Tag: os x

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Password Protected Sharing

In the two guides I have written (so far) on sharing files between Macs and Vista PCs, Sharing files between a Windows Vista Home Edition PC and a Mac running OS X Leopard 10.5 and  Sharing files between a Windows Vista Business Edition PC and a Mac running 10.4� I did not disable password protection on the Vista PCs.

This meant that users sharing files needed to enter a password (or have a matching account) in order to access shared folders on the Vista PC.

Password Protected Sharing

However if you turn off password protected sharing it is possible to share files without for the user on the remote computer who is accessing the shared folder to use a password.

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Windows on a Mac

If you want to run Windows on an Intel Mac there are basically four choices.

Boot Camp

http://www.apple.com/bootcamp

This is an either or situation, which means you are running Windows or OS X, therefore if you want to change applications you need to reboot.

Has the advantage that you are when running Windows for all intents purposes your mac is a Windows PC. This means that you get the full power of your Mac for running Windows.

You need a licensed copy of Windows XP *SP2* or Windows Vista

Comes as part of Leopard, so if you have Tiger you will need to upgrade.

Parallels and VMFusion

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/
http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/

These applications create virtual Windows PCs, which allow you to run Windows (and Windows applications) at the same time as OS X and therefore you can switch between them withoout needing to reboot. There is a slight performance hit when running Windows in this way but for most people this is negligible. Also you will need a lot of RAM to run these, at leat 1GB and preferably 2GB of RAM.

Coherence mode on Parallels allows you to run Windows applications seamlessly alongside Mac applications.

Both require a Windows licence, but doesn’t need to be SP2, with Parallels you can even install and run Windows 3.1! Parallels XP support is excellent, however support for Vista is less good, so you can’t use things like Aero for example.

Crossover

http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/

Allows you to run Windows applications (some but not all) within OS X and you don’t need a Windows licence as you don’t install Windows.

Downside is that it doesn’t work with all applications.

MacBook

Summary

Therefore there are four choices when it comes to running Windows on a Mac. Which is best? Well that depends much more on your needs when it comes to running Windows.

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Just installed Leopard

Well better late than never I guess…

I have installed Leopard on my iMac (using an external Firewire drive rather than my main drive).

It installed fine, though I find it amusing that Apple’s “about one minute”  can be longer than any other minute, maybe a Time Machine thing?

I have had a quick look and I am quite impressed. I am quite pleased with the performance on my iMac which seems much faster, certainly don’t get the lag I have been getting when changing the volume for example.

Safari 3 is much better and I might just install 10.4.11 on my other Macs to get Safari 3, like the fact I can move tabs.

File sharing looks relatively simple, but quite different to Tiger therefore new guides are essential.

Overall impressed so far.

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Leopard is out, but I’m waiting…

Today sees the release of the next version of Apple’s OS X.

10.5 or Leopard brings many new features that are currently been covered all over the web so I am not going to cover them again here.

Personally I am going to wait. There’s a few things which pique my interest, but nothing that says “buy me now”.

I have also heard that 10.5.1 is going to be one BIG update. around 500MB, so that means that there are still quite a few bugs in 10.5 and I don’t want to install it on my production machine.