jbl

I have a workshop manual disk that requires a Windows OS to open and read it. What is the simplest and easiest way of being able to use it on either my macbook or the wife's imac ? I assume that I will have to download or purchase some software that installs microsoft on my mac ?

Thanks
Brian

boxst

The Mac should be able to read the disk, but are you saying the contents are (effectively) encrypted and needs a program loaded to read the contents?

If that is the case, then http://www.parallels.com/ or http://www.vmware.com or use bootcamp to dual-boot into windows.

Markus

What OS version is the iMac running? I know your MacBook is 10.4.x.
Parallels 7 requires 10.5.x, and I think the latest version of VMWare Fusion is also requiring at least 10.5, so unless you have a newer OS on the iMac, you cannot even run these apps.

Codeweavers Crossover, or an install of Wine (http://winebottler.kronenberg.org) might help. These essentially use Wine, which doesn't need an install of Windows, though they are possibly not compatible with the app you want to run, or maybe even the Mac OS version you are running.

If you're looking at Parallels, Fusion, VirtualBox, or any other VM solution then you WILL need an install disk for Windows, and obviously a licence key for said OS. So you'd need to set that up before you can even get to seeing if the app will run (you would want to figure out what Windows OS it supports before trying to install one. If it won't run on at least XP then you're a bit stuck as I think most modern VM solutions would want at the very least XP)

What you could always do is use Disk Utility to make an image of the disk and then stick said image somewhere that someone with the appropriate OS and VM software could access and see if they could either find the info you need from the app, or possibly export the info.

boxst

Windows 7 gives you a 30 day grace period, so if it is a one-off, the easiest (free) way would be to use bootcamp and boot into windows. Subject to the correct OS version as you said.