I read previously that I would spend the weekend reinstalling Mac OS X on my MacBook Pro after a few days of monkey with Boot Camp and Windows . I lied . Still chevy by unanswered question , I spend the weekend doing some more Windows XP tinkering before returning to the Promised Land . Here ’s a summary of what I discovered :
How do you right - click ?
Users of Microsoft ’s Virtual PC know to utilise the Control - click keyboard and mouse combination to correctly - penetrate in the Windows environment . However , this combination does not work on the MacBook Pro when you are not using the Mac OS . I establish two ways to conjure up the justly - click statement .
The first way may be the childlike , but it ’s not that elegant to use . The keyboard compounding Command - Shift - F10 will bring up the same menu as the traditional right field - press a shiner . notice that you have to tick on the folder or object you want to evoke the rightfield - sink in for or else you ’ll just get the default menu .
The second elbow room to get the right - click is using a little usefulness , aptly called theApple Mouse Utility . This small lotion brings back the Control - click compounding that so many Mac user are used to in Virtual PC . Again , the target you want to evoke the menu for has to be highlighted before the fare will work .
The Apple Menu Utility wo n’t work in Microsoft Office 2003 , so you ’ll have to habituate the keyboard bidding .
Address Book and iChat
I have year ’ worth of contact lens with all sorts of information stash away in my Address Book that I use on a casual base . Not having that info at my disposal in Windows XP simply is n’t an option . I render plainly syncing my BlackBerry to Windows , and it worked without a hobble ; however , that method did n’t bring across the instant message names for my 200 iChat pal . That ’s a pregnant problem .
I turned toPlaxo , an on-line syncing program for Windows and Mac . On the Mac , Plaxo syncs with Apple ’s Address Book ; on Windows , it synchronise with Outlook . I download and installed Plaxo on both operating systems and upload my info from my Mac . I then synced my Windows installation;almost instantly , all of my contact information appear in Outlook .
Plaxo brought everything over and put it all in the right fields , save me from mess up around with chromosome mapping or making correction . So now , whether I bring up into Windows or OS X , my up - to - appointment contacts will be waiting for me .
Plaxo bring in across all my iChat Buddy name — I see “ Bob Smith ” online instead of “ hotrodman001 ” or some other silly name . Plaxo also immediately syncs me with all of my contact that are also Plaxo members , so when they make a modification to their contact info , it instantly updates my card . Brilliant !
The canonical version of Plaxo is free , but you’re able to bear $ 49 for surplus features such as posit duplicate , which come in really handy at time . Apple ’s Address Book also has this functionality , but I could n’t discover it in Outlook .
Accessing your Mac hard drive
There will be metre when grab a Indian file from your Mac partitioning , without having to boot , would be useful . Mediafour’sMacDrivewill allow you do just that .
By nonremittal , Windows XP can not take HFS - formatted drives , but MacDrive open them up for you , allow you to portion out data like Word documents that you do n’t need to have two copies of hanging around . Having a single copy also solves the problem of what operating system you were using when you indite that report you were looking for — the text file remains in the same position .
MacDrive has many options including allowing you to synchronise an iPod formatted in HFS when running Windows XP . I tried several outside drives with my installment of MacDrive and copied files without a job .
What about my euphony ?
It does n’t count if you apportion your music or simulate it over to the Windows division — you will have to file your Windows installing as a separate machine to recreate songs buy through the iTunes Music Store .
I ’ve heard reports of several people seek to alias their iTunes folders alternatively of copying the songs to Windows . This micturate a circumstances of sense for obvious reason , but the method does n’t seem to be quite there yet .
I need my einsteinium - ring mail
Living without e - mail access these Clarence Day , even for a couple of hours , just is n’t workable . I utilize my stored e - postal service everyday for reference of when I sent or received messages ; I wanted that archive on the Windows sectionalisation of my MacBook .
I had hop for an well-heeled mode to get my e - chain mail from the Mac side to Windows , but I just could n’t find one . I desire to maintain the dates on my receive e - mail when transferring it , so I recognize on the nose when things were done .
The solution ? I import my Apple mail into Entourage , select a mailbox in Entourage , and cart it to the desktop making an mbox . Then , I put the mbox on my Windows partition and downloaded an software calledIMAPSize . Using IMAPSize , I converted the mbox files into EML ( Outlook Express ) mail subject matter ; I then import the messages into Outlook Express and import from Outlook Express to Outlook .
Does that seem like a lot of steps ? It was . But it gave me my e - mail messages while preserving the date .
I assay to save some steps and drag my e - mail boxes from Apple ’s mail . But that created an mbox type that could n’t be read the right way in Windows .
get out your tips
These were just a few of the questions I had while using Windows XP on my MacBook Pro . If you have any tips or other ways to do the same tasks I did , feel free to leave them in the forum thread below .
