Proud New Owner of a spanking new MBA

[GoGoGadget1]

Hey all. Just wanted to let you know that I'm now the proud new owner of my very own MBA - 13. The ultimate edition (256gb, 1.8 Ghz w/ i7), if you please.

While I have an iPhone 4s & an iPad 2, this is my very 1st Macbook and I'm enchanted to say the least! Here's to another life long user of Windows coming to the dark side.

They all succumb in the end

Questions:

1)Being a long time windows user, I'm naturally inclined to use my non-existent Windows key to do things like copy/paste, select all, etc. How the heck do I make a screen shot on a Mac? I'm sure I'll figure out soon enough how to do the copy/paste without the use of the trackpad.

2)I will still need to use some Windows programs for work like MS Visual Studio, Visio, Project, etc. For that, I've decided to use Parallels with bootcamp so that I can switch back and forth easily, drag/drop items from my VM.
Are there any clear cut instructions for this? I've got the Win 7 iso's on my Mac HD just need to know if I should move them over to an external drive before installing. I searched through some threads but couldn't find any step by step instructions. Also anyone using Win 7, 64-bit, how much did you allocate for space/memory for the bootcamp partition and for the Parallels VM? From what I understand the Parallels VM allows for growth.


Additionally, I wanted to thank those of you who were very helpful in answering my questions over the last few days. You guys are much nicer than the guys over in the iPhone and iPad forums. lol

Now I'm on the hunt to look for a matte skin and a new shell to protect it (incipio maybe?) .....

 

[Xikum]

Hey all. Just wanted to let you know that I'm now the proud new owner of my very own MBA - 13. The ultimate edition (256gb, 1.8 Ghz w/ i7), if you please.

While I have an iPhone 4s & an iPad 2, this is my very 1st Macbook and I'm enchanted to say the least! Here's to another life long user of Windows coming to the dark side.

They all succumb in the end

Image

Questions:

1)Being a long time windows user, I'm naturally inclined to use my non-existent Windows key to do things like copy/paste, select all, etc. How the heck do I make a screen shot on a Mac? I'm sure I'll figure out soon enough how to do the copy/paste without the use of the trackpad.

2)I will still need to use some Windows programs for work like MS Visual Studio, Visio, Project, etc. For that, I've decided to use Parallels with bootcamp so that I can switch back and forth easily, drag/drop items from my VM.
Are there any clear cut instructions for this? I've got the Win 7 iso's on my Mac HD just need to know if I should move them over to an external drive before installing. I searched through some threads but couldn't find any step by step instructions. Also anyone using Win 7, 64-bit, how much did you allocate for space/memory for the bootcamp partition and for the Parallels VM? From what I understand the Parallels VM allows for growth.


Additionally, I wanted to thank those of you who were very helpful in answering my questions over the last few days. You guys are much nicer than the guys over in the iPhone and iPad forums. lol

Now I'm on the hunt to look for a matte skin and a new shell to protect it (incipio maybe?) .....

Congratulations on your shiny new piece of equipment, you will love it.

In answer to your first question, here is a quick paragraph explaining all of Macs screenshot utilities;

Command-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it as a file on the desktop
Command-Shift-4, then select an area: Take a screenshot of an area and save it as a file on the desktop
Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop
Command-Control-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it to the clipboard
Command-Control-Shift-4, then select an area: Take a screenshot of an area and save it to the clipboard
Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it to the clipboard

The following keys can be held down while selecting an area (via Command-Shift-4 or Command-Control-Shift-4):
Space, to lock the size of the selected region and instead move it when the mouse moves
Shift, to resize only one edge of the selected region
Option, to resize the selected region with its center as the anchor point.

Also, for things like copy/paste, you use the windows shortcut, but instead of control, press command (the Apple button, cmd). So cmd+c=copy, cmd+v=paste, cmd+r=refresh safari, cmd+t=new tab in safari, etc.



Sadly I don't ever use Bootcamp or VM Ware so I can't help you there, but hopefully this helps for your first problem.

 

[johnhurley]

I will still need to use some Windows programs for work like MS Visual Studio, Visio, Project, etc. For that, I've decided to use Parallels with bootcamp so that I can switch back and forth easily, drag/drop items from my VM.

Hey congratulations ... each time they update Lion ( I have a new mba 2011 also 13 256 gb ) the bootcamp setup changes just a little but nothing major.

