the time v3 was first released, it has been stable for me and–probably–most customers. I can say “most customers” with confidence, because if the software wasn’t stable for most customers, these forums would be filled with posts about their issues.
There are customers who experience crashes, freezes, or other adverse issues. Most of these can be traced to an overreaching antivirus or incorrect cloud service settings or a wonky install or–believe it or not–outdated video drivers. Note that these issues are all device dependent–they have nothing to do with the Scrivener software itself and everything to do with the PC it’s running on.
This thread and this one are the only active ones on the forums I’m aware of where customers are having issues that have not yet been resolved.
All that to say, Windows Scrivener v3 is stable for most; a small number have issues, most of which are fixable.
If your PC doesn’t have one of the issues mentioned above, then you should be fine. Try it and find out. That’s probably the only way to answer your question. 
Best,
Jim
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I can confirm the Windows version is horrible over the Mac version (and I hate Mac.) it also missed a massive amount of pages and images when compiling, making it worthless. Oh and the layout and page function on the Mac is way better too.
I can’t speak to your other points, but this issue above is clearly down to your compile settings. That is, there is no flaw in the Windows Scrivener compile feature such that it randomly drops pages and images. If you post the specifics of the issue and your compile settings, I’m confident people here can solve it.
Best,
Jim
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The compile settings are exactly the same on each computer. It reminds me of when I got my Mac after the C&L pointed out some of the issues years ago. When one has 1389 pages and it missed a huge number of them on Windows, and hundred’s of MB of images, that is an issue. The Mac has no issue with them though.
It’s possible you’ve found a mysterious but disastrous bug in Windows Scriv that–up to now–has remained hidden from thousands of users. But surely you see that is a very unlikely proposition.
More likely is that there is a difference in compile settings or that not all the document data was transferred from Mac to Windows or that the path to your images was broken during the transfer or something else that is local to your device and your data that is–probably–easily fixable, once it is identified.
If you’d like help solving it, then maybe start with providing how you moved the data to your PC. Also, how are you referencing the images? Are they embedded in your project or do you keep them external to the project and use links?
Best,
Jim
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