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Apple Macs

shermans
Pro
Posts: 1,303
Thanks: 101
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎07-09-2007

Apple Macs

Can anyone advise about compatibility between Apple Macs (about which I know absolutely zero) and Windows ?
I have sent a friend in Canada a copy of an old Windows 95 programmme which I use all the time - a specialised database.  It runs perfectly well in Vista and XP and is very simple.  I sent the files in a WinZip file.
My friend, however, has a MAC and cannot open the zip file.  Is this normal and is there any way around it on a MAC ?  Even if he could open the zip file, would he then even be able to run the old .exe programme on his MAC ?
Whatever happened to standarisation ?
Any comments appreciated.
12 REPLIES 12
Peter_Vaughan
Grafter
Posts: 14,469
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Apple Macs

Mac's cannot run windows apps without additional software / hardware so even if he could open the zip it would not be usable anyway.
Macs use a Unix based OS now (previously they used their own OS) which is not compatible with windows.
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Apple Macs

Hi Shermans,
This would be perfectly normal and without installing a Windows emulator or by being far cleverer than I, then I imagine that there would be no way of opening a winzip files as, unless I'm being rather silly, there would be no way of opening such a file on a Mac based OS.
shermans
Pro
Posts: 1,303
Thanks: 101
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎07-09-2007

Re: Apple Macs

Wow, that was quick !  Thanks for the info.  It looks like stalemate.
TVM all the same.
orbrey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 10,540
Registered: ‎18-07-2007

Re: Apple Macs

There's a thread on unzipping here, so at least zip files aren't unuseable. Unfortunately I can't advise on the database though.
Hope that helps,
Tyreal74
Grafter
Posts: 292
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: Apple Macs

you can get a program called stuffit, their file extension is .sit which macs can unzip
shermans
Pro
Posts: 1,303
Thanks: 101
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎07-09-2007

Re: Apple Macs

Thanks for all the responses.
But can anyone tell me about CDs ?  If I copy some photos (*.jpg) from a Windows XP machine onto a CD, will a MAC be able to read the CD format ?  I suspect not.
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Apple Macs

Hiya,
This should actually work.  assuming that the copying to CD process doesn't windosify the files then the MAC user should be able to open them as jpg is a file type compatible with Mac.
shermans
Pro
Posts: 1,303
Thanks: 101
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎07-09-2007

Re: Apple Macs

Well, then it is worth a try.
Old Bill Gates gets such a bad press, but the one thing he did achieve was a reasonable level of standardisation across platforms.  I actually remember the early days of MS DOS versus CPM.  Linux and Apple (I think the MAC is Unix based now ?) may well be better, safer operating systems and they may have more sexy hardware, but I wonder if the industry would have got as far as it has if it had been carved up between several players.
Tyreal74
Grafter
Posts: 292
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: Apple Macs

burn the cd as a data disc rather than anything else, we often burn on pc and transfer to mac
and yes mac is now unix based
orbrey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 10,540
Registered: ‎18-07-2007

Re: Apple Macs

Quote
yes mac is now unix based

BSD I believe
Tyreal74
Grafter
Posts: 292
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: Apple Macs

MacOS10
Grafter
Posts: 176
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Apple Macs

If your friend's Mac is a recent model with an Intel processor, then you can boot natively into Windows via Apple's own BootCamp software (obviously, you need a copy of Windows XP/Vista to install on the Mac). There are also other software packages that allow Windows to run on Intel Macs, such as Parallels and Fusion, though these are emulation applications so you're running Windows on top of Mac OS X, therefore it's not quite as fast as BootCamp which runs natively.
If the Mac is an older PowerPC processor model (i.e. G3, G4 or G5), then you can install Microsoft's Virtual PC to run Windows 95 or later in emulation within OS X (or OS 9 for earlier versions of Virtual PC).
Using either of the above methods, Macs can run Windows (and therefore PC .exe applications).
Also, Mac OS X 10.3 or later has built-in support for creating and uncompressing ZIP files, whether created on Windows or other Macs. No extra software is required, like it is on Windows.
Macs can read pretty much all standard file formats common to Windows users (JPEG, PDF, TIFF, EPS, BMP, AIFF, MP3, MPEG etc, etc).
Never before have Macs been as compatible with Windows than they are now - and things are likely to get even better.