Windows on Mac
Full category list for displayed posts: News, Windows on Mac
11:00 am, October 21st, 2009, Leander Kahney
UPDATE: Microsoft has canceled the legal threat. I just got an email directly from DtecNet, the anti-piracy company working with Microsoft, saying they have formally withdrawn the notice. There was no explanation why — or why it was issued it in the first place. “After careful review, we sent the below retraction notice below to your ISP,” DtecNet said. “We apologize for any inconvenience.” The problem is that without an explanation of why CoM was targeted, I don’t know what the best response is. It looks like DtecNet made a mistake with us, but the DMCA is a draconian law and easily abused. How many other sites and ISPs have complied to bogus notices like this?
On Tuesday morning, Microsoft sent a DMCA takedown notice to our Web host concerning a post we published back in January about loading the Windows 7 beta on a MacBook.
The DMCA notice demanded we remove the post because it allegedly makes Windows 7 available for “copying through downloading.” (The full text of the notice is after the jump).
Trouble is, we have no idea what Microsoft is talking about. We presumed the post may contain a link to a pirated copy of Windows 7. But the only download link is to Microsoft’s official Windows 7 beta. Surely Microsoft isn’t trying to remove all links to its beta a few days before the final product goes on sale on October 22?
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Posted by Leander Kahney in News, Windows on Mac | 11 Comments »
8:26 am, August 25th, 2009, Lonnie Lazar
Parallels, regarded by many as the premier virtual Windows solution for the Mac, announced Tuesday a special Switch to Mac Edition, extending a welcome lifeline to computer users who are choosing to embrace the elegance, power and simplicity of Apple’s Mac OS in increasing numbers every day.
Cult of Mac received an extensive tour of the new “Switch to Mac” features recently and it’s a good bet Parallels will deliver on its promise to have former Windows users working comfortably in the Mac UI within hours instead of the more usual learning curve that can often take weeks.
“For years I have worked with switchers coming into Apple stores with questions about how to use their new Mac,” says Saied Ghaffari, Switch to Mac Advocate, who gave us the tutorial demo.
“Parallels Desktop Switch to Mac Edition thoroughly addresses the concerns switchers have,” Ghaffari said, adding, “the product is designed to make moving to Mac as fast and simple as possible, regardless of the level of technical knowledge of the switcher.
Featuring a set of easy-to-use tools and interactive tutorials such as Click to Learn, Watch Saied, and You Try incorporated with Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac, the Switch to Mac edition promises to help “Switchers” understand how to operate Mac OS X, transfer all PC data and applications, and seamlessly run their Windows applications on their new Macs.
“It’s like a friend teaching you the Mac at your own pace,” according to Ghaffari.
Parallels Desktop 4.0 Switch to Mac Edition is available from today at Apple stores, at Apple.com and through other preferred retail partners in English, German and French. The suggested retail price (SRP) of the product is $99.99.
Hit the jump for more information and detailed explanation of the Switch to Mac edition’s features.
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Posted by Lonnie Lazar in Macintosh, News, Software, Windows on Mac | 1 Comment »
12:01 am, May 16th, 2009, Leigh McMullen
The first question that should leap to mind is: “Why on earth is CoM reviewing Windows?” Frankly, for many professionals, we have no choice. Many of us have to use Windows software in the course of our jobs, or at a minimum use web applications that require that bane to open standards developers everywhere: Internet Explorer.
There’s no easy way to do this, so lets just rip off the band-aid and see if there’s a scab underneath.
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Posted by Leigh McMullen in Humor, Opinions, Reviews, Top stories, Windows on Mac | 101 Comments »
11:12 pm, May 10th, 2009, Pete Mortensen
Months ago, I wrote about my wrestling match to get the 64-Bit Windows 7 Public Beta installed on my MacBook. It took all day, and then, well, I had a copy of Windows on my computer that required a reboot to access. It was, as it turns out, every bit as pointless as many commenters accused my activity of being. I deleted my partition and never really gave it a second thought — even though I could use a Windows install to debug stuff for work.
Until today, that is, when Sun blogger The Fat Bloke provided detailed instructions for installing the most recent revision of the WIndows 7 Release Candidate on VirtualBox, the company’s totally free virtualization system. And I have to say, it works like a charm. I was up and running within about two hours, and I didn’t even need to follow the secondary instructions about Vista mode or whatever. If you’re curious at all, it’s absolutely the best way to get a Windows installation on your Mac for free.
Whether it’s useful remains to be seen. I might find myself deleting this next Sunday.
Posted by Pete Mortensen in Software, Windows on Mac | 7 Comments »
2:46 pm, February 4th, 2009, Lonnie Lazar
Cult reader James moves to the head of the pack in the incredible contest to see how many apps can be running on your Mac and displayed on your desktop in all their juicy, chaotic goodness by Exposé.
James’ machine is Mac Pro 8 core, with 10GB RAM, 30″ NEC 3090 monitor, and 2 1TB Samsung drives raided together. He has a lot of high end apps running, including all of Final Cut Studio, all of Adobe Creative Suite CS 3 Design Premium, all of Office 2008, all of iWork 08, Google Earth, Windows XP and Crunch Bang Linux in virtual box , Sling Player, Filemaker xcode and mmaannyyy more.
