How To Change Your Mac Into A Windows

  • You can go back and forth between macOS and Windows on your Mac, but you can’t run both OS simultaneously under Boot Camp. Instead, you have to boot one operating system or the other — thus, the name Boot Camp. Restart your Mac, and hold down the Option key until icons for each operating system appear onscreen.
  • Files from Apple's Pages, Numbers, Keynote and Contacts apps can be used on a Windows PC, but you'll need to follow these steps to get your files ready.

How To Get Windows On Mac

Restart your Mac, and hold down the Option key until icons for each operating system appear onscreen. Highlight Windows or Macintosh HD, and click the arrow to.

MacOS’ Mission Control and full-screen mode are great for swiping quickly between apps and keeping your workspace organised. But what if you want to work in a different way? What if you want multiple windows open on one screen, but in a way that’s neat and tidy and allows you to move from one to the other easily?

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That’s where Mosaic, available in Setapp, comes in. Mosaic allows you to tile open windows on your Mac screen so that they are all visible at the same time, but also neat and tidy. This app has a library of set layouts for tiled windows. When you drag a window on your Mac, the layout view appears as an overlay on screen and you choose the one you want, and where you want the current window to sit in that layout. You can then add more windows to the it.

Layouts can be organized in groups – such as those for two apps, three apps, etc. And you can create your own if none of those in the library suit you. And, as a final neat touch, you can control Mosaic on your Mac from an accompanying iOS app.

9 easy steps to split your Mac monitor into two screens (and more)

When you have multiple apps open on Mac, a great way to re-arrange them on your desktop is by using Mosaic. This windows manager lets you fill your Mac screen with apps windows, without having to manually move and resize them. So you can use apps side by side, without the distraction of other windows. Here’s how to use Mosaic to tile open windows on your Mac screen.

Change screen layout with Mosaic

This powerful app can change everything about your screen. Split Mac monitor, rearrange windows, or customize layout completely.

Step 1: Get a windows manager app

Search for Mosaic in Setapp and click Install. Once it’s installed, agree to it opening at login, or not if you don’t want it to, and give it permission to manage windows in Accessibility preferences. Click the button on the window that’s displayed on-screen to go to the Accessibility pane, then click the padlock, type in your password and click the box next to Mosaic.

Step 2: Tile the first window

  • Choose a window that you want to tile, click and drag it. The Mosaic layout library will appear.
  • Drag the window onto a layout and over the position you want it to take, then let go.
  • The window will snap into position.

Step 3: Tile the second window

Choose another window you want to appear on the screen alongside the one you just tiled, and drag it onto the same layout in a different position. The two windows will now appear on-screen in the layout you chose. You can click on one to make it active and work on it, just as you would normally.

Step 4: Change side by side layout activation settings

If you don’t like the layout view appearing every time you drag a window, you can change that behaviour so it only appears when you drag a window to the top of the screen or when you hold down the Alt key and drag a window. Click the Mosaic menu bar item, navigate to ‘Show Layouts’ and choose the option you want.

Step 5: Change group settings

By default, only the most common layouts are shown when you drag a window. To change that so that all layouts are shown, or those from a specific group:

  • Click on the Mosaic menu bar item.
  • Navigate to the Drag & Drop section and hover over Group.
  • Choose the group whose layouts you want to see when you drag a window.

Step 6: Change layout view settings

If you want to change the way layouts appear when you activate Layout view, that’s easy too. By default, they appear in a row on the screen and if there are too many for one view, they’ll wrap onto a second row. You can change that to a column view – similar to row view but with layouts displayed vertically; a grid view – that displays layouts on a grid in the centre of the screen; or docked view – that displays half-size layouts docked to the top of the screen. To change the view, click on the Mosaic menu bar item and select Layout View, then your choice of view.

How To Change Your Mac Into A Windows

Step 7: Change keyboard shortcuts

To activate Layout view from a keyboard shortcut, rather than by dragging and selecting, make sure the window you want to apply the layout to is selected and press Alt-Shift-Cmd-L. You’ll see the Layout view appear on screen. Click on the layout you want to use. To change the keyboard shortcut, go to Preferences the Behaviour. Click on the keyboard shortcut at the bottom of the window and type a new shortcut. To change how layouts activated by a keyboard shortcut appear on screen, click on the Mosaic menu bar item, go to the Click & Select section and choose a Layout View. To change which layouts are displayed, do the same, but choose a Group instead.

Tip: You can set up Drag & Drop differently from Click & Select so that when you activate Mosaic using one method it displays one group of layouts and when you activate using Click & Select it displays a different group.

Mac

Step 8: Set more keyboard shortcuts

You can also set up keyboard shortcuts for positions within layouts. So, for example you could set one up for the left side of a two-window layout where the windows are side by side and each occupy half the screen. To do that, go to Preferences and click the Layouts tab. Choose the Left layout in the list of layouts in at the left of the window, then click Record shortcut. Type the shortcut you want to use. Now repeat for the Right layout, using a different shortcut. To test it, go to a window on screen, click on it and type the shortcut for Left or Right. The window will move into position.

