Mac in a Windows world help

**givethepigeye** · 11-07-2006, 07:28 AM

Disclaimer - I am a laptop "user" not programmer, techie or junkie.

Long story but will try to make it short. My company supports Windows, I travel a LOT, the company wont let you install personal software (no itunes, quicken or online banking) on their machine, so I bought a Mac and figured out a way to connect. For a year, I have been using a service called NorthStar to emulate a IE browser and connect remotely to the email server et al. Worked w/o a hitch. Tried firefox, etc but it would never work right - could not get past the firewall and the challenge w/ pin and pass. Anyhow NorthStar worked fine.

A week ago I get this email that they (company) are now going to scan you when connecting to make sure that you have anti-virus and anti-spy (approved by them of course) before it will let you connect. I logged in and since I dont have an anti-virus installed - it did not pass, but it did pass me on anti-spy. I have not added anything to my Mac other than keeping up w/ the updates -so that was strange.

My question is does anyone have a similar experience and how did they resolve? Will these "scans" typically pick up Mac anit-virus vs. Window anti-virus? Is it looking at my machine or NorthStars? I hate to do the boot-camp thing (mainly the $ issue) but I guess that is the way out. Of course when I call the help desk they say "we dont support Mac". Any suggestion?

thanks.

**Big E** · 11-07-2006, 08:36 AM

Isn't boot camp free ?? What's the $$ issue?

There's also Parallels, that goes for like $60 I think and you don't have to reboot.

**givethepigeye** · 11-07-2006, 08:44 AM

You have to buy Windows - I dont think Gates is giving that away.

**XtrPickels** · 11-07-2006, 09:29 AM

Originally Posted by givethepigeye

You have to buy Windows - I dont think Gates is giving that away.

Business expense because windows is required by your company? write it off in the taxes

**skinnyskier** · 11-07-2006, 09:33 AM

Do you have an intel or powerpc-based Mac?

**oftpiste** · 11-07-2006, 10:04 AM

It sounds as though Boot Camp (which is free) would be your best bet. You have to boot into it and when you do your Mac is, for all intents and purposes, a wintel machine and should pass any test the throw at it. You can install whatever security apps you need directly into the windows environment. All this is presuming you have an intel powered Mac.

**RShea** · 11-07-2006, 12:56 PM

You could just download a trial package of some Mac Anti-virus software (Norton?) and see if it approves you after that is installed. If it does then it is pretty cheap purchase compared to all the time and effort of going to dual boot. If it does not pass you then, you may have limited options.

**warthog** · 11-07-2006, 02:21 PM

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...light=parallel

Your company should be able to provide you with the Windows boot disk- it is registered to them. No problem with you using it,right?

Parallels costs a bit, but it lets you use the machine without re-booting.

**MTT** · 11-07-2006, 05:23 PM

You can run a windows session (Looks like a terminal services window) so you are running both at the same time. I don't know what it costs but I seen it. People working as a MAC and as windoze on the same machine at the same time.

**givethepigeye** · 11-07-2006, 11:19 PM

thanks - for all the help/advice. My machine is a MacBook Pro - so intel based and it looks like I will do the boot camp thing so I dont have any issue, if only for the sake of work and email. Funny how that work thing seems to get in the way!