Office computer. iMac

[Exfarmer]

Just for those that aren't aware, Parallels is the so-called 'virtual machine' that allows Windows to run as a program inside Mac OSX. No need to re-start [boot] the computer into a separate Windows section [partition] of the hard drive. Someone mentioned that using Parallels slowed their computer down drastically but this post shows that this is not the case on a well specified computer.
It also highlights the fact that there is no problem with running Windows-only apps on a Mac.

Would you think that it is better running Office on Windows ?

 

[Cowabunga]

Thanks for the advice, I think I have 24G of ram so should be OK there.
Is there an easy way to delete photos? I have reams and it can take hours to sort through press delete then again individually.

Yes. You can hold down the command key and select a large number of photos individually. Or if they are in a sequence, select the first, hold the command plus ↑ and select the last. Right click and select Delete. You can deselect any in the middle of a chosen sequence by holding the command key again and clicking on the picture.

If you follow the video I linked to, and some of his other videos, you will find more ways of selecting and sorting pictures on a larger scale.

If some photos are in the Pictures or other folders and not in the Photos app, then you may need to Import them into the app.

 

[Cowabunga]

Would you think that it is better running Office on Windows ?

I have no issue whatsoever running Office on OSX. I never bothered with Office much, or hadn't bothered on the iMac, until the compulsory electronic submission of VAT, where I found that the bridging software would only work with Excel and not other spreadsheets. Now I have Office 365 [now called Microsoft365] working in OSX perfectly, although I haven't bothered logging in on the iPad [yet]. The beauty of 365 is that it is cloud based and saves files to the cloud so that everything can be synchronised and shared as required. It also auto-saves worksheets to the Cloud as you work through a task.

 

[Northern territory]

Just for those that aren't aware, Parallels is the so-called 'virtual machine' that allows Windows to run as a program inside Mac OSX. No need to re-start [boot] the computer into a separate Windows section [partition] of the hard drive. Someone mentioned that using Parallels slowed their computer down drastically but this post shows that this is not the case on a well specified computer.
It also highlights the fact that there is no problem with running Windows-only apps on a Mac.
it does slow it down at times though especially when there are big windows updates. I have also found that you get run time errors with some software which is probably more of a windows thing.

 

[Exfarmer]

I have no issue whatsoever running Office on OSX. I never bothered with Office much, or hadn't bothered on the iMac, until the compulsory electronic submission of VAT, where I found that the bridging software would only work with Excel and not other spreadsheets. Now I have Office 365 [now called Microsoft365] working in OSX perfectly, although I haven't bothered logging in on the iPad [yet]. The beauty of 365 is that it is cloud based and saves files to the cloud so that everything can be synchronised and shared as required. It also auto-saves worksheets to the Cloud as you work through a task.

When I first changed to the mac, I was using office very little and forgave its poor performance compared to the older Windows version i had been used to. Today I am doing quite a bit on both Word and Excel and i am finding the filing incredibly frustrating. As Intend to use 4 or five spreadsheets regularly, they were normally in my recent files. Now that feature seems to have disappeared

 

[Cowabunga]

When I first changed to the mac, I was using office very little and forgave its poor performance compared to the older Windows version i had been used to. Today I am doing quite a bit on both Word and Excel and i am finding the filing incredibly frustrating. As Intend to use 4 or five spreadsheets regularly, they were normally in my recent files. Now that feature seems to have disappeared

I've got 'recent files'.
Just had a quick look in Excel and 'RECENT' is the fourth button down on the extreme left and a shorter list is available under the Home button which is the second button down.
Now I'm on 365, so small differences 'may' be present compared to the stand-alone Excel. I'm not sure about that. All I can say is that my bang-up-to-date apps have prominent recent file lists.


.

 

[Highland Mule]

Stand-alone Excel (2011 - gosh, has it been that long?)

 

[Cowabunga]

it does slow it down at times though especially when there are big windows updates. I have also found that you get run time errors with some software which is probably more of a windows thing.

If the computer performance and internet speed is limited, then any such Windows PC will slow down and whatever they do, and no doubt Windows running on a Mac is no different. Fast internet, a fast processor and bus speed, and a fast hard drive are increasingly needed, as they always have been. There is also no doubt that running Windows as a virtual machine in OSX will need more resources than running one OS, so the trick is to have a machine that provides more than sufficient performance all round.
Which is why I specified a Core i9 processor, 64GB RAM and 2 terabytes of SSD storage on my new iMac. So that it will perform well for the next decade or so. Not so much for today.

