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A couple of Windows to Mac questions 
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As the title says.

One of my less tech-savvy clients needs a new computer as his current Windows machine has a terminal hardware fault. I've told him that I can offer him a much better level of support if he buys a Mac, but since my knowledge of Windows is fairly rudimentary I need a bit of advice. There's nothing that he does that really warrants him having a Windows machine - all he uses it for is email, internet, and the occasional Word document.

1. As far as I can tell his Windows hard drive is OK - it's the motherboard that is failing, so I plan to remove the drive and pop it in a caddy to transfer any documents over to the Mac. The Windows machine dates from around 2008 and is a Dell IIRC - is it likely to be SATA or IDE? Is there any way of finding out short of opening it up? I don't have access to the machine at the moment.

2. He is using Outlook for his email and is running an Exchange email server as part of his domain hosting package. I don't know much about Exchange, so am I right in thinking that it is a variation on IMAP in that all the email is held on both the server and the client machine? I see that one of the options available when setting up a new account in OS X Mail is for Exchange, so if I use that will all his old emails (he's got about 8 year's worth) download onto the new Mac or will I have to transfer them from the old Windows machine and if so how do I do that? Assuming I can get it to function long enough to export them!

Thanks!

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Wed Oct 19, 2016 1:43 pm
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1. most likely SATA. If you look in the hardware settings (if the machine can still boot), you can see whether the drive is listed under SATA or IDE. The BIOS screen would be the other alternative, again if the PC boots. You need to press F2, Del or whatever appears on the screen when booting to enter the BIOS. It should then tell you whether it is SATA or IDE.

If it won't boot at all, then you need to open it up and see if it is a thin cable or a ribbon cable... But for that age, I would be very surprised if it was IDE, I think Dell stopped using IDE around 2003/4.

2. Exchange is Exchange protocol. Apple Mail or Outlook for Mac will both speak natively with it. All contacts, emails, calendar etc. should be synced with the server, so you shouldn't need to import anything, Outlook or Mail will automatically sync with the server. If it is hosted, check to see if he also has an Outlook licence. If it is Office 365, then he can use the latest version of Office on Mac. If you use the native Mail, then Calendar and Contacts will also automatically sync with the Exchange Server.

If he hasn't already bought a Mac, then waiting until the end of the month is advisable, as all of the Apple hardware is 2 to 3 generations old (MacBook Pro and iMac are 3 generations old, I think the Retina MacBook Pro is only 2 generations old, the Mac Pro is 4 generations old, only the MacBook uses anything halfway current) and should get a refresh.

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Wed Oct 19, 2016 2:07 pm
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With regards to the e-mail - you need to double check he doesn't have any personal folders set up (normally identified as .pst files if they've been save locally) as these may not be synced with the server.

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Wed Oct 19, 2016 2:20 pm
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Thanks.

All of that is what I hoped the answers would be. I think he does have an Outlook licence, so that might be a bit of money saver already.

Regarding the Mac, was thinking of getting a second-hand or refurb, iMac. I can't see any point in buying a brand new model for what he needs it for. Especially when I am running a 2008 model Mac Pro which does everything I want - Adobe CC and all my music apps without any noticeable performance issues.

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Wed Oct 19, 2016 2:36 pm
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