Vista on the Mac (was: Computer)

My last Windows machine finally refused to log onto the network at all
and won't talk to any printers. Rats. Well, it was getting pretty long
in the tooth and slow anyway, compared to the newer Macs.

So yesterday I installed Vista Business on the Mac, using Parallels. It
seems to work fine, except there is no Vista driver for my QMS
Magicolor 3100 laser printer and something seems to have convinced the
Epson driver that the photo printer is out of ink. It will print over
the network, though, to the HP 7100 series all-in-one, although it does
not understand the scanner or the fax. OS X has none of these problems.

It would be nice to have an XPS file reader in OS X, then I wouldn't
have to worry about Windows' constant problems with conflicting device
drivers. I could just print everything in Vista to XPS and then if I
needed a hard copy I could print it in OS X.

The nice thing about Parallels is that you can run Vista in Console
mode. Vista almost completely disappears. Every Vista window becomes an
OS X window. You can drag stuff from a Vista window to an OS X window
and back. And yet Vista is compartmentalized, so you don't have to
worry about any of its viruses getting into the OS X system. Vista
doesn't have to have access to the Internet at all except for its own
updates. You lose Aero, of course (otherwise it wouldn't look like OS
X) but it is very slick.

The interesting thing is that Parallels manages to get Vista to run in
only 528 megabytes of RAM. Every application in Vista seems to run just
fine without disk swapping. I have not noticed any speed penalty in
either OS X or Vista.

As for the keyboard and mouse, so far Vista has managed to put up with
the MacBook Pro's keyboard and the Bluetooth Mighty Mouse. It is a
little insensitive on the right click, but I think that is a problem
with the Mighty Mouse anyway.

I have no intention of using any of Vista's media accessories, so I
have no idea how they work. I also do not have any 3D games for Vista,
but Parallels says they will not work. So much for MS Flight Simulator
X (but then, who needs a simulator when you fly real airplanes whenever
you want). :-)

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On Mar 14, 11:01 am, C J Campbell
wrote:
My last Windows machine finally refused to log onto the network at all
and won't talk to any printers. Rats. Well, it was getting pretty long
in the tooth and slow anyway, compared to the newer Macs.

So yesterday I installed Vista Business on the Mac, using Parallels. It
seems to work fine, except there is no Vista driver for my QMS
Magicolor 3100 laser printer and something seems to have convinced the
Epson driver that the photo printer is out of ink. It will print over
the network, though, to the HP 7100 series all-in-one, although it does
not understand the scanner or the fax. OS X has none of these problems.

It would be nice to have an XPS file reader in OS X, then I wouldn't
have to worry about Windows' constant problems with conflicting device
drivers. I could just print everything in Vista to XPS and then if I
needed a hard copy I could print it in OS X.

The nice thing about Parallels is that you can run Vista in Console
mode. Vista almost completely disappears. Every Vista window becomes an
OS X window. You can drag stuff from a Vista window to an OS X window
and back. And yet Vista is compartmentalized, so you don't have to
worry about any of its viruses getting into the OS X system. Vista
doesn't have to have access to the Internet at all except for its own
updates. You lose Aero, of course (otherwise it wouldn't look like OS
X) but it is very slick.

The interesting thing is that Parallels manages to get Vista to run in
only 528 megabytes of RAM. Every application in Vista seems to run just
fine without disk swapping. I have not noticed any speed penalty in
either OS X or Vista.

As for the keyboard and mouse, so far Vista has managed to put up with
the MacBook Pro's keyboard and the Bluetooth Mighty Mouse. It is a
little insensitive on the right click, but I think that is a problem
with the Mighty Mouse anyway.

I have no intention of using any of Vista's media accessories, so I
have no idea how they work. I also do not have any 3D games for Vista,
but Parallels says they will not work. So much for MS Flight Simulator
X (but then, who needs a simulator when you fly real airplanes whenever
you want). :-)

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

Look up Open Office. Free, open source. Does everything you need. Have
to play a little with X tools, but if I can do it, anyone can.

wrote:
On Mar 14, 11:01 am, C J Campbell
wrote:
My last Windows machine finally refused to log onto the network at
all and won't talk to any printers. Rats. Well, it was getting
pretty long in the tooth and slow anyway, compared to the newer Macs.

So yesterday I installed Vista Business on the Mac, using Parallels.
It seems to work fine, except there is no Vista driver for my QMS
Magicolor 3100 laser printer and something seems to have convinced
the Epson driver that the photo printer is out of ink. It will print
over the network, though, to the HP 7100 series all-in-one, although
it does not understand the scanner or the fax. OS X has none of
these problems.

