The Macintosh and Windows are the most popular computer platforms on Earth. But the relationship between them, and between the people who use them, has never been smooth. For years, Macintosh fans felt robbed by Microsoft, who, they felt, stole the best features of the Macintosh when designing Windows. And Windows users, for their part, often resented what they perceived as the excessive enthusiasm Macintosh fans felt for their underdog platform.
Today, much of the anger has subsided. Microsoft, it turns out, is enthusiastic in its support of the Mac OS, happy to support its sole competitor (if only to show the U.S. Justice Department that Microsoft is no monopoly). The Macintosh, moreover, benefits greatly by Microsoft’s Macintosh software division, whose Office suite and Internet tools rank among the most popular Macintosh applications. Meanwhile, Apple has helped itself to some of the best ideas from Windows in the latest versions of the Mac OS, bringing the two systems even closer together.
As a result, we now live in an era of unprecedented shifts from one operating system to another. During Apple’s financial slump of 1995 to 1997, thousands of Macintosh fans reluctantly started using Windows out of a fear that their favorite computer maker might not be around to support the Macintosh for long. Then, during Apple’s subsequent recovery, thousands of frustrated Windows users embraced the simplicity and style of Apple’s smash-hit iMac computer. It’s increasingly common for someone to use a Macintosh at home, but Windows at work; Windows in Accounting, but a Macintosh in the art department; Macs for the kids, Windows for their parents. And among computing professionals—network administrators, consultants, and web page designers—familiarity with both platforms is becoming ever more important.
With all the emotion clearing like smoke, one fact becomes clear: whether at Apple or Microsoft, the designers of an operating system must solve the same set of challenges. They need to offer you, the user, a means of interacting with your files and folders, access to preference settings to tailor the operating system to your purposes, a system of printing and going online, and so on. Sometimes Apple and Microsoft solved these puzzles in similar fashions, other times they took drastically different approaches, but the problems themselves are the same. Once you study both platforms, the parallels become crystal clear: a Macintosh alias is essentially identical to a Windows shortcut; the Mac’s Trash can matches the Windows Recycle Bin; the Mac’s Network Browser and the Windows Network Neighborhood both access other computers on your network; and so on.
But knowing one set of terminology isn’t much help in figuring out the other. Who would guess that a shortcut and an alias have the same function? And more important, when you’re plopped in front of the platform you don’t know, how can you figure out the important differences between aliases and shortcuts?
This book is the answer. It’s designed like a foreign-language translation dictionary. For instance, if you’re a Macintosh user trying to use a Windows machine and you want to create an alias, you look up alias to find out it’s a shortcut in Windows. Like a French-English/English-French phrasebook, this one is split in half; one set of alphabetical entries is written for the person who’s switching to Windows, and the other set is written for people going to Macintosh.
Crossing Platforms assumes that you already know your native computer; it makes no attempt to start from such basics as pointing, clicking, or how RAM and hard disks work. Its mission is to make you operational on the less familiar platform as efficiently as possible, to help minimize your groping for important controls in an unfamiliar vehicle.
The key to using this book is simple: Turn to the appropriate half of the book—“For Mac Users Learning Windows” or “For Windows Users Learning the Mac.” Then look up the term you already know.
If you’re a Macintosh user, then, use this half of the book. Look up such Macintosh-specific terms as alias, Disk First Aid, and Option key, or generic computing terms like file sharing, moving files, and printing files. Either way, you’ll find out exactly what the equivalent component is in Windows, and you can read about how it differs from the one you already know. Words in boldface are cross-references—other related terms in this same half of the book that you can look up.
As you become increasingly familiar with Windows, you’ll likely recognize more and more familiar landmarks. Eventually, you’ll grasp the stylistic differences of the world’s two most famous system software companies, and maybe you’ll even anticipate where Microsoft stashed things. At that point, you won’t need this book as often, and you’ll have attained a most impressive status—as a truly bilingual computer user. When that time comes, you won’t even bat an eye when taking what was once an inconceivable leap: crossing platforms.
