Laptop is dying and contemplating replacing it with a Mac for all the usual reasons.

I have a couple of issues that I want some reassurance on though.

– I need to be able to port over documents and Powerpoint presentations to use on my work PC. The work PC is old, and running WinXP and Word 2002. I know I can get MS office stuff on the mac, but just wondering how well it ports over or if I’m going to be having formatting issues. Is the iWork suite a no-go if I want interoperability?

– I really want to be able to use Memory Map on my laptop, which I think means using bootcamp or some kind of emulator. Does anyone have any experience of doing this. Will I need a separate windows licence and all that too?

Regarding Word etc – we use both Macs and PCs at work and they all work pretty much seamlessly across the platforms.

Word is very slow on a Mac though – it takes about 7 hours to start up alone. I assume this is a deliberate attempt by Master Gates to make Macs look shit.

http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/

Can’t help on the XP issue (although I suspect you will need a licence – I’m sure you can use the one for your present laptop) – but I expect you’ll have no formatting issues with the Office files, not sure about iWork.
Make sure you’ve got the same fonts on the mac as you have on the PC (i.e. copy any special ones you’ve got off the pc before it dyes and you can them put them on the mac)

re Memorymap – you will need to run in Windows via bootcamp.

It’s the only program i still need windows for, which is a shame since i reckon it’s one which would be ace on Mac OS.

You will need a full version of windows to install it on the bootcamp partition. However, if you’re laptop is getting binned, you could use the license key from that copy?

The only issue I had when I switched was that Excel is crap on the mac. It does all sorts of things slightly differently to the windows version and will drive you mad!

Word is fine, but on the whole I use OpenOffice, it’s never let me down yet…

Laptop is dying and contemplating replacing it with a Mac for all the usual reasons.

Why? You already know how to use Windows, do you really want to have to learn a new OS? The only real reason I can think of is that you fancy a nice new shiny PC, is that it?

Word is fine, but on the whole I use OpenOffice, it’s never let me down yet…

It’s fine as long as you’re the only person editing the document, or anyone else modifying it is also using OpenOffice. If someone else starts the document in Word, you continue editing it in OO, then move back to Word etc. you’re in for a whole world of pain.

do you really want to have to learn a new OS?

Would take about 5-10 mins.

The only real reason I can think of is that you fancy a nice new shiny PC, is that it?

OSX is just ‘nice’ to use and the knowledge that you’re very unlikely to get a virus/malware/spyware is even nicer.
I use XP for work (no Mac software for our scanning requirements) but I now use OSX (hackintosh) for sofa surfing, playing.

Thanks for the replies thus far.

How is powerpoint on the mac? Is it slow and useless like word is? That could begin to be a real pain if it is.

Oh, and mogrim, I’ve heard all the arguments for and against, they’re tedious. If you’ve got nothing to add to my actuyal questions I’m not interested.

stevious – I think there was a new version of office for mac released fairly recently (like last year)

It’s possible some people are commenting on the last version (which seems fine to me, although is slightly “different” – i’m not a heavy enough user to judge though really – it does seem slow to start up).

I would google for reviews of the latest version – someone is bound to have done some proper direct comparisons

I wouldn’t worry about Office being too slow – Word, Excel and Powerpoint from Office 2011 are all pretty nippy on any recent Mac. If you can get to an apple store (or John Lewis – maybe), they have Office loaded on them and you could play and check it’s good enough for you. Compatibility is very unlikely to be a problem. I have seen some very complex spreadsheets (large macros) that don’t run properly on the Mac version but not seen any problems on anything else.

Memory Map – Parallels Desktop (or VMWare) will let you run windows in a VM (not emulator) – which will work just fine for Memory Map – and most other things other than more modern games. You will need a licensed copy of windows for this. It means you don’t have to reboot to use windows.

Will I need a separate windows licence and all that too?

As others have said, yes you do need a licensed copy of windows. The problem you may face is that your old PC may not have come with a disk with windows on it 🙁 – a lot of the time the OS is stuck on a recovery partition on the original HDD. I know that isn’t much help but just to warn you if MemoryMap is a dealbreaker. Windows disks are brutally expensive if you don’t have one around.

If your previous experience is XP/2000 then you may also want to play with a Windows7 machine. I’m not getting involved in the Windows/Mac thing but just saying that Win7 is a million times better than XP and the Sony Vaio’s are nice little lappies

leffeboy – current machine runs Win7 and to be honest I don’t think it’s much better than Vista. I have a legit licenced disc for Win 7 but not sure if the licence will cover a new install or not.

If the Windows disk you have is fully licensed you should be fine using that in VMWare (Fusion) or Parallels. Note that either of these will also incur a cost.

I think the only place you’ll fall down with moving Windows licenses is if your old machine came with it bundled as the license key is tied to the hardware somehow or has to be used with a recovery disk. Note – I don’t know much about Windows but seem to recall having this type of issue years ago.

