Thursday, November 6, 2008

Okay, now what?

So I've been avoiding the whole Dual-booting thing because it necessitates the installation of windows on my Mac, something I'm not all that interested in doing. 

But while I'm not all that impressed with Microsoft, I won't hold that against the poor, foolish programmers who write programs for 85% of the computers out there, rather than the good ones....

Anyway. As you probably know, in a fit of patriotic furor, Codeweavers gave away copies of Crossover for free for one day, and I, having no attachment whatsoever to the American political system, decided to download a copy anyway. 

So. 

Um. 

I now have the ability to run Windows programs on my computer. Great. But which ones?

The first thing to do, check the list of supported Applications over at Codeweavers. 

There are 146 apps listed as supported. A lot of applications I don't need, a lot of applications that are dual platform anyway, and a lot of games. Games are the most interesting, but time is not something I have a lot of right now (once a month posting? Hello? If I had time I'd post more often), and would be a distraction. However, Portal has always fascinated me. Wonder if they have a demo....They do. But I need Steam. And Steam is supported. Great. 

I also, and it hurts me to say this, but I also need a copy of Internet Explorer. You see, for my real job, I need to do research on a lot of Government websites. And a lot of Government websites don't acknowledge that there is a browser other than IE. 

I have fought it as much as I could, but for my next book, I need to be able to do the research more than I need to make a political statement. 

Trouble is, Crossover supports up to IE 6. But Microsoft has moved on and is now offering IE 7 and 8. I can download IE 6, Service Pack 1. What does that mean? I don't know. I don't speak Windows. I know what Service Pack 1 is, but how it'll affect the installation, I have no idea. The page to download it is here

So, Downloading IE6, SP1 and Steam. Got real work to do. Will let you know how things are going next post....

No comments: