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Transition from PC to iMac

T

tawcat

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 3, 2011
209
1
This is my first post and question.

I love forums as they seem to provide the best info out there.

I am and have been a PC user since the '70's and am contemplating moving away from a Microsoft OS. I own an iPad and love it. However, the iPad is more of a travel/sit on the couch toy and not my main means of computer usage.

I do some online gaming that requires flash/java, can I accomplish this on an iMac?

I am contemplating purchasing the new iMac with the i5 core 21.5" screen.

What kind of transition/growing pains can I expect? Will I be disappointed?

Thanks.
 
Hello


I cannot promise you will never have a problem with an iMac, but pain is for Windows users.........

.
 
I made the switch in early 2008 to Mac and I will never go back. Macs are still machines and you may come across a couple of problems or defects BUT apples customer service is amazing. The transition between the OS is very easy and you will catch on quickly. The 21'' model you mentioned will be able to handle your needs. Have fun!
 
tawcat said:
This is my first post and question.

I love forums as they seem to provide the best info out there.

I am and have been a PC user since the '70's and am contemplating moving away from a Microsoft OS. I own an iPad and love it. However, the iPad is more of a travel/sit on the couch toy and not my main means of computer usage.

I do some online gaming that requires flash/java, can I accomplish this on an iMac?

I am contemplating purchasing the new iMac with the i5 core 21.5" screen.

What kind of transition/growing pains can I expect? Will I be disappointed?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I only very rarely come across flash/java not working properly on my Mac and even then usually just trying it in safari or chrome seems to make it work.

I switched over about 5 or 6 years ago, whenever they first came out with the intel macs and from what I can remember about the transition is there were a lot of really tiny things that bugged me. Getting used to buttons being on the other side of the screen, learning how to right click on something that is determined to not let you right click(I know this isn't the case with the new macs thank god), using cmd instead of ctrl, new keyboard shortcuts, etc. Nothing really Earth shattering but it does take some time to get back to being as productive(actually probably MORE productive because of the all the extra interface stuff mac lets you do) as you were before the switch.
 
Thanks so much for the words of encouragement. I'll keep y'all posted as to when I make the switch. I anticipate about two weeks.
 
A few more questions if I may: Will I need a new router? We are subscribed to ATT U-Verse.

Will my switch have any impact on my wireless network? Wife uses a laptop PC.

What Office Suite can I use? I presently use MS Office 2010.

I am assuming most software today can be used on either a Mac or PC, so I am anticipating no problems.

How difficult will the transfer of data etc from the PC to the Mac? I've got a lot of photos, documets etc on the PC that I must maintain.

Thanks so much for all the advice!!
 
A few more questions if I may: Will I need a new router? We are subscribed to ATT U-Verse.

[I]- U-verse router works great, no immediate need to have another router. What I've found is that the DNS ATT Provides don't seem very "Mac Friendly". Symptoms included quite a slow-down in loading websites. Can't change the DNS Address in the router because they handle the Video and/or phone features. After some research I found manually inputting another DNS Address into your wireless properties on the iMac solved the problem. I use OPENDNS Digits on their homepage (google them for more), and also use their free filtering service so my kids can have some sort of protection... Sounds compicated but quite an easy tweak, but google is your friend on that one my friend.
Will my switch have any impact on my wireless network? Wife uses a laptop PC.

- Your lan will run as always, may need to tweak permissions correctly if you want to share directories on each computer[/I]
What Office Suite can I use? I presently use MS Office 2010.

iWork is good, but I also have Office 2008
I am assuming most software today can be used on either a Mac or PC, so I am anticipating no problems.

-Quicken was the only one I have issues with running on the Mac. Mac Version inferior in my opinion. Apple.com has some tutorial videos on switching from a PC as well as Bootcamp if you want to set aside a little bit of hard-drive for Windows. I installed Bootcamp and Windows 7 but found that I don't use it at all, but made me comfortable after making the leap from a lifetime of Windows.