Don’t really use MS Office much (and we don’t at work) so no real experience there. I have seen formatting problems and suspect they may have been due to editing in different apps, but this is on the older version of Office X.

Edit: That’s not a kiss by the way!

Memory Map should run OK under VMWare Fusion or Parallels – I used to run Tracklogs under WINE which is usually far worse performance but it was OK. Not great, but OK. Avoid Bootcamp if you can – the only real use I’ve found for it is gaming.

Try using virtualbox for the windows setup. You’ll still need a licensed copy of windows, but at least virtual box is free! It’s made by Sun (probably Oracle now). I use it occasionally for the odd app that I still need to run in windows.

Second the view on office – the 2011 version is orders of magnitude better than the previous version.

Cheers
Nick

As above, virtualbox is free, and works well, even with connecting USB devices etc.

Indeed, just to clarify my issues with Excel being a bit wobbly are with Office 2004; I haven’t tried the more recent versions…

Cheers for all the ideas chaps.

Will prob wait until the next osx comes out before I decide for sure.

Pleased to see a mac thread that didn’t descent into a fanboi vs hater yawn fest. 🙂

Will prob wait until the next osx comes out before I decide for sure.

As with any OS (whomever it’s made by) I’d generally wait a point release or two after release before I got involved, let other folk iron out the bugs. I need my machine to work reliably!

What about using “Office live” or google docs/apps?

I use vmware fusion to run memory map – works fine so long as you have enough ram (I’d say 4gb min, otherwise everything gets a bit slow).

There are mac native mapping softwares too of course, eg. anquet. Doesn’t help if you’ve bought plenty of maps for memory map of course.

I don’t want to turn this into an argument but,

You’ve cited you want a Mac for “all the usual reasons” (whatever that means), but listed a bunch of native PC apps as your main concern.

I’m reasonably sure that you’ll not have huge problems with Office on the Mac, it’s not ideal but it should work. Memory Map however is a showstopper, you need Windows for that and I’m not aware of any sensible alternatives.

Now, personal preferences aside, I’m a firm believer in the right tool for the right job, be that Windows / Linux / OSX / something else entirely; the question I’d be asking in this case is, are these ephemeral ‘usual reasons’ sufficient to offset the PITA of having to run a second OS to make up for the shortfall of your primary one? What that says to me is you’re picking the wrong platform.

I think you’ll find a lot of people are like me – OSX is the tool for the job for 99% of what I do. Java/J2EE development being the most demanding, also managing photos, editing videos as well as web browsing, document processing etc. OSX excels at all of these.

I just happen to want to use Memory Maps – the only windows-native application mentioned above – occasionally and for that there are tools (Parallels in my case) which mean that I can with the minimum of pain.

You makes your choice, at the end of the day. Win7 is the tool for the job 100% for me. If it was 99%, I’d be questioning what I was doing.

It’s the reason I don’t run Linux day to day. I love it as an OS, but I keep having to come back to Windows to get stuff done. For me, personally, Linux is the wrong choice for that reason.

The browser wars were a good example of this. For a while, Firefox was head and shoulders the better browser, but some sites simply didn’t work. So, my primary browser had to be IE. These days, Firefox is my primary browser because it now does everything I need it to.

At some point, perhaps Linux or OSX will do everything I need it to, in which case I’ll probably jump ship. That day isn’t today.

Fair enough. I’ve yet to find an OS that does 100% of what I want. OSX at 99% is almost there – Windows is a LONG way back.

I used to run Linux – but the novelty of getting everything to work wore off after a few years.

Mainly there’s no problem in document compatibility. Work docs open fine on the Mac and Mac docs open fine on the work PC.

I prefer word and powerpoint on the mac the versions I have have the floating menus rather than the ribbons (2008). Docs from office 2007 & before seem to function OK on the mac. compatibility reports seem to show inconsequential differences on the whole. Biggest problem was with excel as I used to use a lot of VBA on the PC which just isn’t there on the mac.

for most home things I use iWork. I used OpenOffice for a while but it just looks poor compared to Office & iWork.

I’ve found Word and PowerPoint to be better either native (2008) or virtual (parallels) on my old 2.16GHz Core2Duo MacBook Pro compared to a similarly powered Vista laptop.

You could always use PC office under parallels or VMWare, but that rather defeats the object of swapping platforms.

@nickb virtualbox eh? I’ll check that out.

IMO Windows is still a more functional OS for everyday stuff, particularly for folder/file management via Explorer. Sure, OSX (particularly SL) looks slick etc, but it really doesn’t have the scope that Windows does.

I say this having used PCs for years yet never really taken to the Mac despite now having two of them. Only got them so I could use a piece of Mac-only s/w.

Personally I wouldn’t touch a Mac for ‘just replicating the stuff a PC can do’, but that’s just my opinion.

EDIT: XP is proper old skool so I can understand anyone being seduced by the lure of OSX. However, OSX to me is a bit of novelty MILF (who you enjoy showing off) that’s great for using once in while, but doesn’t quite have the all-round package to secure sticking around.