It would be nice to have an XPS file reader in OS X, then I wouldn't
have to worry about Windows' constant problems with conflicting
device drivers. I could just print everything in Vista to XPS and
then if I needed a hard copy I could print it in OS X.

The nice thing about Parallels is that you can run Vista in Console
mode. Vista almost completely disappears. Every Vista window becomes
an OS X window. You can drag stuff from a Vista window to an OS X
window and back. And yet Vista is compartmentalized, so you don't
have to worry about any of its viruses getting into the OS X system.
Vista doesn't have to have access to the Internet at all except for
its own updates. You lose Aero, of course (otherwise it wouldn't
look like OS X) but it is very slick.

The interesting thing is that Parallels manages to get Vista to run
in only 528 megabytes of RAM. Every application in Vista seems to
run just fine without disk swapping. I have not noticed any speed
penalty in either OS X or Vista.

As for the keyboard and mouse, so far Vista has managed to put up
with the MacBook Pro's keyboard and the Bluetooth Mighty Mouse. It
is a little insensitive on the right click, but I think that is a
problem with the Mighty Mouse anyway.

I have no intention of using any of Vista's media accessories, so I
have no idea how they work. I also do not have any 3D games for
Vista, but Parallels says they will not work. So much for MS Flight
Simulator X (but then, who needs a simulator when you fly real
airplanes whenever you want). :-)

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

Look up Open Office. Free, open source. Does everything you need. Have
to play a little with X tools, but if I can do it, anyone can.

You've successfully opened Microsoft .XPS files in Open Office?

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:53:01 -0400
"J. Clarke" wrote:

wrote:
On Mar 14, 11:01 am, C J Campbell
wrote:
My last Windows machine finally refused to log onto the network at
all and won't talk to any printers. Rats. Well, it was getting
pretty long in the tooth and slow anyway, compared to the newer
Macs.

So yesterday I installed Vista Business on the Mac, using
Parallels. It seems to work fine, except there is no Vista driver
for my QMS Magicolor 3100 laser printer and something seems to
have convinced the Epson driver that the photo printer is out of
ink. It will print over the network, though, to the HP 7100 series
all-in-one, although it does not understand the scanner or the
fax. OS X has none of these problems.

It would be nice to have an XPS file reader in OS X, then I
wouldn't have to worry about Windows' constant problems with
conflicting device drivers. I could just print everything in Vista
to XPS and then if I needed a hard copy I could print it in OS X.

The nice thing about Parallels is that you can run Vista in Console
mode. Vista almost completely disappears. Every Vista window
becomes an OS X window. You can drag stuff from a Vista window to
an OS X window and back. And yet Vista is compartmentalized, so
you don't have to worry about any of its viruses getting into the
OS X system. Vista doesn't have to have access to the Internet at
all except for its own updates. You lose Aero, of course
(otherwise it wouldn't look like OS X) but it is very slick.

The interesting thing is that Parallels manages to get Vista to run
in only 528 megabytes of RAM. Every application in Vista seems to
run just fine without disk swapping. I have not noticed any speed
penalty in either OS X or Vista.

As for the keyboard and mouse, so far Vista has managed to put up
with the MacBook Pro's keyboard and the Bluetooth Mighty Mouse. It
is a little insensitive on the right click, but I think that is a
problem with the Mighty Mouse anyway.

I have no intention of using any of Vista's media accessories, so I
have no idea how they work. I also do not have any 3D games for
Vista, but Parallels says they will not work. So much for MS Flight
Simulator X (but then, who needs a simulator when you fly real
airplanes whenever you want). :-)

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

Look up Open Office. Free, open source. Does everything you need.
Have to play a little with X tools, but if I can do it, anyone can.

You've successfully opened Microsoft .XPS files in Open Office?

OpenOffice obsoletes Microsoft Office, and it's not controlled by a
monopoly. XPS is an open spec, but it has only recently become
available. Microsoft has said they have plans for non-Windows XPS
viewers, post Vista launch. The community will likely produce something
before Microsoft does. In the meantime, just avoid MS Office.

Paul Allen

On 2007-03-14 15:33:04 -0700, said:

On Mar 14, 11:01 am, C J Campbell
wrote:
My last Windows machine finally refused to log onto the network at all
and won't talk to any printers. Rats. Well, it was getting pretty long
in the tooth and slow anyway, compared to the newer Macs.

So yesterday I installed Vista Business on the Mac, using Parallels. It
seems to work fine, except there is no Vista driver for my QMS
Magicolor 3100 laser printer and something seems to have convinced the
Epson driver that the photo printer is out of ink. It will print over
the network, though, to the HP 7100 series all-in-one, although it does
not understand the scanner or the fax. OS X has none of these problems.

