Microsoft Office on Mac using Bootcamp or Microsoft for Mac products?

[Jillyjilly2]

I'm a new Mac user - just got a new Intel Core 2 Duo processor MacBook.
I went ahead and bought the Office for Mac and installed everything.
My main problem/question is that I find I can't do as many things in
Entourage as I could in Outlook. (For instance, can't change colors
and customize calendar as well, can't set up as many defaults like what
view I want Entourage to open in.) I was thinking about using bootcamp
and trying to go back to my Outlook I used to love. Any advice as to
whether this is a good idea or bad idea?

Also, keep in mind that I am synching successfully with my blackberry
using pocketmac. I simply plugged in my blackberry I had used on my
old PC, and all information from Outlook moved easily over to my new
Mac and Entourage. If I use Bootcamp and Windows and Outlook, will I
have any problems with my blackberry?)

Thanks, you all.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I'm a new Mac user - just got a new Intel Core 2 Duo processor MacBook.
I went ahead and bought the Office for Mac and installed everything.
My main problem/question is that I find I can't do as many things in
Entourage as I could in Outlook. (For instance, can't change colors
and customize calendar as well, can't set up as many defaults like what
view I want Entourage to open in.) I was thinking about using bootcamp
and trying to go back to my Outlook I used to love. Any advice as to
whether this is a good idea or bad idea?

Using bootcamp means rebooting under Windows to use Outlookm then
rebooting back into MacOS X for other things... Really not convenient.
You'd get something a lot easier to work with if you use Parallels
instead (which integrates especially well in Coherence mode).
It's not free ($79 I believe) but it really does a nice job.
It requires a lot of RAM though.

Also, keep in mind that I am synching successfully with my blackberry
using pocketmac. I simply plugged in my blackberry I had used on my
old PC, and all information from Outlook moved easily over to my new
Mac and Entourage. If I use Bootcamp and Windows and Outlook, will I
have any problems with my blackberry?)

Bootcamp is simply booting your Mac into Windows - period. There is no
reason why it would be any different than on any PC.
I don't know if it'd be fine in Parallels, but I believe they have a
demo version you could test.
Make sure you test with the lates beta release (2.5b3) which offers
tremendous improvements over the official 2.2 release.

Corentin

 

[schulzmc]

Right now I am running Entourage when I am home or out of the office to
access our work exchange server for email and calendar, and Outlook
when I am in the office. I use Parallels rather than Boot Camp so I
don't have to constantly reboot.

I also sync with my Blackberry, but only when running Outlook in
Parallels. Some of my recurring dates do not sync properly using
Pocketmac and Entourage.

Everything syncs perfectly with Outlook and Parallels. BTW - I have 2
gb of ram and see no speed degradation running Outlook through
Parallels and running Word/Excel/and other programs on the Mac side at
the same time.

 

[Jillyjilly2]

Thanks, you all, for answering this - so, excuse me for asking this
next question, but I am new to this.....what is Parallels? Never
heard of it....obviously it is similar to Bootcamp but you all seem to
like it better.....where do I get it? What do I do?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Thanks, you all, for answering this - so, excuse me for asking this
next question, but I am new to this.....what is Parallels? Never
heard of it....obviously it is similar to Bootcamp but you all seem to
like it better.....where do I get it? What do I do?

See

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/