Office 2007, Office for Mac 2008, Virtual PC7, Access

[cedarwaxwings]

I am both new to computers and Mac. I am confused about the best way
to use Virtual PC7 in my situation. Which is: I am going back to
college after 30 years of construction work to obtain an accounting
degree. I will need to use Access and the latest version of Office. I
have a 2.1 GHz PowerPC G5, 700 MHz, 2.5 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive.

The question is - What is the best approach to using Access and
Office?

Example 1: Use Virtual PC7 with XP Professional or Home and use Access
software by itself or with Office Professional 2007 which includes
Access?

Or


Example 2: Install Office 2008 for Mac (which does not include
Access) when it comes out and use Virtual PC7 with stand alone Access?

Or

?

Any advise will be appreciated.

Dozer

 

[Diane Ross]

Example 1: Use Virtual PC7 with XP Professional or Home and use Access
software by itself or with Office Professional 2007 which includes
Access?

Or


Example 2: Install Office 2008 for Mac (which does not include
Access) when it comes out and use Virtual PC7 with stand alone Access?

If you are going to be mainly in those two applications, I suggest you get a
used pc. You'll find it slow and switching back and forth to the Mac
applications a huge pain. However, if you will be in Access rarely, then get
the Mac version of Office.

The new Intel machines are what you really need.

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
One of the top five MS Entourage resources listed on the Entourage Blog.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>

 

[John McGhie]

I concur with Diane: a used PC is the way to go. Yu do not need a keyboard
or monitor, just the box itself. There's a free product named Microsoft
Remote Desktop Connection available from he Microsoft site that will enable
you to display Access running on the PC in a window on your Mac. This will
be dramatically faster than Virtual PC running on a 700 MHz processor.

Diane is also correct that spending a thousand bucks on a MacBook (or Mac
Mini) would be the way to go. That will enable you to run Windows in the
background and provide a very good solution (and you could take the MacBook
to classes with you... just keep an eye on it: there will be plenty of
people at school who will want it as much as you do, and may not be able to
resist stealing it...)

Because you are new to computing, I would strongly recommend that you buy
Office 2007: the new user interface is a lot easier to learn than the old
one (and will also appear in Office 2008 for the Mac, so you won't have to
learn twice). However, Access 2007 doesn't HAVE the new user interface yet,
and the Office Professional package is very expensive.

If funds are a consideration, a copy of Office 2000 Professional or Office
2003 Professional will give you everything you need to learn, and be
dramatically cheaper. Don't buy Office 2002/Office XP at any price -- it's
a bug-farm. I recomend that you buy the full version of Office
Professional, rather than buying Access on its own. There may be other
parts of Office you will need to use from time to time: Office 2004 does not
have the range of functionality that Office 2003 on the PC has, but if you
also have Office 2000 or 2003 available, you will not be caught unable to
open something someone might send you.

If you purchase Office 2004 Professional for your Mac, it comes with an
embedded copy of Windows XP Pro. Windows XP Home will not work in Virtual
PC. That will be your cheapest option.

However, if you can find Windows XP at the right price (and right about now,
you should be able to...) that's a better way to go. When you come to
upgrade your Mac, the copy of Windows XP embedded in Office 2004
Professional will not install on your new hardware. A copy you buy without
VPC will do so.

Hope this helps

--

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs

+61 4 1209 1410, <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

Actually, I'm confused by "a 2.1 GHz PowerPC G5, 700 MHz"

AFIK, the slowest G5 was 1.6 GHz, so where the 700 MHz comes in I have no
idea unless you're quoting the Front Side Bus speed, so I'm going to assume
for the sake of argument that you have a:

20" Imac G5 (iSight) which has a 2.1 GHz G5 processor with a 700 MHz Front
Side Bus ... Reasonable guess?

If so, running VPC 7, Windows XP Pro - *not* Home - & Office 2007 is not a
problem. I wouldn't want to work it day in / day out for business purposes,
but for even college level school work (other than 'advanced database design
401') it will probably be acceptable. This is based on my experience with
that software configuration running on a Dual 2 GHz G5 (1 GHz FSB) but only
1.5 GB RAM. In fact, Office 2007 runs noticeably faster than 2003 - and even
2003 is 'tolerable'.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Daniel Juarez]

I would confirm that you absolutely have to have ACCESS. If you just
need a database application, then download the *free* NeoOffice suite
which includes office compatible products: Word processor, Spreadsheet,
Presentation, Drawing and Database applications. If you just need a
database, maybe the NeoOffice database will do the trick.

I tried to open an Access database with it and it does not seem to
support that.

http://www.neooffice.org/

 

[John McGhie]

Yes. Good point. MySQL etc work just fine in Mac OS X if you need only "an
SQL-compliant database".

However, the Access MDB datastore is a multi-part file and I am not sure
there are many applictions out there that can read and write to it, apart
from Access itself.

Regrettably, the original poster is doing a course, and chances are it's all
designed around examples in Access.

Cheers
--

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs

+61 4 1209 1410, <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]