 

[farenheit]

When I first changed to the mac, I was using office very little and forgave its poor performance compared to the older Windows version i had been used to. Today I am doing quite a bit on both Word and Excel and i am finding the filing incredibly frustrating. As Intend to use 4 or five spreadsheets regularly, they were normally in my recent files. Now that feature seems to have disappeared

Just right click on the Excel icon in the dock, select 'open recent' and your most recent files are there. I find it the quickest way of getting to everything.

 

[Cowabunga]

Just right click on the Excel icon in the dock, select 'open recent' and your most recent files are there. I find it the quickest way of getting to everything.

Yes, they are there in the icon without even opening the app.

 

[Northern territory]

If the computer performance and internet speed is limited, then any such Windows PC will slow down and whatever they do, and no doubt Windows running on a Mac is no different. Fast internet, a fast processor and bus speed, and a fast hard drive are increasingly needed, as they always have been. There is also no doubt that running Windows as a virtual machine in OSX will need more resources than running one OS, so the trick is to have a machine that provides more than sufficient performance all round.
Which is why I specified a Core i9 processor, 64GB RAM and 2 terabytes of SSD storage on my new iMac. So that it will perform well for the next decade or so. Not so much for today.

yes agree mine would benefit from more memory.

 

[Dry Rot]

Just to show the other side of the Mac coin, I have a 27" iMac and am thinking of learning Welsh as I gather that language has more swear words. It sits on my desk next to my MacPro which I need to run what the iMac won't.

As soon as I get my head around a piece of Apple software, it is changed so I am meant to buy new and start again. However, I have found a little program that means I don't have to rent software and can stay slightly obsolete which is where I like to be. Let the mugs do the ground work. I'll continue to buy secondhand and let the whizz kids pay the premium for moving the car off the forecourt.

 

[Cowabunga]

Just to show the other side of the Mac coin, I have a 27" iMac and am thinking of learning Welsh as I gather that language has more swear words. It sits on my desk next to my MacPro which I need to run what the iMac won't.

As soon as I get my head around a piece of Apple software, it is changed so I am meant to buy new and start again. However, I have found a little program that means I don't have to rent software and can stay slightly obsolete which is where I like to be. Let the mugs do the ground work. I'll continue to buy secondhand and let the whizz kids pay the premium for moving the car off the forecourt.

Not sure what you mean. My 2011 iMac runs the same apps as my 2020 one and I don't recall much changing as far as how apps work over the years. New features may be added over the years but the basic operation of individual apps have surely not changed all that much to make them more difficult to use.
As far as having to buy new software is concerned, it just doesn't happen. All Apple software and apps are updated free of charge. The only apps I've ever had to pay for are subscription ones such as Evernote where sub is optional for extra features/storage-in-the-cloud, new apps additional to the ones I already have, and cloud based things like extra Apple iCloud storage, Microsoft [Office]365 [£60/year] and the VAT bridging software [£12/year] and herd management software [£300/year with no upfront purchase]

The imminent arrival of OS11 Big Sur will probably be an exception and a fairly big change in how things work, but if your machine is pre-2012 you are stuck on High Sierra, which is the latest OS that will work on a decade old machine. It still works perfectly well. Machines younger than 2012 will [can and do] run the current OSX Catalina perfectly and will even be upgradeable to the OS11 Big Sur in the next few months. If initially bought as basic machines, they might benefit from more memory and/or replacement of the original 5400rpm hard drive with a modern SSD for a better performance and the graphics fitted may not appreciate fast high definition computer games, but otherwise should work perfectly. No different there to basic machines bought today actually, the entry level 21" iMac specifically, which should be avoided in my opinion, unless the budget is already stretched to breaking point.


If you have an even older pre Intel machine, probably 32bit and built earlier than 2006, then I suggest that it really is time to upgrade to something a bit more up to date. 15 years of use is more than a fair lifetime for computers that were produced when development went on at a lightening speed. In the last five years, the pace of change has slowed very considerably. An used 2015 or younger iMac 27" should be a good machine and my mid2011 21" works perfectly. Not so sure about used MacBook laptops, where certain models have dodgy keyboards prone to failure.

