Windows To Mac

[guardian]

When it comes to using Windows, I could be catogerized in the intermediate level. I can solve many basic problems without going through any help files or sites for help.

If I want to try my hands on Apple Mac, will there be a heavy learning curve or would it be easy?

Thanks and regards,

Guardian

[Moonfruit]

I found the main problem in transition to be learning all the keyboard shortcuts, and the lack of a right mouse button on the keyboard.

It took me about two weeks to get used to Mac, and ive never looked back. It sounds like we were about the same windoze level.

I find Mac OSX to be like Windoze for dummies. I can see myself ever going back!

All this after being a mac sceptic for many years....

[eugengeri]

Mac and now the OSX is built more logical than Windows, has less crashes and the most profit is, not to fear of virusis.

...that's my experiences since more than 10 years .

[Meerkat]

I did the switch a few months ago; was a doddle.

Agree with the poster about having to learn the new keyboard shortcuts, but that was about it. iMacs have a two-button mouse (well, four-button actually) - you only have the one-button problem with laptops (and of course you can simply plug in a mouse to get round that).

I still use Windows on some of my PCs, and am quite comfortable using both operating systems concurrently.

[phazey]

the button problem with macbook does not exist. Single finger tap for left click, two finger tap for right click, and two finger "drag" for scroll window - also CTRL-tap/click acts as right click. It's way better than it sounds, and i'm really glad i made the change.

Vista just will not compete with OS X - using the Mac has made my day to day work far more productive, it has the ease of use of windows (even easier) with a nice unix backend that lets me do my proper job without jumping into a remote shell somewhere.

After work...well, there is nothing i can't do just about to put 7 years of video onto DVD with nice menus, chapter selection and shiny realtime effects - and thats all including with the OS Would dread to think of doing that with XP.

and for all that nice windows software you really can't do without, there is an application called "Crossover" that will allow the execution of windows apps within OSX - so thats Half-Life 2 running at a decent speed too - it's a commercial version of Darwine.....

[guardian]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I heard that the latest version of Mac can run on a Intel based PC. Is it true? If so, can I set up dual operating system on an Intel based PC?

Guardian

[Lannig]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I heard that the latest version of Mac can run on a Intel based PC. Is it true? If so, can I set up dual operating system on an Intel based PC?

Guardian

Short answer: no

Longer answer: running MacOSX on *some* models of Intel-based PCs is possible, but illegal (Apple doesn't want this) and requires a cracked version of MacOSX to circumvent the hardware checks that Apple has put in MacOSX to make sure it's running on an Apple brand machine.

It's a lot of trouble to get through, hardware support is very limited, only a handful of mainboard chipsets/LAN cards/audio chipsets are supported, this makes all automatic updating impossible. But if you can make it, dual booting MacOSX and Win is definitely possible.

Was it in my dreams that my Thinkpad happily dual-booted Windows or MacOSX? probably.

--Lannig

[phazey]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I heard that the latest version of Mac can run on a Intel based PC. Is it true? If so, can I set up dual operating system on an Intel based PC?

Guardian

Prefered Answer: No, Non-Beta builds of OSX require TPM (Trusted Platform Manegment), which is embedded on the motherboard to ensure it's running on Apple hardware.

My Answer: with the *cough* beta, you will get good success on certain Dell laptops, which are similar to development machines that apple used to create the Intel OS X build. I've ran it on my Compaq lappy - no sound/network or core graphics (due to no SSE3 support) but enough to guage the speed (faster than a PPC 800 tiBook) Maxxus may help.

My choice to switch was made with a PPC emulator called PearPC - using this, i could determine what proffesional applications i would loose, what i would gain and what i would benefit from. turned out this was very little (MS VISIO) so i jumped in at the shallow end and got a little G3 850 iBook. $300 bargain. easily outperformed my 1.5m compaq running windows.

After the GPU failed (corroded solder on the logicboard) i jumped to a macbook. Simply the best buy i've ever made. To support this, the wife wants one....so i see a Pro on the horizon

[OldAsiaHand]

For what it's worth, I second all of the above. The Mac offers superior hardware and superior software. What else can you ask for?

