... who run a copy of microsoft office or windows xp on their mac?
Post here, please! I need help.
I know this isn't RYL related, but still. :)
"When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”
I have Microsoft Office on my Mac. And I guess technically I have Windows XP as well, but it's for Virtual PC, which I'm guessing isn't what you're asking about if you have a newer Mac. Anyway, what do you need help with?
BTW, maybe this would be better in General Chat, since it's not about RYL?
Emily
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Are you referring to Apple's "bootcamp" (www.apple.com/bootcamp) technology Nat? If so, I can give you a lot of advice on that...just post back here and let me know what you need to know :)
Bootcamp...I didnt do that in the end, getting office is just as good, half the effort and you dont have to get anti-virus software. Thats just my personal opinion :)
Basically for the macbook [that I haven't actually got yet but have fallen in love with and ohhh *squeals* <333] I really want either windows xp or office on it, so I've been reading up on it but it's really confused me.
I would prefer to have windows xp, but it looks like it's going to cost a lot of money - there's a choice between using bootcamp, or the parallels thingy [which I would prefer, but it's more expensive]. So, er, say I picked bootcamp, do I just need to download that, get a version of xp and it'll work? And seeing as I'll have to sort the whole thing out myself, is it simple to work out for people like meee? :P If I did get the xp thing, would I then have to buy ms word etc or would it come already with xp?
Or, with office ... do I just buy the office edition for mac, or do I need to get something else?
Another thing [which I know I asked you earlier Aimee but I forgot what you said :P] can I use msn on a mac? As in, Windows Live Messenger? I didn't think you could seeing as it was "windows" and all... but I'm pretty sure people do. :|
Er, sorry for all the rambling and questions. ^_^.
"When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”
Basically for the macbook [that I haven't actually got yet but have fallen in love with and ohhh *squeals* <333] I really want either windows xp or office on it, so I've been reading up on it but it's really confused me.
I would prefer to have windows xp, but it looks like it's going to cost a lot of money - there's a choice between using bootcamp, or the parallels thingy [which I would prefer, but it's more expensive]. So, er, say I picked bootcamp, do I just need to download that, get a version of xp and it'll work? And seeing as I'll have to sort the whole thing out myself, is it simple to work out for people like meee? :P If I did get the xp thing, would I then have to buy ms word etc or would it come already with xp?
Or, with office ... do I just buy the office edition for mac, or do I need to get something else?
Another thing [which I know I asked you earlier Aimee but I forgot what you said :P] can I use msn on a mac? As in, Windows Live Messenger? I didn't think you could seeing as it was "windows" and all... but I'm pretty sure people do. :|
Er, sorry for all the rambling and questions. ^_^.
There are all sorts of reasons, but perhaps it's simply a case of what she is most used to? Mac OS X is great (I use it regularly myself) but each to their own I say...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paperdreams.
Ohh. I didn't think anyone would reply. :)
Basically for the macbook [that I haven't actually got yet but have fallen in love with and ohhh *squeals* <333] I really want either windows xp or office on it, so I've been reading up on it but it's really confused me.
I would prefer to have windows xp, but it looks like it's going to cost a lot of money - there's a choice between using bootcamp, or the parallels thingy [which I would prefer, but it's more expensive]. So, er, say I picked bootcamp, do I just need to download that, get a version of xp and it'll work? And seeing as I'll have to sort the whole thing out myself, is it simple to work out for people like meee? :P If I did get the xp thing, would I then have to buy ms word etc or would it come already with xp?
Or, with office ... do I just buy the office edition for mac, or do I need to get something else?
Another thing [which I know I asked you earlier Aimee but I forgot what you said :P] can I use msn on a mac? As in, Windows Live Messenger? I didn't think you could seeing as it was "windows" and all... but I'm pretty sure people do. :|
Er, sorry for all the rambling and questions. ^_^.
You need to decide on exactly what you want to do with your new Mac before you can decide whether running Windows on it is a good idea Nat. If it's simply compatibility with Microsoft Word documents, there are loads of ways of accomplishing that on the Mac (including the Mac version of MS Office of course). If, on the other hand, you need to run other Windows applications for which there are not Mac equivilents, then Bootcamp or Parallels is the way to go. Can you list here the exact things you want your laptop for and which programs you really need to run on your new Macbook?
If you must run Windows, then you need to decide between Windows XP and Bootcamp. Bootcamp makes you choose between running Windows or Mac OS X (the Mac's naitive software) when you start your laptop. Once you've chosen, your Mac runs that system until you next restart it, at which point you can choose again if you want.
Parallels runs Windows actually within the Mac OS X system - that way you get to have your Windows programs *and* your Mac programs running all at the same time, on the same screen. If you like the Mac software, but there's some Windows app you can't live without, then this is the way to go. You'd be advised to get a little extra RAM in your Macbook though to make this work really smoothly however.
Bootcamp is free at the moment but still beta, which means it's stable but not a final version yet. I've installed it for many of my clients though and it work extremely well. You will need some very basic tech knowledge to get Windows installed, but it's really not too hard, and I'd be able to give you pointers there if you decide to go that route.
Both systems (bootcamp and Parallels) will require a Windows XP CD (and license) to run the Windows side of things. If you do need Windows, drop me a PM and I'll tell you how to get hold of an "OEM copy" - a full commercial license for Windows, but much cheaper than you can buy in the shops and designed only to be used with new hardware like your Macbook. MS Office does not come with Windows at all, and neither does MS Works. Again, let me know and I can sort you out with OEM prices. Finally, you may already have licenses for Office or Works that could be legitimately transferred to your new system?
