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Mac Forum / General / Networking / May 2008question about networking when running windows on macbook
Hope this question is appropriate for here. My employer will be buying me a laptop as part of a new job I have with them. They only support PCs for networking, but I only use Macs in my work (music.) I'd like them to get me a macbook, and I'd run windows on it in addition to OS X. I'd simply use the wifi under OS X when travelling away from work. Could I expect them to allow the windows partition to be networked (via ethernet) without a problem? TIA  Signature(*) of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate -www.davidhorne.net (email address on website) "If people think God is interesting, the onus is on them to show that there is anything there to talk about. Otherwise they should just shut up about it." -Richard Dawkins > Hope this question is appropriate for here. My employer will be buying > me a laptop as part of a new job I have with them. They only support PCs [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > expect them to allow the windows partition to be networked (via > ethernet) without a problem? It depends to some extent on how exactly you intend to run Windows on the MacBook. If you use Boot Camp, then your MacBook will be booted into Windows and won't be running Mac OS X at the same time. As far as your employer is concerned, you will just have a Windows laptop, with Ethernet and/or wireless connections available. If you use virtual machine software (Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion), your computer will be running Mac OS X, with Windows running inside a virtual machine. I'm more familiar with VMware Fusion, in which you can set up the networking to operate in several different modes. In the mode that I use, the virtual machine appears to be a separate computer on the local network, with its own unique MAC address. The rest of the network sees me as two computers: one is running Mac OS X, the other is running Windows. They share a physical network interface, and you can't exclude the Mac side from the network easily (without also cutting off Windows). You also can't set it up so that VMware uses one interface while Mac OS uses the other one. (There might be some way to do this, but it isn't obvious from the user interface.) The other modes result in the virtual machine hiding behind a virtual NAT router, or only having network access to the Mac host and not to the physical network, or turning networking off completely. The question is whether your employer's definition of "support for networking" is a policy which says "you are only allowed to connect (authorised) Windows PCs to the network, and no other platforms are allowed", or "we won't help you if you want to connect a non-Windows PC to the network". In the latter case, a virtual machine should work fine. The Mac might not get a valid IP address or an Internet connection for itself, depending on how your employer's network is configured, but your virtual machine running Windows should be happily working on the network. If the policy is that you aren't allowed to use a Mac on the network, your only option is likely to be Boot Camp, which will require restarting the computer each time you want to switch between Mac OS and Windows. SignatureDavid Empson dempson@actrix.gen.nz > > Hope this question is appropriate for here. My employer will be buying > > me a laptop as part of a new job I have with them. They only support PCs [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > It depends to some extent on how exactly you intend to run Windows on > the MacBook. I'd use it in the way that would suit work! :) > If you use Boot Camp, then your MacBook will be booted into Windows and > won't be running Mac OS X at the same time. As far as your employer is > concerned, you will just have a Windows laptop, with Ethernet and/or > wireless connections available. That's the best idea then- many thanks for the heads up! Signature(*) of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate -www.davidhorne.net (email address on website) "If people think God is interesting, the onus is on them to show that there is anything there to talk about. Otherwise they should just shut up about it." -Richard Dawkins > Hope this question is appropriate for here. My employer will be buying > me a laptop as part of a new job I have with them. They only support PCs [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > expect them to allow the windows partition to be networked (via > ethernet) without a problem? Can you clarify exactly what you mean by "they only support PCs for networking"? Mac OS X connects to TCP/IP networks just fine, and you can access Windows network services with Mac OS X as well. Windows, when running on Macs, connects to TCP/IP networks as well - TCP/IP is TCP/IP. As far as running Windows on your Mac goes, unless you need to do 3D graphics acceleration, you will probably want to run Windows virtualized (inside of vmWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop) so that you can access Windows without having to reboot your Mac - as opposed to dual booting with Boot Camp, which will require you to create physical partitions on your hard drive and reboot each time you want to switch operating systems. Regardless of how you run Windows (virtualized, or dual boot), networking is very similar. In fact, you have *more* networking options when you run Windows virtualized. There are actually many benefits to running virtualized as opposed to dual booting. So my general advice would be to purchase vmWare Fusion and run Windows inside of it. SignaturePlease send all responses to the relevant news group. E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM filter. I do not read posts from Google Groups. Use a real news reader if you want me to see your posts. JR > > Hope this question is appropriate for here. My employer will be