Moving from Windows to OSX

[cannon_fodder]

If a long time Windows user decides to give a Macbook a go, will there be UI issues that will challenging? What about Windows files (MS Office, pictures, videos, mp3s)? Is it very easy to hook up an external Windows formatted (I believe FAT 32) drive and have the Mac convert everything to be stored natively?

My daughter is heavily considering going with a Macbook for university and as it is her money, it is her decision. I just want to educate her so she makes a decision using criteria other than because it looks good.

[gnuman]

Microsoft Office for Mac works ok for their Windows based counterparts but they are far from being equal. You can save money buy using LibreOffice http://tuxs.in/uLf8GL

Yes there's things to get used to when switching from Windows to OS X aka FreeBSD with a shiny desktop. Pictures and the like should work fine. Mp3s might be a little harder to deal with unless you of course like iTunes software. I can't think of an alternative for playing MP3s right now.

Surprising how people don't consider maybe reusing their PC and trying Ubuntu than burning money on a Mac... It's not too late now you can use Ubuntu on your Macbook

[brian.gerson]

If a long time Windows user decides to give a Macbook a go, will there be UI issues that will challenging?

There will be a period of adaptation that will last a week or so.

What about Windows files (MS Office, pictures, videos, mp3s)?

Fully compatible.

Is it very easy to hook up an external Windows formatted (I believe FAT 32) drive and have the Mac convert everything to be stored natively?

Macs can read and write FAT32 drives. There is no need to convert anything explicitly, when you save it on the Mac's hard drive it will be stored in the Mac file system.

My daughter is heavily considering going with a Macbook for university and as it is her money, it is her decision. I just want to educate her so she makes a decision using criteria other than because it looks good.

When I was at Queen's last month for a business seminar, I didn't see a single peecee laptop in the cafes. She will be in good company.

[MrWizard]

If a long time Windows user decides to give a Macbook a go, will there be UI issues that will challenging? What about Windows files (MS Office, pictures, videos, mp3s)? Is it very easy to hook up an external Windows formatted (I believe FAT 32) drive and have the Mac convert everything to be stored natively?

My daughter is heavily considering going with a Macbook for university and as it is her money, it is her decision. I just want to educate her so she makes a decision using criteria other than because it looks good.

UI issues? Some, but it's fairly easy to use. Slight learning curve, but if she spends enough time with it, she'll get the hang of it before long.

Office for Mac is available (and the Student edition is usually ~$100) which provides all the compatibility she needs for school work. Pictures, mp3's and videos should be fine. iTunes on the Mac is actually half decent for what it is (nowhere near as slow as the PC version). iPhoto can help with all of her pictures, and VLC is available to play any video file she can throw at it.

As mentioned, Mac can natively read and write FAT32 and if you want, it's fairly easy to get it to read/write NTFS as well.

[mikeo007]

If a long time Windows user decides to give a Macbook a go, will there be UI issues that will challenging? What about Windows files (MS Office, pictures, videos, mp3s)? Is it very easy to hook up an external Windows formatted (I believe FAT 32) drive and have the Mac convert everything to be stored natively?

My daughter is heavily considering going with a Macbook for university and as it is her money, it is her decision. I just want to educate her so she makes a decision using criteria other than because it looks good.

Does her program require any specific software? A lot of courses require software that is windows only. If this is the case, she'll also have to factor in the cost of a Windows license and VM.

She may also run into some hardware compatibility problems depending on which model of Mac she buys (Air has no Ethernet for example). Macs also don't have a VGA port so she may need an adapter if she'll be hooking up to a projector.

Lastly, Apple does like to bury a lot of their customization settings, and sometimes they don't have a UI to configure certain things, so if she is someone who likes to decide exactly how her computer behaves, she'll want to brush up on her Unix commands a bit. Most of that stuff can be found online, as long as you check a reputable source.

[hugh_da_man]

Shouldn't be any problems but 90% of people I know with a mac bought a copy of Windows anyways in the end. So don't forget to price an extra copy of Windows into your/her budget. I tried to switch a few years ago and just wasn't overly impressed by OSX so I ended up going back to Windows but with a mac you still have that option provided you don't mind the added upfront costs.

[audit13]

You cannot write files over 4 GB to FAT32 drives. She'll either save the files to a drive formatted with HFS+ or NTFS. Windows machines will have no problems reading and writing to NTFS partitions but they can't read or write to HFS+ partitions. OSX cannot write to NTFS partition but they can read NTFS partitions. There are ways around all of these issues if necessary.

[thinfilms]

You cannot write files over 4 GB to FAT32 drives. She'll either save the files to a drive formatted with HFS+ or NTFS. Windows machines will have no problems reading and writing to NTFS partitions but they can't read or write to HFS+ partitions. OSX cannot write to NTFS partition but they can read NTFS partitions. There are ways around all of these issues if necessary.

+1. Don't forget this applies to USB drives too if they're formatted to NTFS (kinda an inconvenience if you need to transfer large files to a Windows machine).

[audit13]

+1. Don't forget this applies to USB drives too if they're formatted to NTFS (kinda an inconvenience if you need to transfer large files to a Windows machine).

With Leopard and Snow Leopard, I've had good luck with NTFS-3g writing to NTFS drives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS-3G

[kingofwale]

If a long time Windows user decides to give a Macbook a go, will there be UI issues that will challenging? What about Windows files (MS Office, pictures, videos, mp3s)? Is it very easy to hook up an external Windows formatted (I believe FAT 32) drive and have the Mac convert everything to be stored natively?

My daughter is heavily considering going with a Macbook for university and as it is her money, it is her decision. I just want to educate her so she makes a decision using criteria other than because it looks good.

if your daughter thinks having a MBP is cool, is there really anything you can do to convince a 17 yr old girl? LOL

overall, it's not bad, I find problems with video playback (despite using free download of VLC), some of my mpg format just refuse to play.

I also had issues with updates crashing and corrupt my harddrive (had to reformat the entire MBP)


also, some issue with scratches (get her a case).


She will qualify for student discount and 100 dollars itune/app card, not a horrible deal right now (not as good as free ipod touch from before)