“I got to the point where it started giving an error code and would not launch any more apps,” he told us. “When I tried to screen shot it refused, so I had to quit an app before I could make a screen shot.”
Click on the image to see the original size and find he’s also got Open Office, Think Free Office, Eclipse IDE, a 22 mega pixel image from a Canon 5K Mark II (the ship), Proxi, Sketch Up, Sketch Book education, Skype, Gizmo, Gridiron Flow beta, eBay desktop, Acquisition, Adium, Firefox, Safari, iPhone Simulator…
He thinks there are about 240 apps running in all, but says, “I reckon the Pro could take another 100 if the OS would allow it — maybe snow leopard.”
Follow afer the jump for screen shots of James’ Activity Monitor.
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Posted by Lonnie Lazar in Cult of Mac, Desktop Pictures, Humor, Macintosh, News, Windows on Mac | 8 Comments »
5:27 pm, January 17th, 2009, Pete Mortensen
Having read a few of the tutorials on how to install the new Windows 7 beta on a Mac with Boot Camp, I decided to take the plunge myself today on my still sparkling-new unibody MacBook 2.4 Ghz. (This post is actually being written in Firefox on Windows 7 — eww)
And what I learned is that you had really better be prepared to spend several hours to get it working properly. The link I’ve provided above is pretty handy, but it has some tricks to it that will not be immediately apparent without some trial and error. Read on to make the essential tweaks to the tutorial needed to make it work on MacBooks, not just MacBook Pros, read on!
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Posted by Pete Mortensen in Apple, First impressions, Software, Windows on Mac | 15 Comments »
9:20 pm, August 26th, 2007, Pete Mortensen
Once upon a time, way back in 1984, the Mac was new. Let us travel back to the past for another look into the amazing first issue of MacWorld, which I acquired two weeks ago at a family reunion.
This week, let’s turn to “Polishing the Mac,” an extraordinarily long interview by David Bunnell (almost 4,000 words) with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates that is basically just about the Mac’s greatness. I’ll tease with a choice quote, then click through for some more of Chairman Bill’s still-prescient (and now hilarious and ironic) praise for the Mac. Also, dig the hair and glasses. Could he look more like his Anthony Michael Hall doppelganger if he tried?
On the Mac’s Ease of Use: “The Mac heralds a major change in how people view and interact with application programs. That’s why I’m so excited about it. There’s no question that I’ll let my mom try it out.”
Much, much more after the jump.
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Posted by Pete Mortensen in Vintage Tech, Windows on Mac | 10 Comments »
6:43 pm, April 5th, 2006, Leander Kahney
On the DealCatcher forums, Dan Baxter writes: “So I decided to install the new Apple Boot Camp Beta to dual boot Windows XP on my Mac. Everything went great then I got this after using it for about an 30 mins.”
And here’s another one:
Posted by Leander Kahney in Windows on Mac, iPod | 15 Comments »
2:08 pm, April 5th, 2006, Leander Kahney
There was some debate a few weeks ago whether Intel Macs would boot Microsoft’s upcoming operating system, Vista, because of conflicting boot-up systems. While the Intel Macs use EFI, a new boot system from Intel, initial versions of Windows Vista will use the old BIOS system.
Well, in the comments to the blog post below, reader RLPM posted a link to a Flickr photoset showing his MacBook Pro booting off a Vista disk image, thanks to Apple’s new Boot Camp software.
RLPM says he didn’t try a full install because he hasn’t backed up his MacBook, and presumably doesn’t want a disk error to wipe everything out.
He writes: “After installing the firmware update and boot camp (didn’t run boot camp assistant), it booted off the most recent Vista. I haven’t had time to backup my system, so I didn’t install vista, but it boots from the latest image!”
So I guess Apple’s Boot Camp software makes the whole BIOS/EFI firmware issue moot?
Posted by Leander Kahney in Hardware Hacks, Windows on Mac | 5 Comments »
9:43 am, March 22nd, 2006, Leander Kahney
Slashdot commentator on Windows on a Mac:
“We’ve figured out how to put an inferior OS on more expensive hardware! That way, we can have both the frustrations of Windows and pay out of the ass for Mac. Everybody wins!”
And here’s Joy of Tech’s take. Click the pic for the entire cartoon.
It reminds me of my experience of installing Linux on a Mac a few years ago — which was, “great, now what?”
Another Slashdot poster has a good point about Windows-running Macs being attractive to businesses — they won’t:
“First, dual boot is a myth, it is damn annoying and so counterproductive. Most people dont realise that until they actually experiment it, it’s hype now, but all Linux users know it’s a pain, and I know from experience that a dual boot Windows/Linux means one thing… Windows 90% of the time. Vmware and others solutions are the way to go for people who need Windows professionaly for a given application, I can’t wait for a Mac OS X version. Second, some people try to makes us believe that companies will buy Apple PC to their employees now that they can run Windows, yeah right, serious manager will buy more expensive hardware, plus a Windows licence, so that their employees can have an Apple design and the joy of using Mac OS X out of the office… “
Posted by Leander Kahney in Apple, Hardware, Hardware Hacks, Windows on Mac | No Comments »
