WIN 7 & MS Office 2010 on a MAC

I bought a Dell XPS desktop in 2008 and swore I'd never buy another brand again. That's until I discovered Apple and bought an iMac - great machines, very stable operating system and my many Windows Virtual Machines (XP 32, 7 64) absolutely fly on the Mac.

Other brands are fine and as other posters have pointed out, cost may be a limiting factor in certain circumstances. However, if it is down to choice alone, then there can be no question in my view. Apple devices are properly engineered, think BMW vs. FIAT. The OS is easy to use, pretty much maintenance free and hard, not like Windows (not to mention the 'ultra-usability' of Windows 8). Another huge benefit is the anti-virus thing: I know some recommend AV on OSX as well, but in my case I'm pretty tech-savvy and don't see the need (no hassles in two years).

Other little things like user interface - please go to an Apple Store and use a Trackpad or Magic Mouse. Please show me the Windows-based system that responds like one of them.

I use my Windows VMs to develop Windows software and microprocessor firmware using various IDEs - all VMs run better than on any non-Apple hardware I've ever owned. I sometimes run three VMs at once and my 2011 iMac laughs at the task (granted I have 16GB of RAM).

I use Office Student/Home for Mac 2011 (just couldn't justify the extra $ for Outlook) and find them similar enough to Windows versions, although they have a mix between Office 2003-type menus and 2007's ribbon. I use Office for compatibility alone (document sharing within the company), barring this, I'd likely move to iWork.

You can find software to do pretty much anything that you do on Windows and what I really like about the Apple (OSX, iOS) ecosystems: people pay for what they use, pirating seems to be frowned upon quite widely. Hardware also isn't a problem, from office peripherals to external drives, etc, you name it, you'll find it.

To sum up, I'd recommend Apple...but beware of one thing though. If you do decide on Apple, any other non-Apple systems you own might just start irritating you quite soon...

Good luck with your decision!

Thanks chas for the info. I did not realize MS raised prices and stopped selling the 3 install version of MS Office 2011. I'm assuming my copy can still be installed on up to 3 Macs since its product ID is multiple. But who knows? With the way MS runs their business model, one never knows.....

Not sure I'll buy MS Office 2014 for the Mac if they've raised prices?

BSB2007 said:

Is it feasible to run Win 7 & Office 20100 on a Mac and what are the major issues?
Is it even worthwhile as I have only used windows PCs?

Click to expand...

Well! My thanks to everyone who picked up on my query on this forum. You all did much to help my decision process. With the advice and encouragement I have had on this forum and two further and lengthy discussions with Apple salesmen on this issue, I am sold.

I do need to pick your brains on the transfer issue.
I still have all my legal Windows installation DVds from win 98,2000, XP Pro,and Vista but only MS upgrade DVD for Win 7 from Vista. I hope to avoid having to reinstall Vista then the Win 7 upgrade. So, can anyone suggest which additional Software will allow me to migrate, and run Mac and Windows side by side. I have looked at the web ads for Parallels, Winclone and VM Fusion I will be very grateful if you can you help me on this topic also?

I was very impressed with the iMac 27 which I am hoping to buy tomorrow (Thursday) and need to prepare everything in advance to have the minimum downtime. My NAS is compatible, my router is compatible, I will not need my Logitech wireless keyboards and mice but I will be sad to say goodbye to my Dell UltraSharp U2312HM LED monitor but having seen the iMac I should not miss the Dell for too long. Shame about having a separate DVD drive though but I will need one.

It was a very good, if late, decision to subscribe to this forum. I am grateful to you one and all.

BSB2007

I use the Mac built-in option called BootCamp; it allows you to boot in either Mac OSX or in Windows. Switching between OSX and Windows requires a restart, but the advantage is that you use the full performance of the Mac to run either Operating System. Other options like Parallels impact performance, have no personal experience with it.

I have W7 Pro running for the applications that require Windows, plus my wife cannot get along with OSX so she uses W7 on my iMac.

One remark regarding Pages, from what I mentioned here before: the new release (release 5) has a totally different user interface, still have to figure out what it is al about, but it IS quite different.

Congrats on your decision,

Thymen

For transfer of Windows to VMWare and Parallels, I think they have migration tools that will allow you to move your existing Windows system intact to a virtual machine. You can check at their websites or even contact them to ask. As I recall from five years ago when I moved a Windows box to a VMWare virtual system, it was a Windows application that created the VM images and then you imported that onto the Mac using VMWare.

EDIT: I found the Parallels Transporter directions in their knowledgbase.

Second EDIT: and here is the VMWare Knowledgebase page on migration.

There is also the option of VirtualBox which you might decide to investigate.