When I made the switch a couple of years ago, I found the learning curve to be essentially zero. if you're nervous, however, there is a good book in the Missing Manual series called 'Switching to the Mac' or something like that. It's entirely unnecessary, but it might make you more comfortable. Search Amazon and you'll find it.

[guardian]

Is there any software or utility to test the compatibility of an Intel based PC to set it up to run Mac.

I always like to try out before buying anything.

One man's meat might be another man's poison.

Considering the replies I got for my question and if I am able to test out the Mac OS, either by installing on a PC or trying it out on someone else's Mac, and IF I really like it, I'll be thinking of switching over to Mac.

One last question. I have a few accounting software still running in MS-DOS. Is there any way to make these run under Mac if I decide to upgrade?

Thanks and regards,

Guardian

[GoodHeart]

One last question. I have a few accounting software still running in MS-DOS. Is there any way to make these run under Mac if I decide to upgrade?

You could run them using Windoze inside Parallels

Originally, you inquired about the learning curve involved in 'switching'. Here's a good resource for online video tutorials. I think most of the OS X resources are free. See: Training from lynda.com

Edited August 9, 2006 by GoodHeart

[lunatic69]

Running windows on a mac? ...Yes of course with BOOTCAMP you can! More information here and here. It is even possible to have a triple boot and run OS X Windows XP and Linux on a mac.

The only thing you need is a Intel Mac computer.

With VIRTUALPC on a Mac with PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor you can run Windows XP windowed in your OS X system and then you don't need a new Intel Mac computer, more information here

So now you can finally use the best of both operating systems.

If you like the Mac look you can change your PC into a mac with Engadget but you will never have the mac OS x then only the mac look.

[tjo o tjim]

I'd say it isn't worth the effort to try and use it on another piece of hardware. The macs themselves are well put together and supported by Apple.

Likewise, if you buy a mac and aren't happy with it, there is no problem installing windows on it. The risk now is really nil. In the olden days with the PowerPC chips, there was a real risk that if something didn't do what you needed, well... you were screwed. Today, as long as you like the hardware, any software problems are easily eliminated, either by installing windows, dual-booting, or running virtualization (like Parallels).

No more excuses... just do it.

[cathyy]

With VIRTUALPC on a Mac with PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor you can run Windows XP windowed in your OS X system and then you don't need a new Intel Mac computer, more information here

Microsoft has pulled their support of Virtual PC. There will be no Virtual PC for the Intel Macs.

There IS a new Windows emulator called Parallels. I have tried it, and quite frankly I prefer to run my Windows apps natively with Boot Camp. The rebooting is a pain, but it's better than the performance hit you get from using ANY emulator.

[phazey]

With VIRTUALPC on a Mac with PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor you can run Windows XP windowed in your OS X system and then you don't need a new Intel Mac computer, more information here

Microsoft has pulled their support of Virtual PC. There will be no Virtual PC for the Intel Macs.

There IS a new Windows emulator called Parallels. I have tried it, and quite frankly I prefer to run my Windows apps natively with Boot Camp. The rebooting is a pain, but it's better than the performance hit you get from using ANY emulator.

Parellels runs PDQ when the tools are installed. Worth the effort if you need a few windows apps for compatibilities sake. Remember it's not an emulator, but a VM hypervisor - the guest OS instructions are simply handed off to the host machines hardware without any modification or manipulation. Probably the only thing i tried and laughed at the results were games - but windows apps performed as they would have if it was a native install. VMware just got announced also, so there will be a choice soon.

[eugengeri]

With VIRTUALPC on a Mac with PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor you can run Windows XP windowed in your OS X system and then you don't need a new Intel Mac computer, more information here

Microsoft has pulled their support of Virtual PC. There will be no Virtual PC for the Intel Macs.

There IS a new Windows emulator called Parallels. I have tried it, and quite frankly I prefer to run my Windows apps natively with Boot Camp. The rebooting is a pain, but it's better than the performance hit you get from using ANY emulator.

I think the OP has asked about ... "will there be a heavy learning curve or would it be easy?"

IMO with emulators it makes sure not much easier - Apple keyboards for example (shortcuts).