ive had it, how to change my Imac to a windows computer?

Hi guys, I have had it, am tired like A PINK BALLERINA of trying to make things work, i want to install vista on my Mac, and get rid off all else.

does anyone have any tips for me how to go about this, and will i still face issues afterwards wit compatibility with ports etc?

pls help!

Sorry you've had trouble.

My personal suggestion is to sell the iMac and buy a Windows PC designed to run Vista. You can get good money for your iMac, assuming the issues are related to the machine being incompatible with you versus actual hardware or software problems.

Trying to get Vista to run on your iMac will likely be even more challenging than trying to get OS X to do what you want it to do. You have things you need to do with your computer. You should get one that will serve you.

Good luck!

Mathogre beat me to it! Excellent advice and the easiest all around solution.

Good luck!

hi thanks for your comments, whislt i understand that, i appreciate your feedback but cant go that way, I am in no position currently to buy yet again a new computer (3 holidays coming next year) and i am convinced in some stubborn way that a Imac is just a computer like any other one.

so why would it be a problem to run windows only, or is there really a big difference between a computer build to run windows or mac OS?

The easiest thing I can say is that an operating system is common code that sits between the computer hardware and your applications. OS X is designed around the Apple computer architecture. Vista is designed around the PC architecture. The Apple and PC architectures differ significantly. OS X cannot run by itself on a PC. Vista by itself cannot run on an Apple computer.

Furthermore, Vista has problems running on PCs. These are machines that are designed to run Vista. Microsoft has had to allow companies such as Dell to sell XP to customers wanting that instead of Vista.

Search the forum and Google to see how to run Vista on an iMac. I've run dual boot Linux/Windows machines, and have even built my own dual boot PC. From the things I've seen, I wouldn't want to try to run Vista on a Mac. The level of frustration to do that wouldn't be worth the potential benefits.

If you really need to run Vista on your mac try using bootcamp... but i think you can oonly give it up to 32g of hard disk space... I have used Vista for a while though before I switched to OSX and I would say stick with OSX.

Can I ask what exactly have been your issues and problems with OSX on your iMac?

to name but a few:

sony camcorder wont work with it ( even i bring the cam to apple shop, they try but cant get it)
epson R 1800 works and delivers appauling quality, and has only limited controls in OSX
the way how library's work, is just amazing, i cant find my foto files, nor my music files, as they are, they get all changed around and mixed up etc, there is no clear file/folder structure/hyrarchie etc.

and thats just the small tip of the iceberg, theres much much more that just wont let me do what i need to. after 6 months i give up.

The Camcorder and the Printer are not likely problems with OSX but the devices themselves. Is the camcorder connecting via USB or Firewire? Did you check with Sony to see if the Camera is OSX compatible. Poor printer support from Epson is NOT Apples fault, buy a better printer.

I'm not sure what your exact issues are with photos or music files, but my advise it to not let iPhoto or iTunes manage them, you CAN control them if you desire, I do.

I'd be interested in what your other issues are.

As for running Windows, any flavor of Windows, you're still going to have to have OSX installed on the machine for Bootcamp to work. Note the iMac doesn't have one of those little stickers that says "Made for Windows" or "Made for XP". There is a reason for that.

Is there some reason that I am not aware of why he can't just format the drive and install Vista? The machine uses more-or-less industry-standard hardware... It's dead easy to get a video driver for a mobile radeon, I'm sure Apple uses broadcom, intel, atheros or some other manufacturer for their network cards... I can't see why he couldn't get it to be a functional Windows machine, save for maybe the iSight camera.

newmacuser12: Why not just pop the vista disc in it and see what happens? Worst that'll happen is you'll have to reinstall OSX if the iMac refuses to play ball with Windows.

The EFI that Apple uses is different than the Bios. Vista is not supposed to support EFI Firmware.


Talks about the Sony and Macs.

http://www.digitalcamera-hq.com/camcorders/sony-dcr-trv38_question.html?qid=15934

ahem i am sorry but the epson prionter worked fine under windows, same goes for the camera! so no its not Sony or Epson who are at fault and in NO way will i let myself get ever in between the discussion again of this is his and that is hers. if the software giants cant settle their little egos, then they will suffer.

i have bought the mac care package so i get phone support.......ive been red eared after spending many hours on the phone to get a resolution to my dv camera issues, but never got it working

anyway basta, enough moaned and ATE LITTLE COCKROACHES, it wont do what i need it to do.

geeky, i wish to be in the know, i dont want to be the guinea pig, as i am not a geek, ill most likely only find out after 6 months that 1/2 my things dont work.

i rather have en expert do i9t for me

if your that unhappy with your mac, then just sell it on ebay or something and buy a dell with vista on it.

