Anyone transferred from PC to Mac?

I'm thinking about making the move from my desk-top Windows PC to a Mac, after years of PC allegiance. (Yes, it's the "halo effect" of being very happy with various other Apple devices.)

Looking at a MacBook Pro with an external screen and keyboard for when I'm in the office and a Time Capsule constant back-up / wi-fi dock.

Does anyone know...

1. Will all Windows PC programs run on a Mac? I know that the basic ones (word processors, spreadsheets etc.) will but I'm thinking about the more specialised stuff, like niche insurance software etc. Is it a given or do I have to contact the supplier of each program to check?
2. It would be important to me to be able to transfer many files from my PC to my Mac. Might be a silly question, but what sort of a cable do you use to connect one to the other for this purpose? USB?
3. Will my Dell keyboard and monitor plug into a Mac laptop?
4. I've seen various programs on the net that allow you to convert all your archives of past e-mail from MS Outlook to the Apple mail client. Has anyone actually done this and how did it work?
5. One of my big gripes with MS is that I can store most correspondence for a particular client (scanned documents, PDFs, spreadsheets etc.) in one folder with their name on it. But Outlook e-mail correspondence requires a separate folder, unless I want to manually save copies of e-mails. Does the Apple e-mail client overcome this?

Thanks for any and all help.

L

Liam, be careful with lender calculators.
I have a dual machine running mac and pc, some of the calculators will not work on the mac.

Apart from that it's Mac all the way for me.
Sorry but not techy enough to answer the rest of your questions.

LDFerguson said:

Will all Windows PC programs run on a Mac? I know that the basic ones (word processors, spreadsheets etc.) will but I'm thinking about the more specialised stuff, like niche insurance software etc. Is it a given or do I have to contact the supplier of each program to check?

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No they wont all work - you will have to check with suppliers and maybe use different Mac versions for some.

LDFerguson said:

It would be important to me to be able to transfer many files from my PC to my Mac. Might be a silly question, but what sort of a cable do you use to connect one to the other for this purpose? USB?

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You cant connect one to the other this way, you will need an external device that can be read by both. USB keys can usually be read by both (I use them between both), but be careful with an external hard drive as my Seagate is only fully functional with the pc, Mac cannot write to an NTFS file system so it is read only with the Mac - you should be able to get an external hard drive that is compatible with both - or use something like MacFuse to read the NTFS external drive.

LDFerguson said:

Will my Dell keyboard and monitor plug into a Mac laptop?

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No - Mac keyboards are different layouts to pc keyboards - some different buttons. Dont know about the monitor.

LDFerguson said:

I've seen various programs on the net that allow you to convert all your archives of past e-mail from MS Outlook to the Apple mail client. Has anyone actually done this and how did it work?

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I dont know thw answer to this one.

LDFerguson said:

One of my big gripes with MS is that I can store most correspondence for a particular client (scanned documents, PDFs, spreadsheets etc.) in one folder with their name on it. But Outlook e-mail correspondence requires a separate folder, unless I want to manually save copies of e-mails. Does the Apple e-mail client overcome this?
Thanks for any and all help.

Click to expand...

Or this.

Thanks.

Norf - sorry for the dumb question but what's a "dual machine"? Is it a Mac that you install PC software on or something?

truthseeker - if I'm understanding you correctly on the transfer of files from one to the other, I need to use a device in the middle, e.g. external memory, making sure that it's compatible with both machines. Then transfer files first from the PC to the external drive then on to the Mac.

LDFerguson said:

truthseeker - if I'm understanding you correctly on the transfer of files from one to the other, I need to use a device in the middle, e.g. external memory, making sure that it's compatible with both machines. Then transfer files first from the PC to the external drive then on to the Mac.

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Yes - to the best of my knowledge - you may google around and see is there a way of the machines seeing each other as external drives - but I dont think so because they would have different native file systems.

I moved from pc to mac about 4 years ago and am now sitting with a macbook in front of me an iPhone on one side and my two day old iPad on the other side

Will all pc programs run on Mac?
The short answer would be no but there are ways around it. With my first macbook I partitioned the hard drive on my macbook so that it was split 50/50 mac/pc there is a free apple product called boot camp to do this but you will need a copy of windows as well. There is a software programme called Parallels but I found it too picky. Basically when your mac is set up you press a key (cant remember which one as its been a while) and you can choose mac or pc. Both halves run seperately so if you want to switch from pc to mac or vice versa you will need to reboot.

Ok so back then I did this as I had programs for pc. I had no difficulties here all pc programs worked no bother. Just remember the pc side WILLL need anti-virus although I use antivirus on the mac as well.

If you are going for a software such as Office you will need to buy a mac version or alternatively iWork which is the apple equivalent. I have both but use iWork more and it is compatible with versions.

For transfering data the best idea would really be to invest in a good hard drive. I did this. My current hard drive (1tb in size) is currently partitioned so I can use half for time machine backups (highly recommend using time machine) and half for regular hard drive use.

When I was changing from MS Outlooks to Mail all I did was put in my account details to Mail and all my emails were automatically converted. With saved emails there is a way to transfer them for free I did this when I upgraded that macbook. Let me get back to you on that later though so I can remind myself how I did that.