Both Bootcamp and Parallels will run Windows beautifully. It's quite understandable if you feel you need to go that route, but bear in mind that if you do, you'll be missing out on lots of the advantages of having a Mac in the first place (OS X is very secure and very easy to use).
Yes, Microsoft produce a version of MSN for OS X, but it doesn't support web cams. There are other programs which are MSN compatible which do however. If you run Windows in Bootcamp, you'll just be able to use the Windows version you use now.
Post back with more info, and I'll provide additional guidance :)
James pretty much covered it (and then some), so I'm just going to give my opinion on a couple of points...
If the only thing you'd want Windows for is MS Office stuff, then the Mac version of Office works great, and while it's a little pricey, it's a lot cheaper than Windows XP (especially since you'd still have to buy Office for Windows). I'm guessing your used to Windows, but the Mac OS is really a way better opperating system, and it's definitely worth at least trying it before deciding to stick with Windows. Plus if you want to do everything in Windows rather than Mac OS, then there's not much point in getting a Mac, and it costs a lot more than a comparable Windows computer.
Unless you need to run specific professional software that's for Windows only, or you're really into video games, there's not much that you're likely to want to run that doesn't have a Mac version or functionally equivalent alternative software. The only issue I've had is that there are certain Windows video formats that can't be played on a Mac, including the format used by Amazon Unboxed, so if you want to be able to download NBC programs, or if you want to play videos made in PhotoStory you now need Windows XP or Vista. As far as I can tell, there's no reason for that other than Microsoft being obnoxious, but it's currently my only complaint about having Mac OS only... Oh, and the Mac version of Yahoo! Chat does not support chat rooms if you care about that, but I tried that one in Virtual PC and determined I wasn't missing much...
Emily
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I wanted to get a version of xp because I was worried that a lot of the things I do now on my xp I wouldn't be able to do when I got the mac - but it looks like I was wrong so I don't think I need to get windows. Yay.
I'll be counting down the days 'till I can get the mac now. A month and a bit to go...
"When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”
Yep, that's all you'll need. You just install Office for Mac, and it does everything that Office does in Windows. If you have any Greek letters in a document and switch between a Mac and a PC they usually turn into boxes or some such (don't ask why I know this), but other than that you shouldn't have any problem opening your existing Windows Office documents on your Mac, or opening your new Mac ones on a Windows computer.
And of course, keep in mind that if you find that you do need Windows XP for some reason you can always install it later.
Oh, and MacBooks have a very cool feature called an accelerometer. The purpose is so that if you drop your computer, it knows it's falling and can shut the hard-drive down to protect your data, but a side effect of that is that your computer knows when it's being tilted, allowing it to do such very cool and completely non-productive things as make light-saber sound effects in response to motion. So you'll be squandering the utterly useless coolness of the MacBook if you don't download MacSaber, and a few other such programs
Emily
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"When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”
Yeah, the light saber is one of the reasons I wish I had reason to buy a new computer (my PowerBook doesn't have an accelerometer). Although I think that having a feature that encourages people to swing their computers around would tend to cause a lot more damage than shutting down the hard drive would prevent. Apparently light saber battles are not covered under the warranty, and I'm good enough at dropping my computer without the extra help, so it's probably a good thing I don't have one
Emily
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I was thinking of doing the same boot camp rig of a Mac Lappy if the new LED
backlit displays are any good. I don't usually like notebooks because they are rubbish for photos and I want to cry looking at them (they are mostly all TN panels that lose color/gamma with slightest shift). I can hook them up to a desktop display but I just keep that on the desktop computer. These days a good monitor is the key thing to have if you like taking pix.Let us know how it goes for you ; )
I'm guessing that the displays on the new MacBooks are pretty good. As far as I know, my dad is pretty happy with the display on his, and he was a computer graphics professor for 10 years, now works in computer animation, and is serious into photography, so I think he has pretty high standards. Um... I had a little trouble following the part about an external display, though, as it seems to me that if a laptop is useful to you, then a laptop that only displays photos well when it's connected to an external display would still be perferable to a desktop computer.
Emily
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I like lappies for the portability - even if its just to be able to stretch out on the floor. My problem with them as desktop replacements is that it becomes a pain to disconnect the same printers, scanners, TV cables that I use on Desktops. If my lappy is tied down its not as portable anymore.
Then there is the video card issue. Intel's integrated video on Macs and PC's can't run larger monitors at full resolution (and there is the DVI vs VGA port issues). So then a discrete video card needs to be used and that makes lappy hotter and then noisier because the fans run more. The battery can go quicker too once a discrete card is used. I like a quiet computer -especially when recording things.
It doesnt take much video muscle to work with photos but editing/recoding video or playing video games like Oblivion do much better on desktop. A quad core processor for desktop (I assemble my own) is very cheap right now and I cant get that in lappy. I also like to calibrate monitor and my monitor calibrates to very fine tolerances compared to lap/notebook etc.
I'm completely lost on the video card stuff (not an issue for me anyway as I don't have an external monitor, and wouldn't have any place to put it, don't own a video camera, and don't play video games), but as far as things to disconnect, stick all the printers and scanners and such on one USB hub so you can disconnect it all at once, and then you'll just have like three things do disconnect (USB, internet, power cord), which isn't very much at all.
Emily
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