Running Boot Camp

Running Windows XP on a Mac

Okay, let's admit it: running Windows XP on a Mac just seems wrong on so many levels. But it's doable, and if you can get over the goofy Teletubbies desktop, Windows XP actually runs quite well on your Mac. However, if you're not familiar with XP, it's going to take some getting used to, and for that, you might want to pick up some O'Reilly books on XP to bring you up to speed, including:

• Windows XP for Starters: The Missing Manual

• Windows XP: The Missing Manual (there are Home and Pro editions of the book available for Service Pack 2)

• Windows XP in a Nutshell

• Fixing Windows XP Annoyances

For more information about these books, or to order them, visit http://www.oreilly.com/catalog.

While you're getting up to speed on XP, there are some things you should take note of when working with it:

Forget the Mac keyboard shortcuts

Try to keep in mind that you're now using a Windows machine, even though the computer in front of you is clearly a Mac. As such, the keyboard shortcuts you're used to using on Mac OS X don't work in Windows XP. The most useful to keep in mind is that -L (which you'd typically type in any web browser on the Mac to load a URL) logs you out of your Windows XP session. Of course, that's not the behavior you're looking for.

Instead, try to retrain your brain to use the Control key instead of the Mac's Command () key. For example, to copy some text, ...