Cougar

What is Linux not doing for you?

IMO Windows is still a more functional OS for everyday stuff, particularly for folder/file management via Explorer. Sure, OSX (particularly SL) looks slick etc, but it really doesn’t have the scope that Windows does.

I don’t recognise this at all… and am (genuinely) interested in knowing where you find OSX lacking.

Personally, for me Spotlight and a real command line are two features that I really miss when forced onto Windows for any reason.

Euain, I just don’t get on with the contextual menus for a start – they seem lacking and limiting throughout. I’m happy to admit that I just don’t get the whole OSX thing even though I really want to. And believe me, I’m a sucker for stuff that looks pretty – but ultimately I want/need stuff that gets the job done.

EDIT: Having seen Lion demos I’m sure I’l upgrade both (10.6.7) machines almost right away, but that’ll be me just satisfying my shallow desires for visual loveliness and nothing more.

EDIT: And I am in no way anti-Apple. I stayed away from iPhones until last summer – picked up an iP4 and IMO it’s the best smartphone on the market (but mainly due to the app store). So I’m not being hard on Mr Jobs here.

OSX just does everything I need, has some very cool Dev tools and has a proper CLI. @euain Spotlight is so handy.

Oh dear, I spoke too soon.

Look, they’re just operating systems. It’s not a big deal.

Sorry, perhaps not relevant to OP, but I’m an XP user who has adorned his PC with stuff like Google Desktop. I have widgets, an “all-in-one” search (c.f. Spotlight), that Mac-like application dock etc etc etc. It all seems to work OK and performance is alright. I do a little photo and video editing.

I use Windows 7 with work and I’ve played a little with OS X. Win 7 is not bad, but nothing jumps out at me. Forgetting the actual software that runs on them, what do these operating systems really offer? I was really wowed by iOS on my iPhone 4. Will a move to Macs give me the same wow factor?

What is Linux not doing for you?

Memory Map? (-:

Offhand,

I need to run VPN clients for Cisco, Juniper, F5 networks, and other random disparate networks with new ones I’ve never heard of previously being dropped on me on pretty much a weekly basis. I need a solid RDP client, along with clients for TeamViewer, VNC, LogMeIn, GotoAssist, XenApp, and again whatever else some random customer happens to be using at their end. This is the big gotcha because even if Mac or Linux manages to tick all these boxes now, there will be another round next week where all the goalposts have moved.

Aside from that I need 100% compatibility with Office across the board, including Visio, Powerpoint, Excel, Access etc. “Near enough” is not good enough as I have to produce Enterprise level documentation for customers and can’t risk slight formatting inconsistencies.

I’m sure I could come up with others given time. Point is, I know Windows will run tomorrow’s random software without any compatibility issues or me generally having to frig about with it.

Which comes back to, the right tool for the right job. I could use something else, but it’d be the wrong tool and I’d risk rounding off my nuts.

Oh dear, I spoke too soon.

Look, they’re just operating systems. It’s not a big deal.

Far as I can see, this is constructive, healthy discussion. Unusually. So far.

BTW, I’ve been using RocketDock on my PC/laptop for a couple of years because I wanted to replicate some OSX funkiness. Does the trick too.

Heh stevious.. you asked a question on here .. what did you expect?
😆

At least its the full sandwich on here – you always get all the views and stuff

Ive only got windows on here to play the old game – which my interest in is diminishing rapidly…

Boot into Ubuntu Studio 95% of the time now… does everything I want.. doesn’t cost a penny.. dont worry about buying software or being bugged by adverts and stuff.. I run things everyone else does does all natively.. Chrome browser, Spotify, Firefox, Opera, Wireshark, Skype, Eclipse IDE, use a program called aMSN to talk on MSN protocol, no problems

Filesystem (EXT4) barely fragments compared to NTFS.. so I never worry about that either.. boots a lot quicker.. less virus worries being a less targeted system and distinction of SuperUser helps mitigate some (but not all) of the security worries

Whole bunch of stuff I could list, but wont bore you.. just lob a live CD and try it for £0 without even installing or changing writing to your hard-drive or partitions

for those with a lust for eye candy.. you can simply google compiz-fusion and enlightenment.. the compiz cube is quite bonkers if you like crazy eye candy

theres only a few areas I think it lacks in gaming cant compete, photo editing perhaps (it does do colour profiles though), sat navs- because the driver is written for windows only

babble over

*awaits abuse* 😀

It’s not the compatibility that’ll hit you, it’s the lifestyle changes.

Since I switched to Apple, I’ve lost three stone, routinely team skintight Japanese selvedge denim with New Balance trainers and American Apparel zip-up hoodies, started listening to Animal Collective, decided that £4 isn’t entirely unreasonable for a fairtrade hazlenut latte, had my hair fashioned in an asymmetrical style, switched to a vegan diet, taken out a subscription to Wire magazine and begun fancying anaemic somewhat androgynous girls who look like they might be librarians.

I didn’t want to, I just woke up one day and it happened.