PC to Mac as painlessly as possible

[300bhp/ton]

craigjm said:

Pages and numbers are rubbish though especially compared to word and excel. Get office 365 and sorted

They are perfectly fine. And if all you are doing is pretty normal office type documents, ie nothing overly complex or fussy (more so on the spreadsheet side) they are likely to be 90% suitable for 90+% time for 90+% of the people likely to use them.

[deckster]

Once again. Windows is neither better nor worse than MacOS. By and large, you can do everything you want on either platform. However if you expect shifting over to suddenly solve all your problems and make your life sweetness and light, you may be disappointed.

If you can't be bothered to spend half an hour getting to know Windows 10 then I wish you luck with learning how to use MacOS from scratch (hint: it's nothing like iOS).

Having said that, an irrational hatred of Windows is a perfectly valid reason to ditch the platform. Wanting new shiny stuff is equally good. Thinking that it will magically make life better is however unrealistic.

[So]

deckster said:

Having said that, an irrational hatred of Windows is a perfectly valid reason to ditch the platform. Wanting new shiny stuff is equally good. Thinking that it will magically make life better is however unrealistic.

I would be perfecly happy with old, not very shiny, stuff that costs me nowt. But we need to change a machine and each Windows machine we've bought since Windows 7 has been crap.

[So]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I don't care about a fair comparison. I'd spend £5k on a machine that works, even if the MS machine is £1.

The last PC notebook we bought is only running what it came with and it is crap. I've even given it to my children to use, and they won't use it.

[ZesPak]

So said:

I don't care about a fair comparison. I'd spend £5k on a machine that works, even if the MS machine is £1.

The last PC notebook we bought is only running what it came with and it is crap. I've even given it to my children to use, and they won't use it.

In that case, running anything that isn't windows in a business is often a hard case to make, the larger the business the more so.

[gumshoe]

300bhp/ton said:

Seriously

100% suitable for business use. Loads of people use them. And as for Access, does anyone really use it anymore? Must be 100 alternatives depending on what you using it for.

Yes seriously. I don't know how basic your business' requirements are.

IF you're just needing to use word and excel and that kind of thing then yes sure you can run the business on Macs. If your business requirements are for software that specifically designed in first instance on Macs, such as graphics related or design related software then again yes its your business tool. But I don't get the impression that's the case for the OP.

In so many set ups I've seen, there is a distinct lack of serious software for even the most basic of tasks like accounting software. There are barely any software for HMRC accredited Payroll for example on Mac.

Try running SunSystems on Mac

There's a reason why WINE exists. I don't see the comparative on Windows.

I dislike Windows with a passion. I ABSOLUTELY would like to have an environment where I don't have to use them, but for many (and I would argue [b]most[b]) businesses, there's no real credible alternative in the medium sized business requirements space.

Happy to be educated though, so if you can advise what I can change the following infrastructure with, I'll happily take it and change:


3 HyperV Hosts
13 VMs as follows:
1 Physical

Ubuntu LTE part of the Active Domain and dedicated to our suitecrm instance
Win2012R2 running Exchange
Win2012R2 running a bespoke line of business software based on .net and served as an IIS site internally
Win2012R2 running SQL Server 2016 standard with Report Server
Win2012R2 running Infor Sunsystems
Win2012R2 running as Primary Domain server and DNS
Win2012R2 running as secondary domain server and DNS
Win2012R2 running as RDP host
Win2012R2 running as another RDP gateway
Win2012R2 running as file server
Win2012R2 running as file server connecting to some remote sites using Connect:Select
Win2012R2 running as SQL Server replication site
Win2012R2 running as a software development machine (inc Dev environment)

There's a host of software on the RDP machines that range from MS stuff to I kid you not Notepad++ (which we all love).

I would happily switch over to a Mac only environment if I could (despite not liking their latest failings on the iOS 11 front) if I can square the circle above.

[dmsims]

To the OP

you keep saying the HP you bought is rubbish

Which one is it and why is it rubbish ?

If you go MAC just bear in mind the hardware support can be tortuous in the extreme

[vindaloo79]

You can of course use Windows on the MAC if you install along side MAC OS. I personally use Virtualisation Software (Parallels or VMWare) to run windows in a virtualised instance for tasks which require Windoze specific applications.

Only overhead with this is the battery lasts 4 hours not 10 whilst doing so.

[So]

dmsims said:

To the OP

you keep saying the HP you bought is rubbish

Which one is it and why is it rubbish ?

