So you've put
Windows XP on your Mac. What now? As someone who
has to constantly switch between the two, I have a few tips. There are problems inherent in dual-booting, as opposed to
running a virtual machine inside another OS (virtualization has its own issues of course). The big one for me is the
issue of data storage. While I need to use USB memory sticks at work to move data from my iBook to a PC for printing,
if it's a simple data sharing issue at home, this is easily remedied. I've been trying out
FolderShare from Microsoft, and it works great. The OS X client is
quirky, coated in brushed metal, but works like a dream. Right now it's in beta, and thus free, but expect this to
change. Another alternative is a .Mac account and the XP utility for mounting your .Mac "drive." The nice
thing about this is you can treat it just like a hard drive, but with all the latency issues you'd expect with a
WebDAV data store... Still, there are plenty of online storage options
out there.
If you want your XP to look more like a Mac, the contest winner appears to be
FlyakiteOSX. Making it work like a Mac is a bit different. You know,
Home is
My Documents and so on, and each platform is totally different under the hood, yada yada.
More important is to just understand the difference between the two and deal with it. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot
of data points out there for switching from a Mac to a PC. Statistically that's just not a big pool to draw from...
There's a
mostly
useless CNet article from 2002. And there's a much better piece from Rolf Howarth in 2004.
Rolf made the switch to XP and documented the affair.
Skip through the hardware issues to the software bits though. Again, it's a little out of date (XP handles wireless
pretty well nowadays, in my experience)... Oh and
Jeremy
Zawodny switched to a PC laptop last year and appears to enjoy it. Anyway, there are lots of differences. Mostly
it's a change of geography, with the need for some extra security thrown in. Instead of the menu bar up top, it's the
tray down below.
If you're feeling homesick for something like Quicksilver, we've had this
discussion a lot on Download Squad, plus other modifications.
Choose your poison. If you want to enable
Microsoft's version of Fast User Switching,
you can. Downloading the Google Pack is helpful, as you get a Spotlight-esque search tool and a task switcher.
Gnosis has a ton of XP resource links
for you to peruse as well, which range from troubleshooting to massaging more performance out of the OS. One idea to
feel at home in either OS is to use nothing but cross-platform,
open source apps. It's an idea anyway.
Hey, it
could be worse. Try switching from
UNIX to
Windows.
It's been an interesting year so far for operating systems. Microsoft released its first major upgrade in 5 years with Windows Vista, and Ubuntu Linux continued on its way toward world domination with the release of Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. Even 
I've never been good with electronics.
Computers, sure, but electronics, not so much. Although I studied them in school, it just seemed like so much trouble
to go to for something to actually happen. I guess I just appreciate microprocessors and the things they can do.