 

[slackjawedyokel]

I’d also note that, as there’s a new version of MacOS out annually, the virtual machine called Parallels should be updated every time you move to a new MacOS. I think parallels costs around £70 to buy and around £40 to upgrade, but I think it’s well worth it not to have to reboot to change from win to mac.

I tend to skip a year and upgrade MacOS and parallels every 2 years. Maybe I should upgrade this year though, with the release of OS11?

 

[Cowabunga]

I was not aware that Parallels needed to have a paid upgrade. I very seldom use Windows on the Mac so not sure what to do now. May be that Bootcamp, which is installing Windows into its own partition and having to re-boot when changing from one operating system to the other is still the best option for me? I haven't got around to setting Windows up on my new iMac yet, so do have the choice.

I certainly will not be in a hurry to upgrade to OS11 Big Sur. Six months in is probably the optimum time to upgrade, to let all probable issues be sorted.
Windows 10 has apparently had a lot of issues associated with upgrades in the past year or longer, so when I do install W10, the first job may well be to investigate whether the latest version has sorted all the issues and, if so, upgrade to the latest version.

 

[slackjawedyokel]

It may be that an older version of parallels does work with a newer version of MacOS, but obviously they’d like you to upgrade so their help guides tend to tell you about the stuff that isn’t optimised and won’t work properly. I was probably playing safe upgrading both at once- I just didn’t want to stuff-up my windows only program.

I *think* the main problem with bootcamp ( from research 2 years ago, so might not be current) is that when setting it up you have to assign a set part of the hard disk to bootcamp and reformat that part of the disk. That bit of the disk then isn’t available to macOS, and on the one hand you might never get near using allof that partition while on the other hand if you do use it all, it might be difficult to add a bit more. It might also be difficult to get rid of if you decide to use the machine as Mac only in future. I thought that going down the parallels route would be more flexible and so far so good!

It’s also worth noting that Parrallels sometimes have (approx 50%) sales - buying it 6 months after a version of macos comes out might work out much cheaper!

 

[Northern territory]

You also need virus software on the virtual machine

 

[Cowabunga]

It may be that an older version of parallels does work with a newer version of MacOS, but obviously they’d like you to upgrade so their help guides tend to tell you about the stuff that isn’t optimised and won’t work properly. I was probably playing safe upgrading both at once- I just didn’t want to stuff-up my windows only program.

I *think* the main problem with bootcamp ( from research 2 years ago, so might not be current) is that when setting it up you have to assign a set part of the hard disk to bootcamp and reformat that part of the disk. That bit of the disk then isn’t available to macOS, and on the one hand you might never get near using allof that partition while on the other hand if you do use it all, it might be difficult to add a bit more. It might also be difficult to get rid of if you decide to use the machine as Mac only in future. I thought that going down the parallels route would be more flexible and so far so good!

It’s also worth noting that Parrallels sometimes have (approx 50%) sales - buying it 6 months after a version of macos comes out might work out much cheaper!

Since I don't use Windows much and I know how much I had as a partition in the old iMac, I think that allocating around 250GB out of a 2TB internal drive would be fine. Any unforeseen extra storage needed in future could be allocated to an external drive.

For external drives where speed for large files and games is not critical, conventional mechanical USB3 wired drives such as WD MyPassport are perfectly good, but the current iMac has two Thunderbolt3 drives that can make use of external SSD SATA or even faster M.2 drives. If two such ports are not enough, docking stations can be used to provide more. The next generation iMacs will almost certainly have at least four Thunderbolt ports but two is no problem. They might be even faster versions of Thunderbolt though speed of the current version is almost ridiculously fast.

 

[Cowabunga]

You also need virus software on the virtual machine

Not as I understand it, because Windows Defender is now meant to be as good as any paid-for anti-virus. No different than running W in a partition. It is Windows that needs the anti-virus is it not?

For those that are not aware of it, Windows Defender is a very well established built-in standard anti-virus program. It is very regularly updated by Microsoft and can be set to update automatically on PC's.

 

[Northern territory]

Not as I understand it, because Windows Defender is now meant to be as good as any paid-for anti-virus. No different than running W in a partition. It is Windows that needs the anti-virus is it not?

That’s what I meant windows 10.