It would be nice to have an XPS file reader in OS X, then I wouldn't
have to worry about Windows' constant problems with conflicting device
drivers. I could just print everything in Vista to XPS and then if I
needed a hard copy I could print it in OS X.

The nice thing about Parallels is that you can run Vista in Console
mode. Vista almost completely disappears. Every Vista window becomes an
OS X window. You can drag stuff from a Vista window to an OS X window
and back. And yet Vista is compartmentalized, so you don't have to
worry about any of its viruses getting into the OS X system. Vista
doesn't have to have access to the Internet at all except for its own
updates. You lose Aero, of course (otherwise it wouldn't look like OS
X) but it is very slick.

The interesting thing is that Parallels manages to get Vista to run in
only 528 megabytes of RAM. Every application in Vista seems to run just
fine without disk swapping. I have not noticed any speed penalty in
either OS X or Vista.

As for the keyboard and mouse, so far Vista has managed to put up with
the MacBook Pro's keyboard and the Bluetooth Mighty Mouse. It is a
little insensitive on the right click, but I think that is a problem
with the Mighty Mouse anyway.

I have no intention of using any of Vista's media accessories, so I
have no idea how they work. I also do not have any 3D games for Vista,
but Parallels says they will not work. So much for MS Flight Simulator
X (but then, who needs a simulator when you fly real airplanes whenever
you want). :-)

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

Look up Open Office. Free, open source. Does everything you need. Have
to play a little with X tools, but if I can do it, anyone can.

What I want is a way to print from Vista. I do not run Microsoft Office
in Vista -- I already have it for OS X, thanks.

However, any application in Vista can print to an XPS file, similar to
printing to PDF. I just don't have an OS X application (yet) that reads
the resulting XPS files.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

To cut to the chase: I think you have serious misconceptions about how both
the Apple and Windows OSes work and what Parallels can and cannot do. Many
Mac users have similar misunderstandings.
Presumably the reason you need to run Windows is that some program or
peripheral you need does not exist in the closed Apple world. Vista is
actually worse than Apple with regard to a lack of drivers and compatible
programs at this point in the Vista life cycle, rendering Vista as useless
for most people as the Apple OS.
One reason Apple users have less, but not zero, device driver conflicts is
because of the monopoly control Apple exerts and the static/moribund nature
of driver development for the Apple platform. Since Apple users have a
limited choice of hardware/software and there is not the pressure to improve
performance, as in the more competitive Wintel platform (mostly driven by
gamers) new drivers rarely appear that might cause conflicts. Is lack of
progress/diversity a good thing? Caveat emptor.
Virus writers rarely attack the Apple platform because it is just too small
a market segment and no large businesses run on Apple software. Last month
Apple reportedly released about 40 fixes to vulnerabilities in the Mactel
OS. Steve Jobs knows something many Mac users choose to ignore.
Despite your assertion objective testing of Parallels, which is a very
impressive feat of software engineering, shows that running any version of
Windows virtualized is far slower than running the OS directly. Parallels
slows both the Mactel and virtual Windows OS: it can't not slow the system
as it uses every available resource and divides them between OSes. Why you
would choose Vista Business, loaded with networking and security features
that are useless as a virutalized OS, is beyond me. I also suspect that
virtualzation of the OS is the reason why the Epson status monitor does not
work. The Epson status monitor is not even reliable on computers networked
under one OS.
If you need to run Windows for particular hardware and the drivers exist in
XP the answer to your problem is pretty clear.

On 2007-03-15 11:52:31 -0700, "nsag" said:

To cut to the chase: I think you have serious misconceptions about how
both the Apple and Windows OSes work and what Parallels can and cannot
do. Many Mac users have similar misunderstandings.

To cut to the chase: I suspect you have never used a Mac running OS X,
yet you pretend to be expert on what a Mac can and cannot do.

Presumably the reason you need to run Windows is that some program or
peripheral you need does not exist in the closed Apple world. Vista is
actually worse than Apple with regard to a lack of drivers and
compatible programs at this point in the Vista life cycle, rendering
Vista as useless for most people as the Apple OS.

Actually, the reason I run OS X is because some peripherals and
software are unavailable in the Windows world. However, you are
correct, you cannot prepare a corporate tax return in OS X unless you
use web-based software. Not only that, you cannot update your aviation
database for your Garmin 430 GPS system in OS X. You can barely do it
in Windows XP and you probably can't do it in Vista, either. That task
requires a Sandisk card reader that is no longer manufactured and
clunky software from Jeppesen. It runs best under Windows 95.

Um, let's see: I can't run Jeppesen FliteStar under either OS X or
Vista. Actually, Jeppesen's insistance on supporting only obsolete
operating systems has driven most pilots to using on-line services such
as AirNav.