If you go MAC just bear in mind the hardware support can be tortuous in the extreme

It's not the machine itself, it's Windows. In my opinion, Windows stopped being user friendly once 8 arrived. 10 is better than 8 was, but it still seems to be a mess. Don't get me wrong, I don't think IOS is brilliant, but it does at least seem intuitive and generally things work, whereas MS stuff increasingly doesn't seem to.

[craigjm]

So said:

I don't think IOS is brilliant, but it does at least seem intuitive and generally things work, whereas MS stuff increasingly doesn't seem to.

Mac OS is nothing like IOS

[ZesPak]

So said:

It's not the machine itself, it's Windows. In my opinion, Windows stopped being user friendly once 8 arrived. 10 is better than 8 was, but it still seems to be a mess. Don't get me wrong, I don't think IOS is brilliant, but it does at least seem intuitive and generally things work, whereas MS stuff increasingly doesn't seem to.

IOS is not OSX or MacOS, just like WP isn't windows 10.

Keep in mind that most people, either from school or home. are used to a windows environment. So however user unfriendly you think it is, a lot more people are used to it than MacOS.

We have a couple of customers running Mac's nearly exclusively, both in the fashion industry. A lot of the users there are very unhappy about it because looking for software (financial for example) limits your options very very much. One of them eventually gave up and have windows installed on half of the machines.

Recently we've been searching for someone who makes it possible to visualize OLAP Cubes (a very common BI database model) on MacOS, something Excel does by default... not on Office for Mac though. We've come up short and the best thing we can suggest is just web interfaces. Which required a web server. Minimum requirements: IIS7 (windows server).

As above posters have said, for some businesses you might get it to work, but there's a good chance you'll be looking for all kinds of workarounds to avoid windows.

I've ran a MBP as my primary machine for a couple of years. Took me a month, then I installed Windows on it. After a year, I didn't boot in OSX once.
Tried the same with another machine running Ubuntu. Same futile exercise. Windows may be far from perfect but from my experience, for now, it's very hard to get rid of it.
Ironically, it feels like Microsoft is working hard to not needing windows. They are developing a lot of their software to be "omniplatform". This usually means you need a windows server (or Azure), and then run the web interfaces on whichever device you like. It's a step in the right direction, but in the end if you go that way MacOS is far from the user friendliest and logical choice, as ChromeOS would do.

[So]

ZesPak said:

So said:

It's not the machine itself, it's Windows. In my opinion, Windows stopped being user friendly once 8 arrived. 10 is better than 8 was, but it still seems to be a mess. Don't get me wrong, I don't think IOS is brilliant, but it does at least seem intuitive and generally things work, whereas MS stuff increasingly doesn't seem to.

IOS is not OSX or MacOS, just like WP isn't windows 10.

Keep in mind that most people, either from school or home. are used to a windows environment. So however user unfriendly you think it is, a lot more people are used to it than MacOS.

We have a couple of customers running Mac's nearly exclusively, both in the fashion industry. A lot of the users there are very unhappy about it because looking for software (financial for example) limits your options very very much. One of them eventually gave up and have windows installed on half of the machines.

Recently we've been searching for someone who makes it possible to visualize OLAP Cubes (a very common BI database model) on MacOS, something Excel does by default... not on Office for Mac though. We've come up short and the best thing we can suggest is just web interfaces. Which required a web server. Minimum requirements: IIS7 (windows server).

As above posters have said, for some businesses you might get it to work, but there's a good chance you'll be looking for all kinds of workarounds to avoid windows.

I've ran a MBP as my primary machine for a couple of years. Took me a month, then I installed Windows on it. After a year, I didn't boot in OSX once.
Tried the same with another machine running Ubuntu. Same futile exercise. Windows may be far from perfect but from my experience, for now, it's very hard to get rid of it.
Ironically, it feels like Microsoft is working hard to not needing windows. They are developing a lot of their software to be "omniplatform". This usually means you need a windows server (or Azure), and then run the web interfaces on whichever device you like. It's a step in the right direction, but in the end if you go that way MacOS is far from the user friendliest and logical choice, as ChromeOS would do.

Thanks this is helpful. I don't want to reinvent the wheel.

[So]

I am wondering actually whether I can send off the laptop that we currently think we need to replace and have it "hotted up" a bit.

Anyone know how practical that is? It's a HP Mini 110-3737TU running W7.

[ZesPak]

So said:

I am wondering actually whether I can send off the laptop that we currently think we need to replace and have it "hotted up" a bit.

Anyone know how practical that is? It's a HP Mini 110-3737TU running W7.

You must be kidding right?

You posted this:

So said:

I don't care about a fair comparison. I'd spend £5k on a machine that works, even if the MS machine is £1.
The last PC notebook we bought is only running what it came with and it is crap. I've even given it to my children to use, and they won't use it.

