Hi Kirsten, Yes it is possible to run windows, xp vista 7 etc, on your mac. Why not stop pondering and get it, smile. It is worth it. Now your questions.
You will indeed need a screen reader like jaws inside windows. You first boot up your mac into os10. Then, you have voiceover support. With it, you start the vmware fusion program. Fusion will emulate a pc, thus windows will think there's nothing special to the hardware it runs on. But in fact, fusion is the layer that isolates windows from the mac. Windows and os10 are 2 very different operating systems, and fusion makes them work together for you. Once fusion is running, you tell fusion to load windows inside fusion. Once windows is running, the mac side doesn't really count any longer. Of course you can use mac stuff from within fusion, but that is only decoration to fusion. Once windows is up, it can take input via the keyboard on the mac, and give output on the speakers and on the mac screen. But to windows, it looks as if it is running on a real pc. To voiceover, if you look at windows from within fusion, then windows looks like an image only. So, to read the windows screen, you will need windows software. Voiceover can't read the windows screen. Depending on what software you use inside windows, and on the hardware you use, how stable the drivers for the hardware are, and a number of other factors, windows may feel unstable. But on the mac, fusion gives you the drivers you need for most components on the mac. These drivers are very stable. The stability of windows on the mac is good. In fact, windows on my mac is my best windows experience out of most machines I have worked with. Lastly, yes there are issues with windows, but these are windows issues. The things you can encounter on windows, can also happen on the mac under fusion. There are a few beginners issues though, if you're just starting to use fusion. For example, your alt and windows keys are initially swapped and you can put them back to normal if you wish, or live with them. Also, you have no insert key, and you must either tell fusion to give you one, or tell windows to remap a key to insert. This is especially important for screen readers like NVDA and jaws. If you furthermore leave the fusion key mappings at their defaults, then some windows keystrokes can do unexpected things to your experience. For example, pressing alt plus h to open the help menu under windows, if not taken care of, will be interpreted as a mac keystroke: command plus h, which will hide fusion from you. You will then be left without speech, you need to turn on voiceover, get back to fusion, turn voiceover off and get back into windows. This goes for other keystrokes as well, but they can all be customized in one place inside fusion. To summarize: fusion is a very nice way of switching, as long as you are aware of some beginner issues with fusion itself. Of course, we at the list are here and if you have questions, just mail them. As with many new things, fusion takes a bit of willingness to learn. But it is a mac experience. Windows will run smoothly. Hth, Paul. On Sep 4, 2011, at 1:01 PM, Kirsten Edmondson wrote: > Hi, I'm still pondering getting a Mac. I understand I could run windows on > the machine using vm fusion? So this would mean I could run ms products, but > would I still need a screen-reader like Jaws? Or would vo work with it? > Personally I find Windows very unstable, is it's quality through programs > like vm fusion or bootcamp good? Is it prone to issues? > Thanks. > Kirsten. > > > Sent from my iPhone > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