Step 9: Customise new layout

If none of the layouts in the layout library are suitable for your work, you can create a new one. Go to Preferences and click on the Layouts tab. Click the ‘+’ at the bottom of the list of layouts. Select New Layout. Give the layout a name and, if you want, record a keyboard shortcut for it. You can also specify which screen it appears on if you use multiple displays. If you want to use the default 8x8 grid and 32-pixel gutter (the space left between windows so they or their shadows don’t overlap), just draw the layout on the grid by clicking and dragging. If you want to change the number of rectangles in the grid or the size of the gutter, click on the three dots next to the option you want to change and make a selection.

It's not hard to be productive with your Mac when you combine Mosaic, Workspaces, Focus and other productivity apps on Setapp.

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Windows To Go On Mac

There are two common methods for running Microsoft Windows and Windows programs on an Apple Macintosh, and one of those methods just got better and easier.

The first approach uses a feature called Boot Camp that comes free on every new Mac. Using Boot Camp, the entire Mac is turned into a Windows PC, with the full capabilities and speed of a standard Windows machine. No trace of the Mac operating system is left running. The downside is that you can’t run Windows and Mac programs side by side.

The second approach uses one of two third-party programs to create a virtual Windows PC inside your Mac. This faux Windows machine runs at normal speeds and can operate simultaneously with the Mac’s own operating system. Programs native to each operating system can run side by side. The downside is that, because Windows doesn’t get complete control of the computer’s hardware, it isn’t quite as fast as in Boot Camp, and a few of its functions, like 3D graphics, don’t work as well.

This latter method is enabled by two excellent, closely matched $80 programs: Parallels, from a Swiss-based company of the same name, and Fusion, from VMWare, a U.S. company. It is Fusion that just got better, because VMWare just issued version 2.0 of the product with lots of new features, some of which let it catch up to the older Parallels and some of which push it ahead.

I’ve been testing Fusion 2.0 for a couple of weeks on two different Macs, and using it to run both Windows XP and Windows Vista. My verdict is that while you won’t go wrong with Parallels, Fusion edges it out as the better product.

The new Fusion 2.0 is a free upgrade for owners of version 1.0. It can be obtained at vmware.com/mac and at various retailers.

Like Boot Camp and Parallels, Fusion requires you to obtain and install a fresh, boxed, full version of Windows on your Mac. But once you’ve done that, your Mac becomes two computers in one. If you need to run programs that are available only on Windows, you can do so with ease.

For instance, as I write this column on a MacBook pro laptop, using a Macintosh word processor, I am using Fusion 2.0 to simultaneously run Google’s new Chrome browser, which is so far available for Windows only. I can switch between the two with a couple of keystrokes and copy text from one to the other.

Like Parallels, Fusion allows you to run Windows programs in one of three ways. You can see the entire Windows desktop, with Windows programs running within it, inside its own window on your Mac. Or, using a feature called “Unity,” each Windows program can float free, as if it were just another Mac program, with the Windows desktop invisible. If you minimize a Windows program, it disappears into an icon in the Mac’s Dock, just as Mac programs do.

Finally, you can devote the entire screen to the Windows desktop and hide the Mac operating system entirely.

Parallels can also do these things. Both programs can now also “mirror” your most common Windows and Mac file folders so that, for instance, all of the files in your Mac’s Pictures folder also appear in the My Pictures folder in Windows XP. This is a new addition to Fusion, as is the ability to take multiple “snapshots” of your Windows virtual machine, so if something goes wrong, you can roll back to a previous state when things were stable.

How To Change Your Mac Into A Windows

But Fusion has some other features Parallels lacks. For example, it allows you to automatically take those protective snapshots at timed intervals. It also permits you to completely customize keyboard commands so that the same common key combinations work in both Windows and Mac programs. It allows the faux Windows machine to take full advantage of multiple monitors, if you have them.

Fusion also uses a more modern and capable version of the proprietary 3-D graphics system in Windows, called DirectX. That means some Windows-only games and other programs that won’t work in Parallels will work in Fusion. I successfully tested two such programs, both from Microsoft: Worldwide Telescope and Photosynth.

And, in my experience, Fusion is a bit faster than Parallels. Both programs put a strain on your Mac when performing major tasks, like starting up or shutting down Windows. But Fusion seems to affect the Mac less. And, unlike Parallels, it can make Windows quicker by optionally assigning it control of the multiple “cores” in most modern processor chips.

Fusion also offers a one-year free subscription to Windows security software, while Parallels offers only a six-month subscription.

However, Fusion has its limits. Like Parallels, it cannot run the 3-D visual effects in Windows Vista. And, in my tests, it wouldn’t allow Windows running on one of my Macs to use the printer that was configured on the Mac, although that feature did work on my other test Mac.

In my view, Fusion is now the better choice for running Windows on a Mac virtually.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walt Mossberg atmossberg@wsj.com