What are the main things that people get confused with changing over to macs?

Cmc29

I'd like to get a list together of the things that people who are used to windows do, or can't do, when put in front of a mac for the first time? What are the main pitfalls?

Cabaal

With older versions of OSX I would have said acessing networ shares, but with newer versions networking is easier then Windows imho

Installing problems is easy on a mac infact easier then windows but I guess its still confusing to some windows users, same goes for uninstalling.
The very fact you simply dump your app into the trashcan goes against everything a windows user is thought

People get concerned about right click and all that so I guess explaning
1 its not used that much
2 how you can actually do it
Its very worth doing both of the above.

In addition its worth covering keyboard shortcuts, simple things like Apple + Q to quit apps is so handy and makes things faster so worth explaining the benefits as many windows users don't even know what Windows + E does....still amazes some people I work with sometimes

KatCookie

They often dont know where the Close button is!
(im not joking! I once watched a man who was connecting a new Vista computer to the network of where i was working, we asked him to try to fix the 10+ year old Apple, when he was looking to close a certain program he didnt know where the Close/Exit button was, he was looking for the big red X- I had to whisper "Top left corner" to him, but this was his job!! he also didnt fix the Apple)

Naikon

As an avid Unix user, the expectation that the Mac OSX enviroment
will be a sane, familiar place for NIX users/admins/programmers.

I had to use a Mac recently, and despite the BSD subsystem
the spirit of unix, along with the standard format expected of
most plain text files is missing. Hair pulling for some.

I understand now why the Mac has a seperate forum.
OSX, the bastard Unix:pac:

FruitLover

Naikon wrote: »

As an avid Unix user, the expectation that the Mac OSX enviroment
will be a sane, familiar place for NIX users/admins/programmers.

...Sorry, I started laughing there, before I even made it to the rest of your post!

Sad Professor

Cabaal wrote: »

Installing problems is easy on a mac infact easier then windows but I guess its still confusing to some windows users, same goes for uninstalling.
The very fact you simply dump your app into the trashcan goes against everything a windows user is thought

Yeah, Windows users seem to have a problem with drag-and-drop generally. Drag-and-drop was an early Apple innovation, and Mac OS was totally designed around the idea. Windows is still a very menu-driven operating system imo, which probably explains why its users used to find the idea of a single-button mouse so horrifying.

I always say that the key challenge facing switchers isn't learning the Mac but unlearning Windows. A lot of switchers continue to apply the Windows way of doing things to the Mac causing them a great deal of frustration.

SeekUp

I'd say Ctrl + Alt + delete.

J-blk

Maximizing a window seems to confuse Windows users quite a bit... The looks you get when somebody clicks on the green + icon in a window and it doesn't fill the screen are pretty funny at times .

Dont be at yourself

It takes a lot of people a while to get used to the green, amber and red buttons and to understand the differences between them and their Windows' counterparts. That's not helped by lazy, windows-focused developers making the same mistakes.

Carawaystick

I'd say it's the menu bar being on top of the screen instead of on top of the program.

McSandwich

It's a minor thing but having to use the mouse to move between buttons in dialogs still drives me nuts! I'm so used to the arrow keys working for this in Windows.

McSandwich

KatCookie wrote: »

They often dont know where the Close button is!
(im not joking! I once watched a man who was connecting a new Vista computer to the network of where i was working, we asked him to try to fix the 10+ year old Apple, when he was looking to close a certain program he didnt know where the Close/Exit button was, he was looking for the big red X- I had to whisper "Top left corner" to him, but this was his job!! he also didnt fix the Apple)

Speaking of which, it still bothers me that the close button doesn't actually quit an application - resulting in my cmd+q obsession

Richard

McSandwich wrote: »

It's a minor thing but having to use the mouse to move between buttons in dialogs still drives me nuts! I'm so used to the arrow keys working for this in Windows.

You can use Tab and Shift-Tab to move around dialogs. You can also usually use Cmd followed by the first letter of the option to select it - e.g. in an open dialog, hit Cmd-O to open. If there's a cancel button, press Escape to cancel.

hideous ape

Ya the most difficult thing is trying to forget the Windows way of doing things. Just accept you are starting from scratch and try to learn a new thing every day or two. Start off by reading up on the big features on Apples website and see if they are of any use to you. I now cannot function without Spaces, Dashboard, Spotlight, etc.

System Preferences = Control Panel
Most Mac settings are within one or two clicks in Sys Prefs, the same cannot be said for Windows. Yes both systems have shortcuts but most beginners prefer to click to their destination to start with.

Spotlight is your friend for doing almost everything...command + spacebar.

The look on a new Apple users face the first time I showed them Spaces and the DashBoard was priceless...what the hell was that...where did that come from:)

ArseBurger

KatCookie wrote: »

but this was his job!!

Eh - probably not...

banquo

1. Right-clicking.
2. Closing windows.
3. Folder navigation.

There should really be an a4 page with pictures for these things.