Compatability with Macs

Hey all, I'm thinking about getting a 15" Macbook Pro to use in college and the years ahead. I'm attracted by the macbook's beautiful screen and reputed easy-to-use OS. What worries me, however, is that my Mac won't be compatible with certain programs that my university uses or things I might want to download online. To longtime Mac users, what are your experiences in terms of downloading programs via the internet etc.? Have there been many times where programs you wished to use or download were not compatible with Mac?

 

You can always use BootCamp or Parallels to install and use Windows if any compatibility issues do arise.

 

Macs do not read .exe files. OS X uses .dmg files to install. So the same software you install on Windows will not run on Mac OS X. But most applications have a Mac version. Other than games and AutoCAD-type software, most software have a Mac equivalent.

If not, you can use Windows on a Mac to run it. There are several ways to do that, and I've outlined them in my sticky Running Windows on a Mac.

 

Aye, I have CD's full of programs that are incompatible with macs. Your only alternatives are to run Windows via bootcamp, or find software for your needs that is compatible.

 

The only major problem that I couldn't originally solve was the that there were one or two websites that I used that required IE.... (which is not supported any more and the old mac v5 wont install on intel based macs).
But that said, I recently got parallels and this does provide a work around.
Apart from that I have nearly always found a Mac version of the program I wanted or a program that did the same thing.
The switch was no where near as painful I expected it to be.
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ps I switched to a mb at the beginning of the year.

 

there is a ton of great software and a comparably small but very active community behind apple and osx.

even software traditionally thought of as "windows only" is starting to become cross platform.

matlab, mathematica, labview

if you need those programs for college you can work with osx.

3dsmax is windows only. a ton of games are windows only (that is possibly on the brink of change with intel cpu's in macs... of course it was on the brink of change when intel cpu's first arrived in macs years ago)

i can't think of anything else that doesn't have really good support on both platforms. photoshop, firefox, there is a good amount of creativity software like aperture and final cut and logic exclusive to mac osx.