It’s been a little over 4 weeks since I installed Microsoft Windows on my MacBook Air and things are going well.  I did encounter a couple of issues, more about those a little later, but with the help of Parallels Technical Support they were quickly rectified. Parallels, as you may recall, is the program that allows running Windows along side of the Macintosh operating system without having to reboot to switch between programs in the two operating systems. This, by the way, has run smoothly and I always have programs from both operating systems in the Dock. It is easy to determine which are Windows programs as Parallels places two parallel, imagine that, red bars on the Windows programs.

One of the issues referenced above was with Outlook and the other with an add-in program for Outlook.  In Outlook if one uses the “Delete” key to clear an email the action kicks you to Contacts and does not delete the email.  The fix, one that Parallels Technical Support demonstrated, is to use “Command D” and this works fine. The add-in issue was with Send Individually – a program that I use to send emails to groups without either hitting my ISP’s “Spam” limit for one email or having to split the groups into smaller groups.  One call to Parallels Tech Support resolved the issue and I have experienced no problems since.  One of the key advantages to Send Individually is that each recipient only sees their name and email address.  No need to send it to yourself and use bcc. or other workaround.  If you use Microsoft Outlook and regularly send emails to groups I highly recommend this Outlook add-in.  By the way, Send Individually was one of the primary reasons that I decided to run Windows on my Mac. At this point, Sperry Software – the provider of Send Individually – does not have a version of the add-in for the new Outlook for the Mac and for me being able to send to groups from the MacBook Air was key. As an aside, I have heard that a version of Send Individually for Gmail might be in the works.

Everything else is working as advertised. As noted in an earlier post, the cost for Parallels and Windows was about $300. Had I not installed Windows on the MacBook Air I would have purchased the Mac version of Dragon Naturally Speaking for $100. However, when I purchased Naturally Speaking for the PC, I received a two machine license and was able to install the Windows version on the Mac reducing my overall cost costs for the project.

The MacBook Air made it’s first road trip over Thanksgiving week and take it from someone that has traveled many many miles with a laptop or notebook computer over the years, having this much capability in a three pound package is remarkable.  (I go back to the time when a 13 pound laptop was considered light.)  I was able to not only stay up-to-date and handle correspondence but also sent an email to one of my larger groups, As noted earlier Send Individually is one of the primary reasons that I wanted to run Windows on the Mac.  So no second thoughts either about purchasing the MacBook Air or the decision to install Windows.