Switching from wintel to new imac?

jobagangles

Hi folks.



I am seriously considering switching my PC at my desk to a new imac. We have an all mac art department but all the other machines here are PCs. I do not work in the art department so I have a PC at my desk. Our MIS is cool with the switch and even a bit intrigued(I am his boss after all) but I have some concerns.



I use OSX on my powerbook at work and my tower at home. I recently purchased Offce X and I was astounded how easy it was to migrate from Office 2001 to X. M$ is to be applauded for how easy it is to import addresses, email accounts, message rules etc.. My big question is this easy transition also possible for a swtich from outlook/outlook express for windows to OSX?



My thinking was that I would backup all my email files to a server, plug in the new imac and then import the windows backup into Entourage. Is this even possible?



I probably have a gig worth of email, preferences, accounts etc... that I use everyday on my PC at work. If I can't easily move it over, totally intact and usable, then I can't make the switch. Has anyone tried this or have any adivce?



What other issues should I be aware of? Since everyone here uses office for windows, I can't think of any file incompatibilities? Also, from trying to use my powerbook on the company network over an airport, I have not been impressed with how to communciate with the "network neighborhood" Infact, it doesn't even show up like I thought. I have to know the exact machine name to connect to it. It is a pain in the butt and there has to be a better way.



I really appreciate your feedback.



[ 01-24-2002: Message edited by: jobagangles ]</p>

ghost_user_name

My best advice is to just switch, its not that big of a deal. ave fun with the new iMac, I know I wil mine...when it comes! <img src="graemlins/surprised.gif" border="0" alt="[Surprised]" />

ti fighter

IF you use a program like Pc Mac Lan or Dave for the networking you'll have no problem at all. And as long as you put the file extention on your mac files before they go to the PC you will have no problems either. Besides once you get the imac your whole department will make the switch to mac once they see how cool it is

ghost_user_name

[quote]Originally posted by Ti Fighter:

<strong>IF you use a program like Pc Mac Lan or Dave for the networking you'll have no problem at all. And as long as you put the file extention on your mac files before they go to the PC you will have no problems either. Besides once you get the imac your whole department will make the switch to mac once they see how cool it is </strong><hr></blockquote>



Thats real advice.

bogie

Mac OS X v.10.1.x will allow you to connect to any Windows server by going to connect to server and putting in "smb://nameofserverhere" and if you know the share name [ie the folder they are sharing that you want the its "smb://nameofserver/nameofshare" if you want to be able to browse the Windows network then you will need something like Dave 3.0 [which works very well].

jobagangles

yeah I tried the smb thing. I did get it to work after pleading with the busy mis to find the name of a particular server down to the directory. Major Pain. Will consider Dave, Thanks!



So what about the outlook files on my PC? Can Entourage just open them up? Rules? Accounts? Anyone? Anyone?

jobagangles

Can someone answer the above? I really want to make the switch at work, but I can't unless I know it is possible. I could try with my powerbook, but I don't want to spend a day trying unless I know how.

sizzle chest

Entourage will allow you to import all these things from Outlook and other programs, but I don't know for sure whether it will allow you to import from files moved over from a different Windows machine.

neutrino23

[quote]Originally posted by jobagangles:

<strong>yeah I tried the smb thing. I did get it to work after pleading with the busy mis to find the name of a particular server down to the directory. Major Pain. Will consider Dave, Thanks!



So what about the outlook files on my PC? Can Entourage just open them up? Rules? Accounts? Anyone? Anyone?</strong><hr></blockquote>



I use a G4 tower in my office but I don't use the email clients you mention. As you have Macs at home perhaps you can answer the question yourself. Send some of the files to your home Macs and try to read them. Let us know how it goes.

thuh freak

For your email, I think it's an issue of what kind of mail server they run at work. At my job, we have an MS Exchange server, where all email stays and is backed up on the server all the time. When I read an email, its copied locally, but still stays there. If at your job mail isn't kept on the server, than you could just forward all your stuff to yourself. You should definitely look into cutting down that 1GB number first though. No one could possibly have 1GB of important email.



even if you have all kinds of troubles with using the iMac at work, get it anyway because its a hella cool computer.

jobagangles

well, thanks for the additional info. I guess I will have to try with my powerbook first. I was hoping somebody had an answer so I could save myself the trouble. We run a Novell groupwise server but I don't have any of my email left on it. It is all on my desktop pc. I know 1 gig sounds like a lot, but I really do & I use it like a file system for memos and such. I do back everything up onto a different NT server, so I was planning on importing from that.



I have folders set up for nearly every employee that sends me email (40 of them) and this includes message rules. The thought of setting all that up again makes me queasy. Does anyone have any experience trying to import non-mac mail files into office 10?