transfer settings from vista and workgroup networking

[beastiedk]

Hi

Just had my first ever Mac (MacBook Pro) and I am trying to figure out the following two things:

1. how to transfer all my settings (or as much as possible) in a Vista Ultimate machine to my new Mac (the objective is to get rid of the Vista machine). This would include My Documents folder, outlook (entourage) account settings, email, etc

2. How to integrate my new mac in my windows home network (workgroup) and be able to use my time capsule from all my machines (both mac and windows vistas) as an external HDD and backup solution (time machine is already enabled between my mac and time capsule. For the last bit, I presume that installing the time capsule software in my windows machines would do the trick, but does that also enable the "external hdd" functionality?

thanks in advance!

 

[agentphish]

Congrats on your purchase and welcome to MacRumors.

1. Use an external hard disk or your network to simply copy the files you have in your "My Documents" folder, and whatever else you want, over to your Mac. As for "settings" I'm not sure what all you mean by that, but most settings are OS independent so you'll have to find your way to the System Preferences in OS X and play around.

You should take care to organize your data into its respective folders on your mac as you have in windows. i.e. your documents go in your ../Your Username/Documents folder, your music in your ../Your Username/music/itunes library (or just drag them into iTunes and let it organize them for you) and, movies, and so on...

For your photos just get the My Photos folder over to your mac and then simply drag it into iPhoto, and let iPhoto do the rest. It's so easy.

As for your email...this is one of the only parts of the transition that could be difficult, and that's on Microsoft for using a proprietary mailbox format. Here's a few links to get you started.
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/9928
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/cross_platform/win_mac.html
http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2007/08/importing_from_outlook_for_win.html

If you are interested in Apple Mail, if you can, you might try installing Mozilla Thunderbird and letting it import all your settings and mailboxes from your Outlook setup...Thunderbird uses a mailbox format that plays nicely with apple's mail.

Your account settings you will need to enter into Entourage manually if you choose to use it. Is there any reason you need to use Entourage? Apple mail is WONDERFUL.

I'm unsure about TimeCapsule as I don't own one. Sorry I can't help you there.

Remember, it's all very very easy. More easy than you will ever believe, or let your self think it is right away. Just go with it, don't fight the Apple mindset, think different and you'll love it all the way...And oh congrats on trying to ditch Vista. I hope your efforts are rewarded!