Your honest opinion - cheap netbook, or a Windows-on-Mac option?

[Young Spade]

I'd say to get a cheap but good Windows 7 laptop to use solely for this purpose. Back a month or so ago, I used my MacBook for everything as my main computer, however used a 2 year old Windows Netbook for holding my iTunes library and listening to music through that.

This allowed me to have a lot of music without bogging down my main hard drive AND control of two separate machines at once. If you have the space (physical desk space), it might be cheaper and more practical to just get a standalone machine for that purpose.

I read countless posts of people using Mac Minis as networked or local servers to house media or whatever...

 

[sjinsjca]

Virtual machines are the way to go, IMHO.

Netbooks, I can tell you from sore experience, provide a user experience that can only be described as infuriating.

I use VMWare Fusion, usually running off a nice Western Digital Passport drive with FireWire and USB connectors. This would be a nice solution for you so you don't fill up your Mac's disk. A Windows virtual machine that's only 20GB big or so would be fine for your purposes. (FireWire is preferred for speed, of course, but be careful-- the connectors are easily dislodged, which is very bad if the drive is doing something.)

I didn't have much luck getting VirtualBox to run acceptably, but that was a couple years ago, and some folks here are recommending it. It's certainly the cheapest solution for you, and worth a try.

 

[Hyper-X]

Link to back that up or I will treat that as more misinformation. I have certainly received some NewEgg shipments direct shipped from Ingram, and they are both based near LA, but that does not make them the same company.

It's real simple, we visited IM at their distribution center before Newegg even existed, IM went over their intent on starting up Newegg with many of their accounts. IM does not openly want people to know that they are Newegg for only reasons IM is aware of. I honestly don't care what the reasons are, it doesn't affect our business either way. However many resellers were concerned because IM was not a direct-seller to end users, they relied on 3rd parties for sale to consumers. With Newegg, concerns of how it'd negatively impact IM's resellers arose, and a serious concern it was, thus IM invited all of their resellers to come in and that's when they went over the whole Newegg.com intent and strategy to put them at ease before NE launched.

Refer to my boulder analogy, it's up to you to treat everything I posted as misinformation, I have no desire to have you approve of anything I already know. You come across like you know everything and pat yourself on the back because you have links to seemingly prove your point. I have no need to show you a video for every inch a 5 ton boulder falls from being pushed out of a plane over land to prove it'll hit the ground.

I could very well challenge your claim to your attendance at any real SB workshop as far as I or any person who's ever attended one will know, no end-user walking in without being a registered SB will ever enter the event unless you're a spouse of one of the staff or a MS employee. Not sure what you attended as an end-user but it's definitely not one for the major OEM's and/or partners. An OEM SB Workshop is for business partners only, not end-users... a Microsoft Windows workshop is for end-users.

FWIW I'm not sure why you chose to derail this thread by trying to argue something we could've done in PM's, as a courtesy to not hijack the OP's thread.

 

[balamw]

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Link to back that up or I will treat that as more misinformation. I have certainly received some NewEgg shipments direct shipped from Ingram, and they are both based near LA, but that does not make them the same company.

It's real simple, we visited IM at their distribution center before Newegg even existed, IM went over their intent on starting up Newegg with many of their accounts. IM does not openly want people to know that they are Newegg for only reasons IM is aware of. I honestly don't care what the reasons are, it doesn't affect our business either way. However many resellers were concerned because IM was not a direct-seller to end users, they relied on 3rd parties for sale to consumers. With Newegg, concerns of how it'd negatively impact IM's resellers arose, and a serious concern it was, thus IM invited all of their resellers to come in and that's when they went over the whole Newegg.com intent and strategy to put them at ease before NE launched.

Refer to my boulder analogy, it's up to you to treat everything I posted as misinformation, I have no desire to have you approve of anything I already know. You come across like you know everything and pat yourself on the back because you have links to seemingly prove your point. I have no need to show you a video for every inch a 5 ton boulder falls from being pushed out of a plane over land to prove it'll hit the ground.

I could very well challenge your claim to your attendance at any real SB workshop as far as I or any person who's ever attended one will know, no end-user walking in without being a registered SB will ever enter the event unless you're a spouse of one of the staff or a MS employee. Not sure what you attended as an end-user but it's definitely not one for the major OEM's and/or partners. An OEM SB Workshop is for business partners only, not end-users... a Microsoft Windows workshop is for end-users.

FWIW I'm not sure why you chose to derail this thread by trying to argue something we could've done in PM's, as a courtesy to not hijack the OP's thread.

The reason this is a public matter is that it is all about details that are important to others end-users trying to decide which version of Windows to install on their Macs.

Apple specifies which versions of Windows they "support" on each Mac model and Boot Camp Assistant will balk if it doesn't see an "approved" disc to reboot from. This check usually doesn't recognize upgrade or OEM discs. For the most recent Macs, this is further limited to Windows 7.

This is why, for the common end-user, who is looking for a copy of Windows for their Mac, the most versatile choice is a full retail package of W7. The 32 bit version can easily be used in a VM on most Macs with >4GB of RAM and if the user's needs change the 64 but version can easily be reinstalled in Boot Camp.

It's simple, versatile, and essentially "future proof" since the license explicitly allows for transfer to other hardware.

With the simple "double install" method (only required for a clean install), the retail upgrade is functionally equivalent to the full retail version.