What are you guys talking about

1. Vista runs perfectly on an iMac or any other mac with an intel processor. I've installed it and have had absolutely no problems. The setup is a breeze cause all the drivers come on one CD. I seriously have a hard time understanding why you guys are advising him to buy another machine to run Vista. However, you will have to keep your OS X partition going cause BIOS needs to be emulated by bootcamp.

2. Your camcorder should work perfectly. Just make sure you are connecting it via a firewire cable and not the USB. If it is USB, then you will need the sony software to work. With firewire it will work with any software.

3. Your music files? Why they are in Music > iTunes > iTunes library and so on. Though I personally don't know why you would want to go through finder for your music. Just use iTunes for drag and drop moving of files to pen drives and such.

Looks like there are some people who don't really know what they're talking about in this thread.

Newmacuser, download and run Boot Camp Assistant and burn a driver disc for Vista. Then pop in your Vista disc, restart the computer, hold C to boot from the install disc. Go through the setup just like you would on any other computer. Once Vista is installed, pop in the Boot Camp driver disc. You now have a computer running solely Vista with all of the drivers properly installed.

Now have a nice day.

For all the rest of you. You CAN install Windows on a Mac just like you would on any other computer. You do NOT need to dual boot with OS X if you plan on only running Windows. The only thing you need Boot Camp for is the driver disc.

Note that I'm not advocating that this guy ditch OS X because he can't bother himself to learn the OS X way of doing things. But if he wants to quit and run back to his comfort zone, then I say we let him.

I think that the problem here is that the guy bought a Mac to run mainly Windoze on it and that is to me a total mistake.

A Mac is mainly built to run OS X, as MO pointed out: it will accommodate people in letting them install Windoze if they really need it but to use that as their main OS on a Mac is misguidance at best.

(Please note - this is designed for a non-techie and may not be totally acceptable in all the things to a techie, but is good enuff for the general user that has no desire to learn, nor to understand all the tech stuff.)

First - OS X is not for everyone, neither is XP, Vista nor the myriad "versions" of Linux. (ex. versions = distributions to the techie, but not to the average joe)

There is a difference in the "motherboard" used by Windows and the "system board" used by Macs. Windows uses boards with a BIOS and OS X uses boards with EFI. I know you're not a tech, so just suffice it to say, this is why you cannot just put in your Vista disk, format the drive (thus erasing OS X from your machine) and install Vista.

You can however, as goobi and Kash have pointed out, download and run Bootcamp which will allow you to install Vista. (Would personally recommend XP Pro instead, but Kash has been running Vista on his Mac as long, if not longer than anyone else here in this forum). You will be keeping OS X on the machine, because Bootcamp is required for the translation of the motherboard/systemboard information into something that windows can understand.

When you run bootcamp, part of it will be setting up a partition to install Windows on. You will have to make a decision as to what format you want to use for this partition and the size of the partition. The options are Fat32 and NTFS.

If you choose to go with Fat32, when you are booted up in OS X, you will be able to read and write to this partition without adding any other software. The largest size partition you will be able to set using Fat32 is 32GB. With Fat32 you also will not be able to have any files larger than 4GB.

If you choose to go with NTFS, when you are booted up in OS X, you will be able to read from the NTFS partition, but will not be able to write to it without additional software. There is no limit to the partition size you can create using NTFS, nor is there the file size limit of 4GB.

In order to write to NTFS from within OS X, you will need NTFS for Mac, currently still in beta testing (and functioning admirably on my system) available in this thread and look for post 36 for the 2nd beta.

In order to read and write to your Mac partition from within Windows, you will need this, no matter which format you choose.

While I feel your pain in not being able to get all your peripherals working in OS X, there is one thing all the non-techies need to get through their heads.

1) There are only 3 basic end user Operating Systems (OS) - Windows, OS X, and Linux.
2) There are literally thousands (if not tens of thousands) of pieces of hardware and software applications that can be attached to or installed on a computer.

All of you that think the distributors of the three Operating Systems are suppose to go running to each of the thousands of hardware and software vendors to see what they need to change in their OS so that this vendors hardware or application will work, (sorry) need to wake up and smell the coffee.

