Troubleshooting for switchers

Old habits die hard; a primer for recent Windows converts

Hurrah! You’ve recently migrated to the Mac from Windows: welcome. You’re in good company. About half the people who walk into an Apple Store to buy a Mac have never owned one before; many of them get experience with the Mac using an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad.

Coming from Windows, you arrive on the Mac platform with many expectations and ingrained habits born from years of use. And while transitioning from Windows to the Mac can be pretty easy, not everything works the same in the Mac world as it does in PC land. Here are a few of the big issues worth understanding…

Do I have to do things like defrag my hard drive?

In short, no. OS X incorporates defragmentation routines built in to the normal maintenance that it does on your Mac. Automatically, small files that get used on a regular basis get moved to a more easily accessible spot on the hard drive (this goes for conventional hard disk drives, of course – SSDs and flash storage work using a different principle altogether, and defragging doesn’t apply).

Should I get antivirus software?

Under ordinary circumstances, no. Macs aren’t susceptible to the same malware that Windows PCs are – most of the malware authors target specific security flaws in Windows, since it’s so commonly used. That’s not to suggest the Mac is impervious to malware infestation, but it’s much less likely to be. (OS X has active anti-malware safeguards in place. The Mac employs a series of what Apple calls ‘runtime protections’ to keep malware from affecting the operating system.) If you work in a Windows and Mac environment, there’s a case to be made for having anti-malware software anyway, simply to be a good corporate citizen and to prevent your computer from passing along any infected files that might be attached to email and other data. Your Mac should, however, be much safer from direct attacks.

How do I go about uninstalling application software?

On Windows, dragging an application's icon into the trash only removes an alias of that app – all the files to make it work stay on, typically until you run an uninstaller or weed all the files out yourself. Uninstallers aren’t unknown on the Mac either, but typically it's much easier – drag that app icon into the trash, and it’ll be gone.

Is there a Mac version of Ctrl-Alt-Delete?

If you’re running an app that suddenly freezes or stops working as expected, press the ç and å keys and then press the oe key. That should invoke a new window that will show you all of the applications you are currently running, and let you force quit the troublesome app that is not behaving. You can also access the Force Quit command by clicking on the Apple menu. Finally, you can right-click on the problematic app in the Dock and select Force Quit.

Why doesn’t closing a window exit the application?

Clicking the close box on an application window in Window removes it from memory. However, it doesn’t work quite the same way on the Mac. Closing a window does just that and hides it from view; the application remains in memory until you physically quit out of the app all together. That way it’s just a click away if you need it. To quit out of a Mac app, go to the File menu and select Quit, or press ç+Q.