How difficult will the transfer of data etc from the PC to the Mac? I've got a lot of photos, documets etc on the PC that I must maintain.

-Apple.com has some good stuff on that. I purchased an external drive and moved my files that way. I later made a partician about 60% the size of my main internal drive to run Time Machine back-ups. Stay with the generic (oh my gosh I just forgot the format) format of the hard-drive. Formatting in native WINDOWS can't be read by the MAC, and Visa Versa.

Welcome Aboard! You will never look back.
 
macabouttobe: Thanks for that info. Kind of a scary thought to be moving to an OS that I'm totally unfamiliar with.

I started back in the early years with an 8088, with two floppy drives, when I upgraded one drive to a 20MB hard drive I became the "wow" factor to many of my friends;)

Even dabbled in building a few systems. So PC is in my blood.

But I am so tired of MS and all the inherent problems, so it is time for me to switch!!!!
 
Me too. IBM PC XT 10meg hard drive, I think my TV remote has more ram. It was fun building your own PC's and researching all of the components as a hobby. Chest pounding when you ran benchmarks, but ultimately seeing things grind to a slow limp with what I call window's eventual "half-life" with cluttered init files and unstable drivers..

The biggest adjustment was mental.. I was so used to micro-managing my file locations and directory trees etc.. I just had to surrender to the fact that the APP (iLife is a must) knows where everything is and I got over it..

What used to take a whole weekend to clear out my windows (re-format/re-install you probably know the drill) took me about 3-4 hrs (20mins of actually sitting in front of my iMac) to re-install OSX and restore via Time Machine. Some bad sectors crept up corrupting a few files/apps somehow. Funny thing is Time Machine doesn't back up your Windows partitian so I got to reminisce about the nightmare of re-installing windows again... Disk Utilities will be your friend and is typically the only maintenance I do every other month or so - Verify/Repair permissions.. There are probably more hard-core mac heads that would say there is more maintenance. I read in the forums that some people recommend you reformat/install OSX off the DVD when you get your new computer. I never did, but some folks feel it's cleaner when you don't have the factory-installed OS so whatever floats your boat.. Downloaded a free virus scanner off the app store for grins. The only Malware it found was in my Windows file folder!

http://mroogle.*************/ MR GOOGLE will help you search out the forums for other things you may wonder about.
 
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Well needless to say I'm nervous about the switch. But, I have no fear, it's all gonna be fine. I am at a point of "i've got everything I feel absolutely needed on a disk" so if this doesn't work, I can reload!

And so much of what I think I need is there only because I hate to get rid of anything.

I figure two weeks and I'll be making the switch. I don't game at all, so I'm thinking the i5 is going to be all I need.
 
Getting ready to place my order for a 21.5" i5 w/500GB hard drive. What else do I need?
 
The only thing I would suggest is to get yourself ready for the transition from your PC. Thanks to a few third party applications, I was able to easily transfer my e-mails and address book from outlook. You can also use the Internet Explorer export function to transfer your favorites. Put all of that stuff onto an external hard drive before you setup your iMac.

If you can't get completely away from Windows, I highly recommend getting VMWare Fusion and run Windows as a virtual machine. It works great. If you plug in a second monitor to the iMac, you can have Windows on one screen and OSX on the other. It feels like having two computers. Really cool stuff. Windows 7 runs really fast.

Be ready for a bit of a transitional period. The methods Macs use for software loading and menu systems are different and take some getting use to. Just be patient. Once you learn how the system works, you will be happy and wonder why you messed with Windows in the first place.

Also, on your external hard drive use Time Machine after you get your iMac. It's a great backup system and runs silently in the background.
 
tawcat said:
Getting ready to place my order for a 21.5" i5 w/500GB hard drive. What else do I need?
Click to expand...

If you are wanting more than 4GB of RAM, don't buy it with your iMac order. Buy it separately from some place like macsales.com. You'll save $150 on 2x2GB of RAM that way.

As someone already mentioned, an external drive for Time Machine is a no-brainer. It's saved me several times already and it's very much a "set it and forget" thing. You'll hardly notice when it's backing up after the initial backup.