There is a market out there of people who use only windows, only OS X and those that are using some flavor of Linux. There are also many that use a combination of, or all three of these OS's. It is up to the hardware manufacturer and the software developer as to which of these markets they want to sell their merchandise to. The information is available to them to make their merchandise compatible with all three OS's. It is the hardware / software vendors choice here. It is not up to the OS developer at this point.

Sorry, but the ones to be mad at are not the OS developers here, it is the hardware and software vendors that have decided to cater and develop for only one of the three OS's. The available choices are:
1) As a user of a single OS - you buy hardware that has been developed with your single OS in mind
2) As a multi-OS user - you buy from companies that produce hardware with support for all the OS's you use

I know this doesn't help in many people's current situation when they first make the move to a new OS and they have invested money in hardware without this consideration in mind, and don't have the funds to go replacing all of that stuff. Most of us (including myself) have been oblivious to this in the past because we only knew windows and all the major hardware manufacturers catered to us as windows users. With Vista, I believe there has been a pretty large shift in this paradigm. While not enough to bring MS down from it's crown, it is enough that hardware vendors are starting to take notice and more and more are providing drivers and inter-OS functionality. This is a good thing.

As a bottom line, I will say that if OS X is not for you and you wish to move back to windows exclusively, imho, Bootcamp should be considered to you as only a temporary fix to do what you would like to do, and am in agreement that when funds are available you should look towards replacing your Mac with a box designed for windows.

newmacuser12 said:

ahem i am sorry but the epson prionter worked fine under windows, same goes for the camera! so no its not Sony or Epson who are at fault and in NO way will i let myself get ever in between the discussion again of this is his and that is hers. if the software giants cant settle their little egos, then they will suffer.

i have bought the mac care package so i get phone support.......ive been red eared after spending many hours on the phone to get a resolution to my dv camera issues, but never got it working

anyway basta, enough moaned and *****ed, it wont do what i need it to do.

Click to expand...

not to be offensive but your idea seems to be that is you take your car to the truck stop and fill the tank with diesel that it should be fine... after al it worked on gasoline... right?
Or that in another two years you are going to buy a bunch of analog tvs cheap and hook them up in every room in your house. After all they always worked, so hey should work fine on digital broadcast too. It is still off air tv...
Who cares that the hood says FORD on your car, by god GM parts always worked fine on your old chevrolet!!!


When it comes to external hardware, it is the manufacturers responsibilty to make sure it will play with various OS... not the OS manufacturer.
>>>>>THE END<<<<


does it say OSX compatible in the product documentation?

IF your sony won't play nice with OSx you can replace the camera, or replace the computer. Which is cheaper to replace, and which is old enough to need replacing? My guess is your dv is more than 2 years old if it isn't osx compliant, which means it is out of date as plaid polyester pants and whitewall bias ply tires.

If your printer won't play nice with OSX, then go to walmart and spend <$30 on a bottom of the line printer that will. I think mine cost $15.
.
BUT as indicated earlier you can either swap mac for pc even steven or make some money because yer old pcs are "ancient",

or spend a lt of money for a license to create an even MORE unstable unit than normal Vista PCs,

or you can buy a used laptop desktop etc, put a wireless card in it, and use it strictly for your sony dv and printer. probably would only cost about the same as a copy of windows SLOW HUGE SCENIC VIEW (vista).

newmacuser12 said:

ahem i am sorry but the epson prionter worked fine under windows, same goes for the camera! so no its not Sony or Epson who are at fault and in NO way will i let myself get ever in between the discussion again of this is his and that is hers. if the software giants cant settle their little egos, then they will suffer.

Click to expand...

It is indeed Sony and Epson who are at fault, because they choose not to provide decent drivers and software. This is a fact of life for Mac owners, and it's certainly not Apples fault. Logitech produce apalling Mac software too, and that's still not Apples fault.

I'd sell the iMac and buy a Windows laptop or desktop.

I don't know how to install Windows on a Mac.
If he wants to totally get rid of OSX and just run Windows Vista. First, check to see if Espon and Sony have provided drivers for Vista, or he is in the same situation.

My personal advice is, as a new Mac user, many people bring over habits from Windows. Your music should be located in the music folder. Use spotlight to search your hard drive for them, and if you find a music file(s) some where else, put it in the music folder, (same for photos).
By default OSX puts music and photos in their respected folders. They don't get moved around unless someone moved, or changed the default location.

If your new to OSX and been a Windows user it is okay, a learning curve is to be expected. Ask questions on the forum, and get a book on learning OSX. I am afraid to say, using Vista for a month at work, if your frustrated now, Vista will send you through the ceiling