You bought a 200 gbp machine and would have thought it would have been plenty?
Don't bother, it's not worth it. Buy a 2k mac, awe over how much better it is than your windows machine and be happy spreading the "Windows is awful" word. You'll fit right in.

I'm out.

[dmsims]

So said:

I am wondering actually whether I can send off the laptop that we currently think we need to replace and have it "hotted up" a bit.

Anyone know how practical that is? It's a HP Mini 110-3737TU running W7.

No wonder you are unhappy - that's a VERY low spec machine e.g. 2GB of RAM

[So]

ZesPak said:

So said:

I am wondering actually whether I can send off the laptop that we currently think we need to replace and have it "hotted up" a bit.

Anyone know how practical that is? It's a HP Mini 110-3737TU running W7.

You must be kidding right?

You posted this:

So said:

I don't care about a fair comparison. I'd spend £5k on a machine that works, even if the MS machine is £1.
The last PC notebook we bought is only running what it came with and it is crap. I've even given it to my children to use, and they won't use it.

You bought a 200 gbp machine and would have thought it would have been plenty?
Don't bother, it's not worth it. Buy a 2k mac, awe over how much better it is than your windows machine and be happy spreading the "Windows is awful" word. You'll fit right in.

I'm out.

If you're going to be arsey, perhaps worth reading the thread.

The machine we need to replace isn't the one running W10 that I don't like. The little HP machine is a number of years old now and we were going to replace it because it's become slow.

Given what you appear to be saying is, "Mac isn't worth the aggro" "Windows isn't great but it's less aggro than Mac" I am considering whether we try to breathe life into the old machine and if it gives us 3 years we can worry about the Mac / Windows question another time.

[WinstonWolf]

So said:

ZesPak said:

So said:

I am wondering actually whether I can send off the laptop that we currently think we need to replace and have it "hotted up" a bit.

Anyone know how practical that is? It's a HP Mini 110-3737TU running W7.

You must be kidding right?

You posted this:

So said:

I don't care about a fair comparison. I'd spend £5k on a machine that works, even if the MS machine is £1.
The last PC notebook we bought is only running what it came with and it is crap. I've even given it to my children to use, and they won't use it.

You bought a 200 gbp machine and would have thought it would have been plenty?
Don't bother, it's not worth it. Buy a 2k mac, awe over how much better it is than your windows machine and be happy spreading the "Windows is awful" word. You'll fit right in.

I'm out.

If you're going to be arsey, perhaps worth reading the thread.

The machine we need to replace isn't the one running W10 that I don't like. The little HP machine is a number of years old now and we were going to replace it because it's become slow.

Given what you appear to be saying is, "Mac isn't worth the aggro" "Windows isn't great but it's less aggro than Mac" I am considering whether we try to breathe life into the old machine and if it gives us 3 years we can worry about the Mac / Windows question another time.

An SSD and a RAM upgrade will make it like a new machine. I'm a huge Mac fan, I have been supporting Windows networks from a Mac for the last 11 years and I prefer Mac's personally. That said, having listened to your requirements and technical expertise I'd recommend you upgrade your existing machine for the smoothest upgrade.

Damn

[Bikerjon]

What size business and what accounting software do you use? Those two questions will usually determine how big the task ahead is.

Moving to a Mac will generally be more productive. I'm sorry, I know there are still a few windows fanboys left on here, but honestly windows 10 is just a mess these days. Endless updates that bork machines, anti-virus that cripples performance and duplicate functionality all over the place. I'd actually rather use a Chromebook than windows now. MS Office and Office 365 business systems are very good though - that's two areas where MS has got it right.

[feef]

gumshoe said:

So said:

Yes, basically I am asking how we can use the Word files on the PC on a Mac.

So my question, refined, is: Is that Mac in my link any good, and how do we get fiies from the PC to the Mac and have them work immediately?

Just use a USB stick and transfer the files over to the new machine.

Beware though as business machines Macs have some serious shortfalls. For a start, there is no MS Access for Mac.

In my experience there just is not enough business spectrum software available on Mac to make them viable as business machines.

no MS Access, but there is FileMaker Pro if you want to build similar.
No Powerpoint, but there is Keynote which reads and writes powerpoint files, as doe Pages and Numbers with MS Word and Excel respectively.

I use Libreoffice across both platforms, which solves any interoperability issues, and all files are backed up to a NAS which all devices can access regardless of OS, so it's not an issue to move files from platform to platform

[dmsims]

feef said:

I use Libreoffice across both platforms, which solves any interoperability issues

Except that Libreoffice does not always open genuine Office files correctly