As you start to freeware/shareware apps for your iMac, you'll notice that these are usually .DMG files. Double click to open which mounts them as a drive and simply drag the application file to your Applications folder to install the application(it's not really required to move these to your applications folder as they will run from anywhere, but it's good to keep them in one place). This process confuses Windows users sometimes because it appears too simple for installing an application. A few apps come in .pkg files that actually do run an install process, but it's also very simple.

If you don't want to spend the money on VMWare Fusion or Parallels for a Windows VM, you can also try out VirtualBox(http://www.virtualbox.org/). It's free and does the job, but without a few of the bells and whistles of the other two.
 
enjoy the Mac

I switched two years ago. I am going to 2nd VMware. Very easy to use. I choose to keep my copy of Quicken running in a Windows-XP virtual machine.
(the only issue has been those Windows updates that come out on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. I'll come home and find that the VM has rebooted.)
TimeMachine is nice but I like SuperDuper (and there are others apps) because it will make a bootable clone of your harddrive. When the internal drive fails you can still boot and get up and running.
 
Tawcat - I to just switched from a pc to mac, the iMac being my first. It's an awesome machine, a lot better that my POS build my own windows pc I had.

Things I noticed -

It will probably take a little getting used to the new operating system and how things are organized and how you access information. But let me tell you...Its SOO much easier on a Mac once you get used to it.

Applications are a breeze to install. Also there are two programs called Alfred and Quicksilver which make excessing programs and files a walk in the park.

OSx is extremely user friendly at least for me, it has been somewhat of a easy transition.

To answer your question: How difficult will the transfer of data etc from the PC to the Mac? I've got a lot of photos, documets etc on the PC that I must maintain.

All i did was hook up the mac to my router and it recognized my pc (you have to have sharing enabled). Then all i did was drag and drop files into the iMac...REALLY easy
 
As a new Mac owner i see many advise an external drive and use time machine. Will any external drive work ok for this purpose? Specificaly does it need to be mains powered or will a usb work ok?

Also can a new external hd be formated for use in both OSX and Windows as i'll be installing Bootcamp when i become a bit more confident with this new machine :)

Cheers
 
So, how'd it work out for you?

tawcat;

I'm thinking of placing my order tomorrow (Thursday) and would like to know if you still feel you made the correct decision to go iMac?

Thanks!
 
curiousmike said:
tawcat;

I'm thinking of placing my order tomorrow (Thursday) and would like to know if you still feel you made the correct decision to go iMac?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Here you go:


tawcat said:
Omigosh!!!!!!!!!! Got the new iMac today. By far the easiest setup I've ever done and I have two power cords under the desk. One for the Mac and the other for the printer.

I could not believe how easy it was to setup the wireless. I mean this thing found my network and everything.

I can tell I have some learning to go through, but so far easy peasy.

Only thing I haven't figured out is how I set the display so it always open with a med large font. And how to make the window open to the size of the screen.

I haven't read any manuals yet, so I'm sure my answers lie within. And the screen is soooooooo huge!

What else do I need to know?

Thanks to all those that helped in my decsion procss.
Click to expand...

And all his posts:

https://forums.macrumors.com/search/?searchid=26022881
 
Don't let the transition make you nervous. I just purchased my first Mac 3 weeks ago after years and years of PCs. I purchased a MBP 13 and I am so glad that I did.

I knew I was headed toward the Cult of Mac after my iPod Classic, iPhone 4 and iPad2. Apple just gets it. It being all kinds of things, design, ease of use, coolness factor, etc.

I have been using my MBP for 3 weeks now and I LOVE IT! It was a little difficult getting use to the differences in navigation but after that, no sweat. You'll be so happy that you moved over to the Apple Kool-Aid. Enjoy and let us know once you get your new baby and have had time to play.

P.S. I can tell you that as soon as my desktop starts showing signs of aging (I anticipate this soon) I am replacing it with an iMac 21.
 
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