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Microsoft Home Use Program Switch To Mac

If you own Intel-based Macs, you can run OS X and Windows on one machine. In fact, it’s been possible to run Windows on a Mac for some time — with agonizing limitations. Near-extinct Mac models were loaded with Virtual PC emulation software could do Windows, too, but the program was painfully slow. Even if you find an old copy of the software, it won’t work with any current Macs.

Jun 06, 2019  1 Office Professional Plus 2019, Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac, Visio Professional 2019, Project Professional 2019. Microsoft Home Use Program – A guide for employees. Microsoft Home Use Program – A guide for employees (end users) premium apps you know and trust. Jul 26, 2018 Gettin' switchy with it Why you should switch from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice (and why you shouldn't) LibreOffice is a powerful and free alternative to Microsoft Office. Microsoft is updating the Home Use Program to offer discounts on the latest and most up to date products such as Office 365, which is always up to date with premium versions of Office apps across all your devices. Office Professional Plus 2019 and Office Home and Business 2019 are no longer available as Home Use Program offers. Office 2019 is a one-time purchase that comes with classic apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for PC or Mac, and does not include any of the services that come with an Office 365 subscription. One-time purchases don’t have an upgrade option, which means if you plan to upgrade to the next major release, you'll have to buy it at full price.

Enabling ActiveX on ChromeThere are two methods that you can use for this. Microsoft edge for mac activex update. By default, ActiveX only works on applications that were also made by Microsoft – that includes Internet Explorer, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, etc.However, you can now enable ActiveX on both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, even though this wasn’t possible initially. Let’s take a look at what you need to do. The answer lies in the fact that this technology was created by Microsoft.

Boot Camp software from Apple shook up the computing public upon its apocalyptic arrival in April 2006. Boot Camp graduated from beta, or near-finished, status with the arrival of Leopard. Boot Camp Assistant software is stored in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder.

Boot Camp itself is free. You have to supply your own single-disc or downloadable full-install version of Windows; an upgrade disc won’t cut it.

It’s also important to note that you can use a 64-bit version of Windows, Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate), Windows 8, or Windows 8.1. Consult Apple support to see which Mac models are compatible with which versions of Windows. In its current incarnation, Boot Camp isn’t compatible with 32-bit versions of Windows.

Other requirements follow:

  • An Intel Mac with OS X version 10.6 or later

  • At least 2GB of RAM and 20GB of available space on the Mac’s storage drive that you want to donate to Windows

  • A blank CD or USB storage device that you’ll use for Windows software drivers

If you don’t run into snags, the entire installation should take about an hour.

Program

Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 are optimized for a touchscreen environment, though you can use it with a standard mouse and keyboard. For now, Macs don’t support touchscreen computing.

To install Windows 8 via Boot Camp, you still must have a legitimate Windows 8 license from Microsoft and a Win8 installation disc, assuming that you have an optical drive. If you don’t have an optical drive, you may be able to create a Windows installer from an ISO file downloaded from Microsoft on a USB flash drive that’s 8GB or larger.

Because snags are possible, back up all your important information on the Mac’s startup disk.

Basic training

Following are the basic steps to get through Boot Camp:

  1. Run Boot Camp Assistant (in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder) to make sure that you have the latest firmware on your computer and to install any support software from Apple that you might need.

    You’ll find any updates at Apple support. If you’re using a portable computer, make sure to connect the power adapter. You will also be given the option to create a Windows 7 (or later version) install disk for which you’ll need a USB flash drive and an ISO image downloaded from Apple.

  2. Follow the prompts in Boot Camp Assistant to create a partition for Windows.

    You’re essentially carving out an area of your hard drive for the Windows operating system,. This partition must be at least 30GB and can swell to the total free disk space on hand minus 30GB. If you don’t plan on doing much in Windows, keep the partition small.

    Drag the divider to set the partitions for both OS X and Windows, or click Divide Equally to make equal partitions. You can’t resize a Windows partition after creating it, though you can replace it with a larger Windows partition.

    If you have a Mac Pro with more than one internal hard drive, you can select which drive to partition. If any of this makes you nervous, know that you can remove the Windows partition later and go back to a single-partition Mac.

  3. Insert the Windows CD or a USB flash drive with the Windows ISO file and then click Start Installation.

    If you exited Boot Camp Assistant before installing Windows, open it again, choose Start the Windows Installer, and click Continue.

  4. When you’re asked to choose the Windows partition, select the partition that says BOOTCAMP.

    You may have to scroll down to see it.

    Don’t erase any partitions that you see or create a new partition here. Failure to heed this warning could wipe out your entire Mac OS X startup disk.

  5. (Optional) If you see a listing for Drive Options, click it; otherwise, proceed to Step 6.

  6. Reformat the partition by using the Windows installer: Click Format.

    You’re using the reliable and secure NTFS file system, but you won’t be able to save files to Windows from Mac OS X, at least not without a techie workaround.

  7. Follow the onscreen instructions to finish installing Windows.

    Boot Camp 5.1 includes several Mac drivers so that Windows will recognize your trackpad, Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, the iSight (or FaceTime) camera, the Eject key on the Mac keyboard, networking, audio, graphics, and so on.