The OEM is not functionally equivalent. Activation on a new hardware configuration is more difficult, and it cannot be used to perform an in-place upgrade over Vista.also depending on the specific source of the OEM disc there is a risk that what you get is actually a "restore" disc that can wipe your Mac OS from the HDD or that is was customized for specific hardware by some OEM.

So I will ask you again: please name one advantage of using an OEM version for a random, possibly less tech-savvy than you or I, end-user? Price is a non-issue since retail upgrade can be had often for less than OEM.

It is all about the details. The SBL is not a EULA. The SBL was completely rewritten since 2007 and Microsoft has made a very public attempt to inform people of their intent. While IM may have had a hand in creating NE back in 2001 and they may still have a cozy business relationship NewEgg has filed for an IPO and IM is not listed as ther sole proprietor or even a majority shareholder. These are publicly verifiable facts.

You should also reread my earlier comment. I did not say I attended SB seminars. I Will rephrase here. I am a longtime Windows end user, developer and admin and have attended plenty of Microsoft seminars targeted at those roles. In none of them did Microsoft say "please use OEM versions, it's ok". They may say this to Registered System Builders, but they give quite another message to the rest of us.

I will reiterate again. I don't care if you or anyone else makes an informed decision to use OEM instead of retail versions for personal machines. I do care that folks understand that "working" isn't necessarily "supported" or "licensed".

I wish Microsoft and Apple's OS licenses uniformly provided "downgrade rights"

Please read the licenses (or about them) and pay attention to te details. Of course the validity of those licenses and whether or not they are currently encorced or could be in the future depends on your location and is uncertain.

This is not derailing the thread it is an attempt to provide a context for informed discussion.

B

 

[Hyper-X]

You're going around in circles. In one moment you appear to state that the licenses and the intent of their use is clear by posting links to support your claim, then in another post you state that it isn't. You should understand why businesses have the need to ask for clarifications directly from Microsoft. The workshop isn't limited to just 5 or 10 people, the event spans hundreds sometimes thousands of attendees across multiple days. Reps from the big OEM's like Dell and HP are there to include partners of smaller "mom and pop" type stores also. Between believing you and Microsoft directly, I'll go with Microsoft each time even when it's said verbally in front of everyone. Not good enough? If you subscribe to Technet Pro, you'll see many references as to what I've been describing.

My intent for the OP was to provide a very cost-effective, simple solution that will satisfy her requirements and it'll accomplish that task very easily using up the least resources. Sure Windows 7 may be more readily available but being more readily available still doesn't make it a better solution, it may make it a more convenient option. Whether MS stopped retail sales of XP is irrelevant since they currently support it, if the user has access to purchasing a legit copy of the product which isn't hard to do now, that's a win-win scenario. If all a person needs is a spoon to eat cereal but a powershovel is more readily available, I'd say a spoon is still worth looking around for, is less invasive to her Mac, is a better tool for the job, will take up less space, is easier to use, etc.

I never said she must get an OEM copy of Windows XP in any of my posts, I merely brought it up to gauge where she sits on the suggestion. She could easily obtain a retail copy of Windows XP and still satisfy her requirements and it'll still be better than your Windows 7 solution. Again if she wanted to go with Windows 7, that's fine... wants and needs don't always see eye to eye. However if she's simply looking for a solution without having to purchase another PC whether that's a Netbook or otherwise, I stand by my suggestion, XP > Win7 for her audiobook requirements, Win7 is a complete waste for that singular purpose.

 

[case2001]

Well...... I just wanted to say I honestly appreciate all the points about full retail vs oem. Back in the day I would buy a second hand thinkpad which never had the original software. Being paranod, I would then purchase a full version of windows and wipe the drve and re-install. By the time I found out about the oem stuff, it was a nonissue because I always made sure the thinkpads had the original reinstall discs. If I had been the original poster I would have gone out and bought an oem windows copy and went about my bussiness. However, I now see there is some debate about the correctness of this decision. I still think an appropriate version 32 bit of windows 7 and virtual box will solve the op question. Now oem vs full retail I guess depends on the extra $100 and your point of view. If money is a none issue, I guess the full retail version solves both of the problems.

 

[LizKat]

I settled for installing Windows 32 bit version from retail package into bootcamp. I can put a VM link to it later sometime if I end up thinking that booting into a different partition once or twice a month is such a big deal. Worked like a charm. The whole process of applying drivers and software updates afterwards went as smooth as silk, which was great. Then I went back and got the Overdrive Media Console software downloaded again, this time in Windows format. Then I applied that licensing upgrade you have to put onto Windows Media Player even though you may never use the player. It is what then permits Overdrive Media Console to remove the DRM from the WMA download and transfer it to AAC, stick it in iTunes library and transfer to your iPod. Then I finally went back to the library, signed in, went to my bookshelf of borrowed books and this time when I clicked on that pesky WMA borrowing, it downloaded fine.

So thanks again to everyone! I reformatted an old refurb one-gig 1st-gen nano for the grand experiment. Et voila, I now have a borrowed library book that was in protected WMA format sitting on an iPod in a speakerdock ready to play the rest of chapter one. All in compliance with everyone's swell licensing terms. This is a tech forum so I will reserve comment about what all this says about publishers having any interest in literacy of future generations.

The real joke is that the book was borrowed on the 12th and will expire at midnight tomorrow, I believe. Fortunately, it's a short one

 

[balamw]

Thanks for the update! I'm glad it all worked out to your satisfaction.

B