There are a bunch of youtube video's showing setup of bootcamp on a 2011 air you might want to check them out. The bootcamp assistant should be run first and it will ask you if you want to download the drivers and burn them to a usb disk. Do that and get the bootcamp manual ( pdf ) and look at that also.

Basically you make sure you have win 7 iso burned to a flash drive, that you have downloaded and burned the bootcamp win drivers to a flash drive, you then partition your system ( decide how much space to give to windows I did 80 gb to windows rest to mac os x ... don't get too chintzy on the win 7 install size ) ... you boot into windows installer, you select boot camp partition and using advanced option you format it as ntfs, you install win 7, you reboot ( still in win 7 ) and install the bootcamp drivers, then stick antivirus etc onto your win 7 system, that gets you most of the way there.

Get win 7 setup completely ( 64 bit install all the way ) before messing around with parallels.

Most of all have fun!

 

[eric/]

Congrats. I remember when I bought my MBA 13inch like 3 months ago. Glorious feeling it was.

 

[Abazigal]

I always found printscreen cumbersome in windows, and the screenshot function in OSX isn't really any better, IMO.

You may want to consider software like jing (a free screen capture tool) if you are going to be regularly taking screenshots.

 

[Bob Coxner]

I didn't have to "burn" the Win 7 iso to a flash drive, I just copied it. I had the flash drive with iso in one USB port and a blank flash drive (8gb) in the other USB port. Then I ran Boot Camp Assistant and it took care of everything from that point on. I only had to step in when it was time to load Windows drivers, but the instructions were clear and that just took a short time. The entire process was a breeze.

This was also on a 2011 MBA 13" 128gb. I set aside 40gb for my Win 7 Pro 32bit partition but I'm not planning on adding much to it. Win took about 17gb. If you go 64bit that will take more. I think I recall it's 20gb. Are you sure you want to go 64bit? The MBA is limited to 4gb RAM, so the fact that 64bit can access more than 4gb is a lost advantage. It's also much easier to find drivers for 32bit hardware/software. Some software programs are either flaky in 64bit or don't exist in that form. Just something to consider.

 

[Kendo]

This link is VERY helpful and should cover most Windows shortcuts.

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#switcher

 

[convergent]

I just got the same machine this week... welcome to the club!

If you are switching for the first time to Mac, I highly recommend the book by Pogue called Switching to Mac (make sure you get the Lion Edition). Its written as a reference from the Windows users' perspective so it makes it very easy to find how to do a familiar windows task.

 

[GoGoGadget1]

This link is VERY helpful and should cover most Windows shortcuts.

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#switcher

Thanks, watched a couple and indeed it's very useful.

----------

I just got the same machine this week... welcome to the club!

If you are switching for the first time to Mac, I highly recommend the book by Pogue called Switching to Mac (make sure you get the Lion Edition). Its written as a reference from the Windows users' perspective so it makes it very easy to find how to do a familiar windows task.

Will make sure to check it out. Hopefully, it's available on Kindle.

 

[GoGoGadget1]

I didn't have to "burn" the Win 7 iso to a flash drive, I just copied it. I had the flash drive with iso in one USB port and a blank flash drive (8gb) in the other USB port. Then I ran Boot Camp Assistant and it took care of everything from that point on. I only had to step in when it was time to load Windows drivers, but the instructions were clear and that just took a short time. The entire process was a breeze.

This was also on a 2011 MBA 13" 128gb. I set aside 40gb for my Win 7 Pro 32bit partition but I'm not planning on adding much to it. Win took about 17gb. If you go 64bit that will take more. I think I recall it's 20gb. Are you sure you want to go 64bit? The MBA is limited to 4gb RAM, so the fact that 64bit can access more than 4gb is a lost advantage. It's also much easier to find drivers for 32bit hardware/software. Some software programs are either flaky in 64bit or don't exist in that form. Just something to consider.

Thanks for your response. I will allocate around 50gb, however I'm going to install Win7 Ultimate so I can see that requiring even more than 20gb. As far as 32 bit vs 64 bit, I'm planning to run mostly Win programs anyway so I shouldn't have any trouble locating those at least. I also have the 32bit version, however it'll be mostly about performance for me. Meaning I'll go with which ever one is less of a memory hog since I store all my media on external drives anyway.

Are you using any VMware along with Bootcamp?

