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Anyone truly Microsoft free?

dpaanlka

dpaanlka

macrumors 601
Original poster
Nov 16, 2004
4,869
34
Illinois
My PowerBook G4 has zero Microsoft software installed (as far as I know). Since last format I've been quite content with iLife '06 and Pages. No Office & no IE anywhere on this drive!

EDIT: I guess I mean Microsoft applications free...

No Word
No Excel
No PowerPoint
No IE
No Outlook
No Entourage
No MSN
No Media Player
No other titles by Microsoft...
 
I still haven't worked past my Office fetish. I actually think it's a very accomplished suite and there's really no alternative for group projects at uni. :eek:
 
dpaanlka said:
My PowerBook G4 has zero Microsoft software installed (as far as I know). Since last format I've been quite content with iLife '06 and iWork. No Office & no IE anywhere on this drive!
Click to expand...


Try doing a search for Microsoft. There will almost definitely be some infection somewhere...
 
I'm with MJ on this one. Why should I be Microsoft free if I like one of their apps? I like Word and Excel, and I'll use LaTeX if I need to write a paper to be published. But Word gets the job done every time with no problems. The only thing I don't like is how it seems to have a problem with placement of images when I try to paste or insert one.

A non-usability related problem is how many features there are that I don't use, but I just ignore them. It's ok.
 
I stole the fonts from Office test drive before uninstalling it on my MacBook. So I don't have any applications from Microsoft at the moment, just 42 fonts. ;)

Anyone know a free, lightweight alternative to Powerpoint (or even just a powerpoint viewer)? If it was universal, too, it would be great. :)

Edit:

<embarrassed mode>I forgot one thing: I'm testing out Parallels with an old Windows 2000 I had lying around. So my MacBook is in no way Microsoft free... unless you don't count virtual machines... ;)
 
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
Anyone know a free, lightweight alternative to Powerpoint (or even just a powerpoint viewer)? If it were universal, too, it would be great. :)
Click to expand...
While not free, you could try ThinkFree Office.

It's sort of MS Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) compatible but does have it's limits.
 
Zero Microsoft here. Luckily I don't need anything outside of a word processor or presentation software or I'd probably use Office. When the heck is Apple going to expand iWork?
 
dpaanlka said:
My PowerBook G4 has zero Microsoft software installed (as far as I know). Since last format I've been quite content with iLife '06 and iWork. No Office & no IE anywhere on this drive!
Click to expand...

You don't have Media Player either?
 
THe only thing M$ i have on my Mac is Media Player. Flip4Mac just doesnt work very well. I dont have Office, i use NeoOffice 2.
 
mac-er said:
You don't have Media Player either?
Click to expand...
I thought Flip4Mac got bought or got made the official MS partner for WMV on the Mac (thus allowing the killing of WMP). So, wouldn't even F4M be a quasi-MS product (at the least)?
 
mac-er said:
You don't have Media Player either?
Click to expand...

Yuck, no way, what are you kidding? That's not even the current "official" player.

nbs2 said:
I thought Flip4Mac got bought or got made the official MS partner for WMV on the Mac (thus allowing the killing of WMP). So, wouldn't even F4M be a quasi-MS product (at the least)?
Click to expand...

It's still not really microsoft software. Even if it ever becomes one (which I'm sure it will) at least I still won't have any Applications :D

AtHomeBoy_2000 said:
THe only thing M$ i have on my Mac is Media Player. Flip4Mac just doesnt work very well. I dont have Office, i use NeoOffice 2.
Click to expand...

Have you tried the latest versions of Flip4Mac (they update constantly)? They play a lot more files than the last release of Media Player Mac.

Abstract said:
I'm with MJ on this one. Why should I be Microsoft free if I like one of their apps?
Click to expand...

I actually like Pages and Keynote a lot more than Word and PowerPoint, and I don't use Excel for anything crazier than what Pages can do with graphs. To me Pages seems more design-capable, kind of like Apple's Microsoft Project, only not crappy. So it's more practical for me to use iWork than MS Office.

Of course, whatever your preference is up to you! I'm curious to see how many are like me and have no Microsoft software.
 
I only really use Word and Excel. Keynote easily surpasses Power Point, so that's not an issues but Pages just doesn't quite cut it for me. I used Entourage for a while for accessing my hotmail account but it's so slow and clunky that I've given up.
 
no one is truly microsoft free. you'll use ms products that you don't even realize it. like an ATM that runs on top of windows, or maybe when you make a cell phone call it indirectly updates a SQL database running w2k3 which is how you get your bill. although, if you can make yourself happy with a laptop without ms products go right ahead. just know your'll still use them in the real world anyway.
 
superbovine said:
no one is truly microsoft free. you'll use ms products that you don't even realize it. like an ATM that runs on top of windows, or maybe when you make a cell phone call it indirectly updates a SQL database running w2k3 which is how you get your bill. although, if you can make yourself happy with a laptop without ms products go right ahead. just know your'll still use them in the real world anyway.
Click to expand...

I don't have a cell phone and I don't use ATMs. Actually that's a huge lie, but of course I mean on your computer. That PowerBook is just one of my many computers, most of which do have Office installed. But I like that my PowerBook has no Microsoft apps on it at all.
 
dpaanlka said:
I don't have a cell phone and I don't use ATMs. Actually that's a huge lie, but of course I mean on your computer. That PowerBook is just one of my many computers, most of which do have Office installed. But I like that my PowerBook has no Microsoft apps on it at all.
Click to expand...

you pay taxes? goto stores and use credit cards? you have electricity? you surf the internet? you can't run from it. there is something that you use often that uses ms products.
 
superbovine said:
you pay taxes? goto stores and use credit cards? you have electricity? you surf the internet? you can't run from it. there is something that you use often that uses ms products.
Click to expand...

:confused:

Right after I said I don't have a cell phone or use an ATM, I corrected myself by saying "that's a huge lie" - as in, I do have a cell phone and use an ATM almost daily...
 
I haven't used most of my Microsoft software* since the summer of 2002. That was the summer I had to deal with Microsoft's lawyers on behalf of one of my clients.

I do have MS Office 98 installed on my 3400c, but that is because I loan that system out to people as a training system and not because I have any use for that software.


* I have Windows 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11 for workgroups, 95, 98, Me, NT 3.1 Workstation, NT 3.51 Workstation, NT 4.0 Workstation and Server, 2000 Professional, Word 5.1a for Mac, Office 4.2.1 for Mac, Office 97 Professional, Office 98 for Mac, Office 2000 Professional, and Office v.X for Mac... all packed up in a box. The last MS app I had fired up was Word 5.1a for reading my older papers from the early 90's.
 
I wouldn't mind having Microsoft Office on my iMac, it seems to be much better than it's Windows counterpart. But, aside from Adium, (which I don't think would count) I have no Microsoft software.
 
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