08-06-2010, 06:35 AM

Hi,

I have just bought a macbook pro, which was set up with dual boot windows 7 on it. I don't want to use windows any more, thats one of the reasons i got a mac, but I've been forced to at the moment, because I can only get my internet dongle (an 02 pay monthly thing) to work on the windows side. When it goes in the mac side and i try to open it, I just get 'closed unexpectedly' messages.

This means I spent more time on the windows side. I want all my stuff really to be on the mac side though, so thats where I've saved all my stuff-music, documents etc. I thought the documents wouldn't be a problems because the mac side has word on it, and I could access bth sides of my hard disk (windows and mac) from either side and retrieve data from them. However, anything I've saved on the windows side like word documents won't open on the mac side, and vice versa, it's really annoying. I was obviously trying to streamline my work and make it more efficient, but this is just a pain.

can anyone help with the compatability issues? internet and documents like word. Word gives me this message by the way, when i try to open from the other OS:

Word experienced an error while trying to open the file
try these suggestions
*check for file permissions for the document or drive
*make sure there is sufficient free memory or disk space
*open the file with a text recovery converter.

Long post, hope someone can help!
cheers,

Jim

08-06-2010, 07:37 AM

Out of interest which O2 dongle do you have? I have one you see and there is a way of installing it to work under Snow Leopard.

I suspect your Word issues are due to it trying to read the document and put the temp file it creates in the same place (where it only has read permissions).

There are ways round this . . . USB sticks, NTFS drivers for OSX and vice versa, Running Windows in a Virtual Machine like VirtualBox etc.

But if you post your O2 dongle details I may have some OSX install instructions that'll work.

08-06-2010, 04:57 PM

hey mrplow,

I have a HUAWEI mobile connect E160 HSDPA usb stick, and if you have info for that, that would be brilliant!

Yeah, my knowledge of stuff like the workings and use of temp files is pretty limited. I saved all my work on the mac side, because, lets face it, thats where i want to spend all my time, but because of the internet discrepancy, i've been on the windows side a lot, hence the need.

Even if you do have the know-how to sort the net issues, which would be awesome, it's probably good to know what happens, so is there a brief way you can explain the temp files thing? Because i open it from the mac side, it's trying to put the temp file somewhere it shouldn't or wouldn't normally? Is a temp file the temporary version that your computer works with in its RAM, before its saved onto the hard disk?

can o worms for you, i know

jimhowe

08-06-2010, 05:22 PM

OK. First the O2 dongle:

Mobile Connect won't work on Snow Leopard, as you'll have discovered. But your can install the driver and configure the connection manually.

1. Insert the modem into a USB port.
2. Open the virtual CD image it makes
3. Control + click (right click) the MobileConnect application
4. Select Show Package Contents
5. Open the Contents, then the Resources folders
6. Double click Mobile_Connect_Drv_App.pkg to run it. use this to install.
7. Double click Mobile_Connect_Drv_App.pkg to run it **AGAIN**
8. Open System Preferences and select the Network pane.
9. Click the + at the bottom left, unless HUAWEI mobile is already in the list. If not, slect it as the interface after pressing +.
10. Select HUAWEI mobile in the list. Set telephone number to *99# , account to o2bb and password to password
11. Click advanced (bottom right)
12. Set vendor to Other and model to HUAWEI mobile. Click OK.

Click connect to er...connect

Sometimes, depending on the details of your O2 contract the username and password can vary. Let me know if those don't work.


Word:
By default OSX can read NTFS partitions (as I'm sure your Windows install is using).
When you open a file in Word it creates a duplicate 'temp' file that it uses while your editing. By default it creates this temp file in the same location as the original file. Because that file is on a read-only drive in your case it's unable to create the file.
There are other reasons you can get the error you are seeing but that's the most likely cause.

You can get a free driver for NTFS (Google MacFuse) and there's also a 'tweak' you can make to Snow Leopard to enable NTFS read/write. Personally I favour a product by Paragon called NTFS for Mac - PARAGON Software Group - NTFS for Mac, communication channel between Mac OS X and Windows

Hope that helps. Please post back with success or failure

08-07-2010, 05:56 AM

Mrplow, you total hero.

did everything you suggested, and the internet is working fine on my o2 dongle on snow leopard. Also, installed the free macfuse thing, as i'm strapped for cash at the moment, and I can open documents on the windows side fine with my mac os now.

Thank you so much, i really really appreciate your help.

the word side still doesnt want to open stuff from the mac side, but if i download the same thing for the windows side, should work again right? also: final final question is; is the temp thing the same for music files? had them all stored on the mac side, and they didnt want to open in windows.

I recon i'll give it a try getting the macfuse thing again. THANK YOU AGAIN!


jimhowe

08-07-2010, 06:07 AM

Glad it worked for you.

I don't know of any free drivers for windows that allow OSX read/write.

Paragon (I don't work for them honest!) do a driver but it costs.

In the interim why not put your docs on the bootcamp partition? You'll be able to write write to them on both sides.

Alternatively you could use dropbox to sync between the two, with the added bonus of having an online backup.

Thanks for posting back.

mrplow