Lots of Apple Questions

[TangoJuliet]

As Leopard gets closer to coming out so do my plans for my new iMac.

Since I sold my PC and everything that went with it all I have left is an external hdd with all my documents. Now my big questions are

Will I be able to transfer those files to the mac? I believe the external drive is formatted to NTSC - will that work with the imac?

Is the mail app included in Leopard going to be compatible with a .pst file from Office that has all my old emails and contacts or will I have to get the Apple Office version?

Is it better to boot camp with XP/Leopard or just run Parallels or Fusion? How does Parallels/Fusion work? Do you make a partition on the drive with XP and then run the software in OSX?

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head at the moment. Any help is appreciated!

 

[Kaido]

I believe you can copy files over from NTFS drives, but you can't write to them, at least not without aftermarket software (which doesn't work 100% yet). If your mail is really important to you, your best bet is to spend $10 on O2M (Office to Mail):

http://www.littlemachines.com/

What are you planning on using Windows for? Boot Camp is great if you need the graphics, but that's about it. Parallels does everything up to DirectX 8.1. I quit using Boot Camp awhile ago...Parallels works just fine for me. Fusion is supposed to be equally good, if not better in some aspects. Basically you have a couple options with Parallels: first, you can actually boot a Boot Camp partition, so if you feel like running both then you definitely have that option. Second, the "normal way", is that it creates a folder with some files of your virtual machine on the OS X side of things. You can move that over to an external hard drive or anywhere else if you want. You have the option of creating a set or expanding hard drive, so if you make a 60gb virtual hard drive, it will either create a 60gb file or a smaller file that expands as you fill up the virtual XP hard drive. I do expanding because it's easier and I haven't noticed any performance issues.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: Kaido
I believe you can copy files over from NTFS drives, but you can't write to them, at least not without aftermarket software (which doesn't work 100% yet). If your mail is really important to you, your best bet is to spend $10 on O2M (Office to Mail):

http://www.littlemachines.com/

What are you planning on using Windows for? Boot Camp is great if you need the graphics, but that's about it. Parallels does everything up to DirectX 8.1. I quit using Boot Camp awhile ago...Parallels works just fine for me. Fusion is supposed to be equally good, if not better in some aspects. Basically you have a couple options with Parallels: first, you can actually boot a Boot Camp partition, so if you feel like running both then you definitely have that option. Second, the "normal way", is that it creates a folder with some files of your virtual machine on the OS X side of things. You can move that over to an external hard drive or anywhere else if you want. You have the option of creating a set or expanding hard drive, so if you make a 60gb virtual hard drive, it will either create a 60gb file or a smaller file that expands as you fill up the virtual XP hard drive. I do expanding because it's easier and I haven't noticed any performance issues.

My mail is kinda important. I had saved all my emails in the .pst format until my data hdd crashed and lost everything. I had an old backup but it was from 2005. I havent downloaded any mail off my ISP's server since. I guess I could always download the new mail through apple's mail client and just forget all the old emails all together.

I do plan to use Windows for some old apps that I have as well as possibly play an occasional game or two.

If I do plan on going with Parallels or Fusion do I need a copy of windows or can I sell the version I have now? I'm kinda confused with the whole process.

Edit: I just checked out that O2M and it looks pretty cool. It doesnt say if its going to be compatible with Leopard though

 

[Kaido]

Parallels is just like a real computer, only virtual, so you'll need a Windows CD as well as a key. If you've removed XP from your old computer, then you can install it on your new computer and activate it by calling the number it gives you when you try to activate it. You can reactivate it as much as you want, provided the previous XP installation is wiped out.

 

[TheStu]

Kaido has pretty much nailed it all. You definitely do not want to get Office for Mac for 2 reasons. 1: it is a 3 year old version as of now (new version won't be out until next year) 2: It is stupid expensive.

Most Tiger apps are compatible with Leopard, however, the other direction is not necessarily true.

 

[TangoJuliet]

cool, thanks guys.

so if I understand this correctly. when I install Parallels/Fusion it will create its own folder within OSX and from there I would install XP into that folder? After all that is complete then I would run the app and it would access XP from that folder. Am I understanding that correctly?