Both Apple and Microsoft update their operating systems constantly. This book covers the most widely used, recent versions of each: Windows 95 and 98, and Mac OS 8 through 8.6. The book doesn’t explicitly cover Windows 2000, but almost all of this book’s Windows discussions should apply equally well to the newer Windows.
This entire book is dedicated to documenting the differences between the Mac OS and Windows. But if today is your first day in front of a Windows PC, here are the ten differences most likely to trip you up.
Turning the machine on and off. There’s no keyboard on/off button on the PC, as there is on every Macintosh. Instead, your PC probably has a power button on the front panel; push it to turn on the computer. To shut down, choose Shut Down from the Start menu at the lower-left corner of the Windows screen.
Mouse buttons and contextual menus. The Windows mouse has two buttons instead of one. Use the left button for everyday clicking. Use the right mouse button where you would Control-click something on the Macintosh—that is, to bring up contextual pop-up menus.
Menu bars. In Windows, a separate menu bar appears at the top of every single window. There’s no single menu bar at the top of the screen, as on the Macintosh.
Keyboard shortcuts. Many keyboard shortcuts are the same in Windows as on the Macintosh—but you should substitute the Ctrl key for the Command key, and the Alt key for the Option key.
Window controls. To close a Windows window, click the tiny square (containing the X) in the upper-right corner. To move it, drag the title bar as usual. And to resize it, drag the lower-right corner, exactly as you would on the Macintosh. Dragging the edges of a window makes the window bigger or smaller instead of moving it, as it would on the Macintosh. The other two small squares in the upper-right corner of every Windows window are the minimize button (makes the window disappear, having collapsed down to a single tile on the Taskbar) and the maximize button (expands the window to fill the screen, regardless of what’s in the window).
The Taskbar. The strip of buttons at the bottom of the screen is called the Taskbar. It contains an icon “tile” for every window of every running program. Click one of these tiles to bring that window to the front. When a window is minimized, click its corresponding Taskbar tile to make the window reappear.
Application windows. Quitting a Windows program doesn’t necessarily close all of its windows; in some programs, the window may remain on the screen even after you’ve used the Exit command (which is the Windows equivalent of Quit). Don’t be alarmed; just close the window and go on with your life. Conversely, closing the final window in some Windows programs quits the program.
The Start menu. The Start menu, whose icon appears at the bottom-left corner of the screen, resembles the Apple menu in many ways. You should know about a few important differences, however: first, every program on your PC is listed in the Programs submenu, which is a convenient launching mechanism. Second, although you can add your own items to the Start menu, doing so isn’t quite as straightforward as adding something to your Mac’s Apple menu. See Apple Menu in this half of the book for step-by-step instructions.
Disks. When you insert a disk—a floppy, CD-ROM, or Zip, for example—into a Windows PC, no icon appears on the Desktop. To see what’s on the disk, you must open the My Computer icon; the resulting window contains icons representing each disk. Doubleclick those icons to open the corresponding disk windows. To eject a disk, don’t attempt to drag its icon to the Recycle Bin (the Windows version of Trash)! Instead, use your PC’s front-panel pushbuttons to eject floppies, CDs, and so on.
Avoiding passwords. Many Windows machines are set to prompt you for a username and password on startup. If you’re the only person using the PC, you don’t need to suffer this behavior, especially since it provides essentially no security. See Password Security Control Panel for details on how to eliminate the login dialog box.
Bonus Difference: Troubleshooting. Wherever you find a Windows machine, you also find a toll-free technical-support number—or a paid consultant on the premises. Troubleshooting is not generally something you can do yourself. For example, few Windows machines come with a startup CD, and performing a clean system install is almost unheard-of. The troubleshooting tools included with your PC are generally good, but most people require professional assistance in using them. See Troubleshooting in this half of the book for some starting points.