----------

Hey congratulations ... each time they update Lion ( I have a new mba 2011 also 13 256 gb ) the bootcamp setup changes just a little but nothing major.

There are a bunch of youtube video's showing setup of bootcamp on a 2011 air you might want to check them out. The bootcamp assistant should be run first and it will ask you if you want to download the drivers and burn them to a usb disk. Do that and get the bootcamp manual ( pdf ) and look at that also.

Basically you make sure you have win 7 iso burned to a flash drive, that you have downloaded and burned the bootcamp win drivers to a flash drive, you then partition your system ( decide how much space to give to windows I did 80 gb to windows rest to mac os x ... don't get too chintzy on the win 7 install size ) ... you boot into windows installer, you select boot camp partition and using advanced option you format it as ntfs, you install win 7, you reboot ( still in win 7 ) and install the bootcamp drivers, then stick antivirus etc onto your win 7 system, that gets you most of the way there.

Get win 7 setup completely ( 64 bit install all the way ) before messing around with parallels.

Most of all have fun!

Thanks a bunch for those instructions/suggestions. I managed to find the Bootcamp documentation on Apple's website and I watched a few of those youtube videos and it seems pretty straight forward so I'll give it a go some time this week.

Also is 64bit less of a memory hog than 32?

----------

I always found printscreen cumbersome in windows, and the screenshot function in OSX isn't really any better, IMO.

You may want to consider software like jing (a free screen capture tool) if you are going to be regularly taking screenshots.

Thank you..I downloaded and like it a alot.

----------

Congratulations on your shiny new piece of equipment, you will love it.

In answer to your first question, here is a quick paragraph explaining all of Macs screenshot utilities;


Sadly I don't ever use Bootcamp or VM Ware so I can't help you there, but hopefully this helps for your first problem.

wow, thank you kindly! I didn't know the shortcuts on a Mac were pretty much the same as Windows...Just the sub the windows key and command I'm set to go.

 

[johnhurley]

Also is 64bit less of a memory hog than 32?

In my opinion any win 7 machine with more than 2 gb of memory should probably be running 64 bit.

With 4 gb of memory not even a choice in my mind. In the "old days" a lot of hardware vendors did not always have good or even compatible 64 bit drivers but that well back. Plus here apple is directly involved pretty much in getting the drivers packaged/organized for you.

Just think about how big the win 7 partition should be. Re-allocating the size of it after the fact is ugly/dangerous/best avoided and you can easily shoot yourself in the foot/head messing around. In my mind to have future growth space 60 gb would be as small as I would go ( my system is setup with 80 gb ).

 

[KPOM]

For my Windows 7 64-bit VM, I allocated it 2 processor cores and 1.75GB of RAM. It seems to work fine. I, too, installed Windows 7 in Boot Camp to have that flexibility, and set up Parallels 7 to use the partition as a VM.

I gave Windows 7 a 64GB partition on my drive (I have the 250GB SSD). Note that Boot Camp Assistant uses the base 1024 "GB" vs the base 1000 GB that OS X uses. Windows 7 64-bit needs 20GB for itself, so 32GB is realistically the minimum size plus whatever space you need for your programs.

If you encrypt your Mac partition using FileVault 2, note that Windows 7 in Boot Camp won't be able to read it (FileVault 2 won't encrypt your Windows partition). However, if you don't encrypt it, Boot Camp will install a driver so that Windows 7 can access your Mac partition and read and write data. Also, from within Parallels or Fusion, your Windows 7 VM should be able to share folders with your Mac partition even if it is encrypted (Parallels/Fusion handles the read and write activities to the Mac partition in the background).

 

[johnhurley]

However, if you don't encrypt it, Boot Camp will install a driver so that Windows 7 can access your Mac partition and read and write data.

Read and write data? From bootcamp win 7 back and forth thru the apple file system?

I was thinking it was only read access that was supported.

 

[Damn Dirty Ape]

I just received mine last Thursday, also the 'ultimate' 13". I was a bit disappointed to find that there was not a flash drive with the OSX for reinstall.

Part of cost-cutting I presume?

 

[KPOM]

Read and write data? From bootcamp win 7 back and forth thru the apple file system?

I was thinking it was only read access that was supported.

It may be read-only. I'll have to check tonight on my unencrypted HFS+ formatted external drive. I thought it was read and write, though.