I don't really have any experience with saving emails and docs like you mention on a mac. Sorry.

I think thats all your questions. I do think moving would be a good choice I would never ever use a pc again even though I had been using them most of my life. Same as I would never consider a non iPhone phone.

If you have any more questions I will try to answer.

You can use all your Windows applications on your new Mac, but only under the following conditions;

1) You must use the Mac's Boot Camp application to create a separate partition on the Mac's HD. This is a very simple procedure and takes but a few minutes, and then you can install a copy of Windows to it.. These applications then run just as fast as they did on the PC. Under these circumstances, the Mac becomes just another PC, and you will need to install the Windows versions of any security applications you use currently to the new Windows partition. You do not need to install the Mac version of these apps on the Mac partition. To switch from the Mac to the Windows side, you need to restart each time.

2) You can purchase an application to run Windows on the Mac partition as an emulator. There are three such apps available, from Parallels, and from VMWare, both of which cost about €60-70ish, and they offer a free trial period. The other one is from Virtual Box, and is free. Under these emulators, your Windows applications suffer a slight speed reduction. You do not need to restart each time you want to switch from the Mac to the Windows side, because Windows is actually running as just another application on the Mac partition.

To use the Mac's Time Machine, you muse use an external hard drive. You can persuade the Mac to use a separate partition created on its HD, but if you do this, you can lose all your backups if the HD dies, which it will one day. And get a external disc with the biggest capacity you can find.

To connect both computers, you can use either a firewire cable, or an Ethernet cable. This page gives good help and advice on switching to the Mac and will answer your queries on transferring e-mail; apple.com/support/switch101/migrate/

I have had to make this link non-clickable because I'm still regarded as a 'baby poster'!

LDFerguson said:

Norf - sorry for the dumb question but what's a "dual machine"? Is it a Mac that you install PC software on or something?

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Not dumb at all, I'm going to exit stage left before this gets too technical and I'm found out.
It's pretty much what iWill said in point 2.

VMWare Fusion is the programme on mine, you can jump from PC to Mac at click of a button. I only use the PC for the lender calcs and also to print. Mac won't recognise my printer (well that's a bit of a lie, for two years I have meant to get someone to sort that for me but I never have...). Once you get used to the Mac, you will dread the PC.

NorfBank; There may be a solution to get your printer working in Mac OS X.

I assume you've looked for a Mac-compatible driver on the manufacturer's Website. If none is available, you may find one at Gutenprint. They write drivers for a wide range of printers for both the Mac and Linux. Be aware these drivers may lack some of the functions present in your Windows driver, but, at least, they may get your printer to print on the Mac!

These drivers are free and are here; http : //gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php

Sorry, but I've had to make the link non-clickable link, so please delete the spaces on either side of the colon.

Hi Liam,

I made the transition from Windows to Mac 3 years ago and, reminded daily of the trial of Windows in my work environment, could not contemplate moving back. The speed difference is amazing - no more shuddering Windows. A lot of utility software that you may need to buy for Windows has Mac versions included with Mac OS.

Will all Windows PC programs run on a Mac? I know that the basic ones (word processors, spreadsheets etc.) will but I'm thinking about the more specialised stuff, like niche insurance software etc. Is it a given or do I have to contact the supplier of each program to check?
No Windows software will not run natively on a Mac. Best solution is to get Mac versions, if available. There are many free replacements for productivity software for the Mac e.g. OpenOffice to replace MS Office etc. For software that does not have Mac equivalents, you can buy e.g. VMware which is software that allows you to run Windows on the Mac concurrently with the Mac OS. It costs about €80. You will need Windows installation disks to install Windows into the VMware environment (or Virtual Machine). Then you have a PC on your Mac!

It would be important to me to be able to transfer many files from my PC to my Mac. Might be a silly question, but what sort of a cable do you use to connect one to the other for this purpose? USB?
I find that transferring files is best done the long way round. Copy them to an external hard drive (USB connected), and then connect that drive to your Mac which will recognize it as a mounted drive. The external disk should be formatted for the FAT file system (not NTFS).

Will my Dell keyboard and monitor plug into a Mac laptop?
I've just plugged a PC keyboard into my Mac and am using it to write this paragraph. There may be some minor mapping issues, but it works fine.

I've seen various programs on the net that allow you to convert all your archives of past e-mail from MS Outlook to the Apple mail client. Has anyone actually done this and how did it work?
The best way to transfer mail is to open a Google Mail account and copy your mails to it. This is a great way to backup you mail also. Then download them to your Mac Mail program. Please note that MS Outlook does not store HTML mails in a standard format, so they will appear as unstructured text mails.

One of my big gripes with MS is that I can store most correspondence for a particular client (scanned documents, PDFs, spreadsheets etc.) in one folder with their name on it. But Outlook e-mail correspondence requires a separate folder, unless I want to manually save copies of e-mails. Does the Apple e-mail client overcome this?
No. Any major mail program I know of (Windows or Mac) stores its files in a separate file structure.

I hope this helps you. Any more questions, just ask. I live in Dunboyne if you want a hands-on demo of any of the above.

Many thanks for the help and information.