What do you use Windows on your OS X for?

[displaced]

I have a BootCamp installation of XP just for the odd bit of gaming.

Also, at work I moved my entire development environment into a Parallels virtual machine. I have a streamlined XP installation on there with only Visual Studio 2005 installed (plus all the gubbins that go along with that - Windows SDKs, many .NET Framework (and Compact Framework) editions, MSDN Library, etc.) That VM is set up as part of my company's network domain. All my code is stored in a Subversion source code repository on my development server. So, the actual VM itself changes very little, if at all. This allowed me to duplicate that VM to my MacBook Pro.

It's fantastic. I can sit at my company-provided Dell, fire up the VM and code away. When I work at home I can start up the VM on my MacBook Pro, log in to the company's VPN, grab the latest revisions of my projects from Subversion and keep right on coding from where I left off. Spaces lets me switch between my Windows apps and a clear OS X desktop instantly. Awesome

Since I do a lot of Windows Mobile development, I've often even got the Windows Mobile emulator running too. Looks pretty nuts, but the MBP still runs like a dream. Lots of RAM helps!

 

[Watabou]

To try out Crysis in Bootcamp.

Barely use it now. Dunno...I die too easily lol

 

[pastrychef]

Primarily Newsbin Pro.

 

[Agurri]

Somes games.... but mostly Matlab & Simulink. Oh, and also to video chat with some friends with MSN Messenger.

 

[bigrobb]

the only reason i use windows on it is for access and publisher and onenote all of them are for school!!

 

[_bnkr612]

Cross browser/OS compatibility for web design.

 

[sdsviet]

basically engineering, 3d rendering and cad

AutoCAD
Solid Works
Rhino

 

[molintorch]

I attend a 500 person LAN Event twice a year with co-workers (World in Conflict, Team Fortress 2, CoD4, etc). Its fun to see people's faces when they realize, "Yes, I can game on my Mac AND do well!".

I use VMWare to code C# occasionally, but otherwise, I live in Leopard when at home.

 

[killmoms]

Now I'm also using it to decrypt/convert a couple Japanese HD DVDs I bought... what a frustrating mess of a process this is! DVD ripping is mature, but HD DVD/Blu-ray ripping is still clearly in its infancy. Some of the most heinous offenses against user interface design are perpetrated in these tools, let me tell you.

 

[GuardianAero]

Catia
Maple
Matlab
COD4
Halo PC

plus some other games. I try to use OSX for most of my work, where as my play time takes place in XP.

 

[scotty96LSC]

Adobe Framemaker

 

[golfman]

I use Vista on my iMac to run Photoshop 7. When I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard all of a sudden Photoshop 7 became incompatible with OS X which I was very unhappy about.

 

[Hawkeye411]

To run a stats package (Statistica).

 

[killmoms]

I use Vista on my iMac to run Photoshop 7. When I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard all of a sudden Photoshop 7 became incompatible with OS X which I was very unhappy about.

It's a six year old program. You don't have that much room to complain, not really.

 

[kvdv]

Onenote: try "notebook layout" view in Word 2008 for Mac, it's very much the same!


why i still use Windows for:

- not much to be honest
- putting MP3's on my Creative Zen Vision (bad support under OS X, i guess Apple wants the world to use an iPod ;-)
- some CBT's i need (VMware ESX by EliasKhnaser.com), use an .exe file to start the menu and movies
- when i would use my personal macbook in a Microsoft AD network environment (i know there's support for AD under OS X, but still...)

Someone wrote 'for the Playstation Store' ? I don't quite get this: aren't you supposed to go to that Store using the PS3?

 

[bart rijksen]

Battlefield 2 and Call of duty 4

 

[durija]

When I got my new iMac, I thought I would need Windows a lot. So I got VMWare Fusion and MacDrive and XP and set up a Boot Camp partition. A couple of hundred bucks.

Then I found out I could switch my Adobe Creative Suite license to the Mac. So now the only thing I need Windows for is my taxes once a year. Windows on my Mac is mostly a waste of time and money.

 

[solidgoldmini]

Games. I feel dirty running Windows on my Mac. But for games, it's good.
Other than that, not much.

 

[fuziwuzi]

I have VMware fusion running XP Pro on my MBP and here are the only 2 reasons I have used it so far:
1. OneNote: since I'm a student and OneNote makes it really easy to take notes and I have not yet found a similar program for OS X

have you tried the notebook view in word? its definitely not as advanced at onenote, but provides excellent ability to bullet point and prioritise lines, and it does tabs.

check the notebook layout view below.
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/Word2008/default.mspx#/notebook_layout_view/

 

[okrelayer]

My works website is funky under firefox or safari, so i use vmware to use internet explorer when needed. I also use windows so i can myspace karaoke haha. hey what can i say i like to sing, but it does not support the mac os.

Depending on my mood i do use windows also for: Cool Edit Pro, Soulseek (though its a bit useless since it doesnt work very well, i havnt figured out the ports yet!), and freedownloadmanger.org when i need to download multi part files, since i dont know a good mac os version of the program!

edit: Yesterday i booted into windows for the first time nativly (alway used vmware!) and i found out i needed my windows activation code, i already activated it though vmware... So i guess i have to make a call to windows again!

 

[fuziwuzi]

- putting MP3's on my Creative Zen Vision (bad support under OS X, i guess Apple wants the world to use an iPod ;-)

have u tried xnjb http://www.wentnet.com/projects/xnjb/

 

[dmbrown in pdx]

Windows XP under VMware (love Unity view!) on 24" 2.8-MHz iMac for:

• Framemaker (no way I'm paying for THAT again)
• Adobe Creative Suite (no way I'm paying for THAT again)
• Dreamweaver (no way I'm paying for THAT again)
• Microsoft Office 2000 (later versions suck, and no way I'm paying for THAT again)
• QuickBooks (not sure there's even a Mac version, but no way I'd pay for THAT again)
• CleanPro for cleaning up imported LPs and dividing them into tracks
• Motorola utility for synching my RAZR
• Canon utility for maintaining my MP360
• Thunderbird (OK, I could probably port ten years' worth of mail to OS X, but why bother?)

Everything else I do in OS X.

It's like two computers for (just a little more than) the price of one.

 

[pbbaker]

Sage They're big enough and rich enough to make Mac versions of their software, but oh no.

I have actually of had the displeasure of using Timberline before, what piece. I hate all things sage, and yeah they could but they don't, so screw them... oh and they license older versions of Pervasive SQL, so you can't even run up to date Crystal...


Uhm, to the point, the Construction industry is dotted with on screen take off software used to estimate the costs of construction. Every damn one of them has to run in IE 6 only.

 

[edesignuk]

To tinker with I work in Windows support, so although I prefer to have a Mac at home it's good to have Windows available to me too.

VMware is great. I have VM's of XP Pro SP3, Vista Ultimate SP1 32-bit, Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit.

 

[pseudonymph]

I use XP in VMWare for work since it's mostly a Windows shop at the office. Gotta admit, it's nice to finish work at 5 by shutting down the VMWare instance and jumping to another space with ichat, safari etc.