buying > > me a laptop as part of a new job I have with them. They only support PCs [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Windows network services with Mac OS X as well. Windows, when running on > Macs, connects to TCP/IP networks as well - TCP/IP is TCP/IP. I'm aware of that, but they won't actually connect Macs full stop. It's annoying, but that's the way it is with them. I'm hoping that if I run Windows on the laptop, they'll allow me a network connection. I'd prefer parallels, but I'm not sure if that will satisfy them. I'll report back what they decide... Signature(*) of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate -www.davidhorne.net (email address on website) "If people think God is interesting, the onus is on them to show that there is anything there to talk about. Otherwise they should just shut up about it." -Richard Dawkins > > > Hope this question is appropriate for here. My employer will be buying > > > me a laptop as part of a new job I have with them. They only support PCs [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > I'm aware of that, but they won't actually connect Macs full stop. It's > annoying, but that's the way it is with them. I'm not sure what you mean by that. It's not as if they'd be able to tell what sort of computer is connecting to the network - Macs use the same hardware as any other PC. > I'm hoping that if I run > Windows on the laptop, they'll allow me a network connection. I'd prefer > parallels, but I'm not sure if that will satisfy them. I'll report back > what they decide... I really don't see why they would care one way or the other. I work for a major semiconductor manufacturer on a huge corporate network. The people who handle network and desktop support for our corporation do not officially support Macs, but that in no way means Macs are somehow barred from being used. The fact is Macs work just fine in all-Windows environments. SignaturePlease send all responses to the relevant news group. E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM filter. I do not read posts from Google Groups. Use a real news reader if you want me to see your posts. JR > > > > Hope this question is appropriate for here. My employer will be buying > > > > me a laptop as part of a new job I have with them. They only support PCs [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > I'm not sure what you mean by that. It's not as if they'd be able to > tell what sort of computer is connecting to the network They'd know what computer you _wanted_ to have connected to the network. > - Macs use the > same hardware as any other PC. I think it's the software they use to allow people to log on to their computers, which then gives them access to the network. There's a Mac suite here for example, but it requires no login, but they're not networked. > > I'm hoping that if I run > > Windows on the laptop, they'll allow me a network connection. I'd prefer [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Macs are somehow barred from being used. The fact is Macs work just fine > in all-Windows environments. You're preaching to the choir here. They're attitude is very strange. I'd go further, but that might not be wise... Signature(*) of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate -www.davidhorne.net (email address on website) "If people think God is interesting, the onus is on them to show that there is anything there to talk about. Otherwise they should just shut up about it." -Richard Dawkins > > > > > Hope this question is appropriate for here. My employer will be > > > > > buying [quoted text clipped - 47 lines] > You're preaching to the choir here. They're attitude is very strange. > I'd go further, but that might not be wise... If you can get them to buy the Mac then agree to just about anything. Once you have the Mac, then use Boot Camp, but unless your PC work requires lots of disk space, I would use a moderate Boot Camp partition. Now once you have everything setup as desired in Boot Camp, I would point VMware Fusion or Parallels at the Boot Camp partition and run Mac OS X all the time. The PC can provide your corporate network access, but you can still have access to your Mac environment all the time. And along the way, you might even find out that you can use the Mac to connect to the network. But if nothing else, you will be able to move data between the PC and Mac environments via Parallels or VMware Fusion. By the way, I've worked for both Compaq and HP, where I signed-in my own Mac as personal property and kept them in my office, plus carried my Powerbook in and out every day. Neither of these companies were Mac friendly, but they didn't do anything to explicitly block my Mac usage. And at my current company, I'm using my own PowerMac Dual G5 as my workstation (using two 18" LCD monitors provided by my company). I turned the company provided PC into a test system. My current company if more Mac agnostic in that they at least provide a Mac VPN client and from time to time actually think about what employees with Macs at home might need to access the corporate network). Bob Harris >> I'm not sure what you mean by that. It's not as if they'd be able to >> tell what sort of computer is connecting to the network [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > suite here for example, but it requires no login, but they're not > networked. I'm going to take a stab in the dark here and guess: Novell Netware, right? With a pre-determined set of software 'delivered' by variables contained within the user's Novell Directory Services profile. The good news is - Macs are perfectly capable of file-sharing over a network in such a setup (I've done this successfully with a sole G5 PowerMac used for DTP within a network with 500-600 Wintel machines), and as an added bonus the Mac also won't get hampered with awful sh.t like Novell Groupwise as an email client :-) Cheers, Andy. |
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