South Carolina Trial Law Blog

 Okay, this is going to sound a bit odd, but my tech guy is using Apple iMacs to build a more stable, easier to maintain Windows network.

About 2 years back, Apple started using the Intel processor in it’s computers, which is the same processor that Windows machines use. The benefit of that is that Macintoshes can now run Windows in ‘native mode’ and not through an emulation program. You can do this one of two ways. You can use Boot Camp and when you turn on your machine either boot into Windows or boot into Mac’s OS X. The other way is run a Macintosh program called Parallels. Both programs require you to purchase and run a full copy of Windows.

My tech guy is buying iMacs like the one pictured above to put in offices and using Parallels to run Windows. Most people will only see the OS X screen flash for a second and after that, they won’t even know they are working on a Mac box.

So what is the advantage of running Windows on a Mac? A few:

• Nice Hardware at a Reasonable Price – Chrome and glass, 20” monitor, memory, speed, decent memory all in one box. It works well and is attractive.
• Less Desk Space – The Macs are an all in one and leave a small footprint on your desk. It’s just the monitor and the keyboard.
• Ease of Maintenance – The entire Parallels Windows file is a single computer file. That’s huge. You can install Windows, tweak it to the way you want, install all of the programs that you want and then all of that information will be in a single Parallels file that can be copied and backed up. If your Windows goes down, you can just copy that file back to your iMac and you’re up and running. If your entire iMac goes down, you can copy that file to a different iMac and you’re up and running. No worrying about file registries, different hardware signatures. No fuss, no muss.
• Portability – Once you have your Parallels backup file, you can copy that to another machine without any problems. You can’t do that (easily) with Windows, because of different hardware configurations and the Windows registry.
• Ease of Installation – Once you have a specific set up that you want, for example, WordPerfect, TimeMatters, CaseMap, TimeMap, Sanction, MicroSoft Office, you can save this as a building block and as a base for every installation. Of course, you need to have a site license for each program. You will also have to switch license codes, but that’s a lot easier than starting each machine’s installation from scratch.

So oddly enough, the hoops that MicroSoft makes you jump through actually make it quicker and easier to run your Windows program on a Mac. Go figure. Plus you get a cool looking machine.

We’re going to start replacing one machine at a time, until we have a full Mac office.

You guys are great. I really do like reading your blog.

Using parallels has made me appreciate windows again. I mean.. windows really does run better on my macbook than my old Dell

I've done the same thing at my business with Parallels ... it's about time I can run Windows on my Mac.

I just located The Mac Lawyer. Nice site

I am a lawyer in GA.

I have a 2.4 ghz 20" and a 2.8 ghz 24" iMac, both Intel, brand new. For the office.

I need TrialDirector from inData: split screens, highlighting and marking, including the ability to do so in real time, on the fly, in court or mediation.

But I am not an expert. I want my Macs, but I also want to use Windows and operate Trial Director, Power Point, Word, Excel, QuickBooks. I assume I want to run them via Windows, but on my new iMacs.

And, if all that works fine, I want to buy the most powerful Mac laptop and run the presentations to project on a screen at trial.

If not, then my plan is to get a powerful pc laptop to use and to take to court to project TrialDirector, etc.

What would you do?

I'm a technology director for a thirty-user law office and have been thinking about doing something like this. I'm not sure if what you've described makes more sense or using the Macs to connect to citrix or a terminal server would be better. It seems that the latter option would be easier to maintain but may be too limited. I'd love to talk with your "tech guy" if you could put me in touch with him. Thanks!