Moving to a new OS is a tough and challenging task to complete. But with the same time you will enjoy this too. Remember the last time you moved or shifted your home from one place to a new place. For that you must have packed all your things and stuff and then move on to a new place with great enthusiasm. Similarly, you have to do while switching your OS. You need to transfer all your files and data, moving your hardware’s and software etc.
For transferring all your files and data:
There are many ways to transfer the data from Windows to Mac. Best way to transfer your data is with the use of External Hard Disk. Firstly connect external HDD to your Windows and transfer all your files to the drive and then disconnect it from Windows.
After that connect your external HDD to Mac and then transfer all files in Mac drive.
For data-transfer purposes, make sure the drive is formatted using Windows FAT32 file system, so both your Windows and your Mac can read and write on it. After you have completed the file transferring process, use OS X Disk Utility to reformat the drive as HFS+.
You can also use online storage facility like the icloud, dropbox etc to manage your data.
Moving your hardware and software:
Most of the hardware devices that you used with Windows like printers, cameras, networking devices, pen drives, scanners etc. will work fine with Mac too. If you have attached the hardware device but its not showing in Mac then you can go to the manufacturer's site and download the suitable driver.
But software application of both Windows and Macs will run only on their platforms. But you can get the software with the same functionality in both windows and Mac.
All leading web browsers that can be found on Mac are opera, Firefox, chrome. But you can’t have Internet Explorer in Mac.
GUI Comparison:
GUI of Windows and Mac are very similar. You would not find much problem on working with Mac when switching from Windows. You can find Dock in the bottom of screen in Mac. Dock has all the major applications like disk utility, finder etc. Dock also shows the running applications.
On the top you can find the application specific menu i.e. whenever you open an application, then its own menu toolbar will be shown on the top of screen.
- To resize a window in Mac hit the right corner, instead of grabbing the sides like you do in Windows.
- Finder in Mac is similar to File manager in Windows.
- A system preference in Mac is similar to Control panel in Windows.
Disk Utility:
- Mac has a Disk Utility feature. Disk Utility is a multipurpose program for working with hard disks, CDs, DVDs. With this feature you can erase, format, and partition hard disks and rewritable CDs and DVDs.
- In this feature, you can run First Aid, a function that repairs file systems and file permissions.
- You can mount, create, and modify disk images, as well as write or burn them to disks, CDs, and DVDs.
Some important keyboard shortcuts for Mac:
- To force quit a hang application: command key+ Alt + Esc
- switching open windows: command+ tab
- close current window: command key+ w
- print screen: command key+ shift +3
So I think this article will help Mac switchers to work with Mac without much difficulty. But you can master a Mac after you have worked on it for sometime.