    A Boot Camp Control Panel for Windows and an Apple Boot Camp system-tray item will be added.

As with any new Windows computer, Microsoft requires that you activate your Windows software within 30 days.

Switching operating systems

Use

You can go back and forth between OS X and Windows on your Mac, but you can’t run both operating systems simultaneously under Boot Camp. Instead, you have to boot one operating system or the other — thus, the name Boot Camp.

Restart your Mac, and hold down the Option key until icons for each operating system appear onscreen. Highlight Windows or Macintosh HD, and click the arrow to launch the operating system of choice for this session.

If you want OS X or Windows to boot every time, choose app → System Preferences, click Startup Disk, and choose the OS you want to launch by default.

You can perform the same function in Windows by clicking the Boot Camp system-tray icon and selecting the Boot Camp Control Panel. Click either the Macintosh HD or Windows icon, depending on your startup preference.

LibreOffice's 5.1 update added support for Windows 10. An unofficial version of LibreOffice was recently uploaded to the Microsoft Store, but now doesn't show up if searched directly in the store. It's still available via LibreOffice's site, though.

While the version of LibreOffice that was available through the Microsoft Store isn't official, it's a quality software suite that begs the question, Is it worth switching from Microsoft Office?

I've used Microsoft Office since Windows 95. But I decided to take a look at LibreOffice after it arrived in the Microsoft Store. It's impressed me, though it's viability as an office suite depends largely on your setup.

Here are some reasons why you should choose LibreOffice over Microsoft Office, and some reasons why you shouldn't.

LibreOffice is available for free on Windows 10, Mac, and Linux through Libre Office's website.

Reason to switch: Value

The first thing that catches the eye about LibreOffice is the price tag, or more specifically the lack of one. LibreOffice originally forked off of OpenOffice and has been regularly maintained and developed over the years. It's one of the best free office suites of applications around and has programs for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. It is a versatile and powerful set of programs, though it's worth noting that it emulates the older core set of apps from Microsoft Office and doesn't have equivalents to newer programs like OneNote.

While there are many word processors and cheap or free programs that try to deliver a full office setup, Libre Office is one of the most comprehensive. Its wide range of apps tackles the vast majority of office-related workflows. And it does all of this for free.

It supports open formats that allow you to use documents from other programs so you don't have to isolate yourself or your workflow into a Libre Office world.

The value of LibreOffice is truly impressive. It's practically an advertisement for the open source community because of how great of an app you can legally get for free.

Reason to switch: Dedicated developers

While LibreOffice is free, it's not some half-hearted project. It's regularly maintained and updated to support the latest versions of Windows 10. The suite can also be expanded with extensions to add more power and versatility.

While that might not seem like a big deal, some apps that are built to replicate or directly compete with big names fall away and become abandonware. LibreOffice released updates in the last few months to both its 'Still' and 'Fresh' branches. Because of this, you don't need to worry about LibreOffice falling away. All indicators show that it is alive and well and won't go anywhere anytime soon. Even if it did, you wouldn't have to worry because your documents would be in open formats.

Switching From Mac To Microsoft

Reasons NOT to switch: Cloud limitations

One of the biggest areas these two suites diverge is in how they approach online and cross-platform workflows. Microsoft invests heavily in the cloud to let you open and save documents anywhere you'd like. It also focuses on having apps on a variety of hardware, ranging from computers to tablets and phones. LibreOffice is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux, but iOS and Android are limited to viewing files only unless you turn on experimental features.

If you need to save something on one device and jump to another and continue editing, you'll be better served by Microsoft Office. You can do online editing with things such as Collabora and ownCloud, but that's more complicated to set up than just signing into your Microsoft account. Microsoft Office also handles collaboration from multiple editors better than LibreOffice.

Much like the rest of this comparison, how much this affects you will vary. I use a personal PC, work MacBook, work iPad, and personal Android phone. I use Office Online often and use two different OneDrive accounts for work and personal use. So, for me, these features are essential, and I could never switch away from Microsoft Office. But you could have a completely different workflow that would be great for you centered on using LibreOffice on select devices and saving them onto a cloud like Dropbox.

So should you switch from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice?

Deciding to switch to LibreOffice over Microsoft Office is largely dependent on your specific workflow. While LibreOffice obviously is a better value because you're getting something for free, that isn't a factor to someone who already is happy to pay for Office 365 for things like OneDrive storage or someone that gets Office 365 through their workplace or school.

Comparing the feature sets of the two suites is more complicated. It isn't as simple as saying that one is better. If you scroll through this page comparing the feature sets you'll see that the suites alternate in terms of which is better from section to section. For example, LibreOffice lets you insert more items such as vector graphics and FLAC audio, but Microsoft Office has better touch support and better cross-platform collaboration features. My advice in terms of features it to browse through each suite and see which fits your personal needs best.

LibreOffice is impressive, and because it's free you can try it out while still paying for Microsoft Office. My advice is that if you're interested, give it a try while keeping your Office 365 subscription and then make a more permanent decision. Ultimately, LibreOffice could save you some significant cash.

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Microsoft Home Use Program Military

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