Now what was that about making it from a virtual drive? I would install the software and designate the folder to be on a external device or whatnot?

How well will games run on Parallels on the 2.8ghz extreme C2D iMac?

 

[TheStu]

I use VMWare, and here is how it works

Install VMWare.
Open it and go through the dialogs to install Windows

Allocate however much you want to Windows, I give it 20GB, but tell it to only allocate as needs it.
The VM is by default put into the Documents -> Virtual Machines
It is actually a file not a folder, so when you start up VMWare to run XP (for example) it reads that file.

As far as installing things in Windows, in VMWare to an external drive... that should work, but i'm not positive.

Um, games... yea.... you are better off bootcamping.

 

[secretanchitman]

if you want to play modern games at their full speed, you'll have to go the boot camp route (like i did). if you need like starcraft/diablo/warcraft 2 era games...then parallels is fine.

i havent tried VMware though.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: alkohoLiK
cool, thanks guys.

so if I understand this correctly. when I install Parallels/Fusion it will create its own folder within OSX and from there I would install XP into that folder? After all that is complete then I would run the app and it would access XP from that folder. Am I understanding that correctly?

Now what was that about making it from a virtual drive? I would install the software and designate the folder to be on a external device or whatnot?

How well will games run on Parallels on the 2.8ghz extreme C2D iMac?

Parallels can only do up to DirectX 8.1, I think. If you want gaming, you'll need to use Boot Camp. If you're really, really into gaming then I would suggest building a separate gaming PC or getting a console. If you get an iMac, you're stuck with the video card inside forever...choose wisely

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: alkohoLiK
cool, thanks guys.

so if I understand this correctly. when I install Parallels/Fusion it will create its own folder within OSX and from there I would install XP into that folder? After all that is complete then I would run the app and it would access XP from that folder. Am I understanding that correctly?

Now what was that about making it from a virtual drive? I would install the software and designate the folder to be on a external device or whatnot?

How well will games run on Parallels on the 2.8ghz extreme C2D iMac?

Parallels can only do up to DirectX 8.1, I think. If you want gaming, you'll need to use Boot Camp. If you're really, really into gaming then I would suggest building a separate gaming PC or getting a console. If you get an iMac, you're stuck with the video card inside forever...choose wisely

I dont want to do any hard core gaming on the thing. I use my 360 for gaming now and its great....and I hardly use it as much as I would like. I really would like to play the occasional game on the imac like FS10 and C&C3 and such if I should choose to.

 

[Ichigo]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
if you want to play modern games at their full speed, you'll have to go the boot camp route (like i did). if you need like starcraft/diablo/warcraft 2 era games...then parallels is fine.

i havent tried VMware though.

Uh, if you're playing Blizzard games, why would you use Windows at all? They're OS X compatible.

 

[umrigar]

If you can get Office 2004 Student/Teacher Edition, it's $150, and can be installed on up to 3 Macs.
It's not upgradeable to the next version, though. You can probably find it for like $50 used.

If you can get by w/o MS Office, try NeoOffice 2.2.2, it's free and opens most Office files (Excel, Word, etc).

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: umrigar
If you can get Office 2004 Student/Teacher Edition, it's $150, and can be installed on up to 3 Macs.
It's not upgradeable to the next version, though. You can probably find it for like $50 used.

If you can get by w/o MS Office, try NeoOffice 2.2.2, it's free and opens most Office files (Excel, Word, etc).

I'm probably going to stick with the mail app in OSX and dump MS Office all together. I can probably take the .pst file and load it on my wife's computer and then forward the really important emails back to me.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: Ichigo

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
if you want to play modern games at their full speed, you'll have to go the boot camp route (like i did). if you need like starcraft/diablo/warcraft 2 era games...then parallels is fine.

i havent tried VMware though.

Uh, if you're playing Blizzard games, why would you use Windows at all? They're OS X compatible.

war2 battle net edition and diablo arent...and warcraft 2 bne came out after starcraft did. oh well...

edit: spelling.