So that is it: only two applications that have to be run under Windows,
only one of which will run in Vista. Big whoop. For that, I get no
support for *any* of my peripherals. Which was my point.

One reason Apple users have less, but not zero, device driver conflicts
is because of the monopoly control Apple exerts and the static/moribund
nature of driver development for the Apple platform. Since Apple users
have a limited choice of hardware/software and there is not the
pressure to improve performance, as in the more competitive Wintel
platform (mostly driven by gamers) new drivers rarely appear that might
cause conflicts. Is lack of progress/diversity a good thing? Caveat
emptor.

Most new peripherals have OS X drivers. Where do you get the idea that
driver development is static or moribund?

Virus writers rarely attack the Apple platform because it is just too
small a market segment and no large businesses run on Apple software.
Last month Apple reportedly released about 40 fixes to vulnerabilities
in the Mactel OS.

Really? They did not show up on Software Update.

Virus writers attack all kinds of platforms that have smaller market
segments than Apple. Please, your assertion is baloney, tiresome, and
idiotic.

Steve Jobs knows something many Mac users choose to ignore.
Despite your assertion objective testing of Parallels, which is a very
impressive feat of software engineering, shows that running any version
of Windows virtualized is far slower than running the OS directly.
Parallels slows both the Mactel and virtual Windows OS: it can't not
slow the system as it uses every available resource and divides them
between OSes. Why you would choose Vista Business, loaded with
networking and security features that are useless as a virutalized OS,
is beyond me. I also suspect that virtualzation of the OS is the reason
why the Epson status monitor does not work. The Epson status monitor is
not even reliable on computers networked under one OS.

Okay, you got me. I said it was not much slower. Most reviewers say
that for practical purposes it is not a lot slower. It isn't.
Apparently your idea of what a lot slower is, is different than mine.

Most people use computers for tasks other than running benchmarks, just
as they use cameras for things other than taking pictures of test
patterns. In the real world, Parallels does not slow down your
computer. Even if it did, it would only slow it down when running.
Since the number of tasks that need to be performed in Windows is
vanishingly small, that would be very little time indeed.

If you need to run Windows for particular hardware and the drivers
exist in XP the answer to your problem is pretty clear.

I chose Vista Business because it was available. Vista Home and Vista
Home Premium will not install under Parallels because of Microsoft
licensing restrictions, so the only other choices are Enterprise,
Business, or Ultimate. Windows XP costs the same as Windows Vista
Business.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

In article , nsag
wrote:

Why you
would choose Vista Business, loaded with networking and security features
that are useless as a virutalized OS, is beyond me.

Because Microsoft REQUIRES that you do so.

As for the rest of your post... Well, speaking as a systems engineer
trained and certified on both platforms - you're about 80% dead wrong.
The other 20% is distortion that make the rest plausible to the
uninformed.

Scott Schuckert wrote:
In article , nsag
wrote:

Why you
would choose Vista Business, loaded with networking and security
features that are useless as a virutalized OS, is beyond me.

Because Microsoft REQUIRES that you do so.

????? Somebody from Microsoft forced you at gunpoint? I'm sorry, but
shouting "requires" without explaining the nature of the compulsion just
makes you look hysterical. Are you talking about the licensing
limitation? If so, did you _try_ to activate from the virtual session?

As for the rest of your post... Well, speaking as a systems engineer
trained and certified on both platforms - you're about 80% dead wrong.
The other 20% is distortion that make the rest plausible to the
uninformed.

If he's 80 percent dead wrong please demonstrate his errors. If you
have Microsoft and Apple "certifications" you really shouldn't brag
about it.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On 2007-03-15 14:21:19 -0700, Scott Schuckert said:

In article , nsag
wrote:

Why you
would choose Vista Business, loaded with networking and security features
that are useless as a virutalized OS, is beyond me.

Because Microsoft REQUIRES that you do so.

As for the rest of your post... Well, speaking as a systems engineer
trained and certified on both platforms - you're about 80% dead wrong.
The other 20% is distortion that make the rest plausible to the
uninformed.

You had to love his "the more competitive Wintel platform (mostly
driven by gamers)." Yep, the whole computer biz revolves around games.
Who'd a-thunk-it? And nobody competes with Apple except Apple.

Bet that's quite a surprise to most software companies. Even Microsoft
writes software for the Mac. And whatever will little guys like Adobe
ever do unless they start catering to the gamers?

Wintel, eh? Somebody forget to tell him that Macs use Intel processors
nowadays? This guy has never seriously used a Mac running OS X. And he
knows nothing about the software business.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor