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I'm thinking of starting an OU stats course soon and the course requirements specify access to a Windows machine to run Minitab.
The last time I tried to this was about 10 years ago, and all of the solutions I looked into were expensive and faffy (parrallels and boot camp both requiring a windows license). I tried WINEskin but it was a huge faff. I'm completely out of the loop on how to start on this now.
Ideally I'd like to be able to keep my mac running while I use minitab so I *think* bootcamp is out of the question unless all of the other options end up being spendy. I'm not opposed to another device if it's cheap.
Here's the system requirements for Minitab if that helps:
Operating System Windows 8 or 8.1, Windows 10
RAM* 64-bit systems: 4 GB of memory or more recommended
Processor Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon™ Dual Core, with SSE2 technology
Hard Disk Space 2 GB (minimum) free space available
Screen Resolution 1024 x 768 or higher
Connectivity An internet connection is required for activation of trial and single-user licenses
Browser A web browser is required for Minitab Help. Chrome or Chromium Edge is recommended. Additional required software will be installed with the application: Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables for Visual Studio 2019
Thanks!
I run Parallels on an iMac as I have one bit of software not available for Mac. It's about £60. I then used an old Windows 7 licence code for the Window 10. All works well and I can cut and paste between OS.
You might find that the paid version of Wine (Crossover) is easier to use & has better compatibility... there's a free trial so no harm in trying, definitely the easiest/best solution IMO if it works.
Parallels not mega bucks... there are ways to get a "grey" W10 license which are a lot cheaper (not necessarily recommending that though!)
The third option is just using a cheap Windows machine and connecting to it via VNC... works well, plus copy & paste works (although only with certain client/server software combos)
Will you want to keep using the software after you finish the course? If you do, and are planning on using it for serious stuff (work, research, etc.), you might be better to just buy a second-hand Windows machine to run it on.
I use some Windows-only software for my job. I tried Parallels about eight years ago and it was a bit too finicky to want to use it to run software that I use everyday. I found Bootcamp much better, but I can do all my work in Windows so there's no point in messing around with MacOS. Apparently, Parallels has improved since then, but I don't know from personal experience.
Microsoft make money from selling software. If you want to run Windows, you have to buy a licence (or a machine that has a licensed copy). Doesn't matter what you think of Microsoft, that's the reality. If you're serious about doing your course, you need to just stump up and pay for what you need.
Also, check whether you need a copy of Excel installed for outputs. The software I use will produce outputs as text files, but it uses Excel for charts. In that case, a recent version of Excel is really part of the minimum system requirements.
It might be easier to just buy a cheap refurb (ex-corporate lease desktop HP or dell) off ebay you could probably score something with double the minimum specs, and Win 10 for under £100 and keep your Mac win free, sat to one side... This assumes you've got the space for more computer hardware in your workspace (maybe get a KVM to be space efficient?)...
Surely VMWare Fusion is the answer for running Windows on a Mac at the same time as MacOS?
Failing that, a £100 refurb computer would be fine but it needs a monitor, keyboard and desk etc.
If you need a Windows machine I'd just buy a cheap laptop rather than faffing about. It's the right tool for the job and you'd be hard pressed to find a machine that doesn't meet those requirements. But.
Is there any particular reason why you can't just the Mac version of Minitab?
I think it's looking like a separate windows machine might be cheaper than buying all of the software. A KVM switch sounds like a good idea as well.
Thanks all.
Is there any particular reason why you can’t just the Mac version of Minitab
Good question, and one I will pose the to OU bods before I spend any money.
I run Parallels on an iMac as I have one bit of software not available for Mac
I've always had a couple of apps that I needed to use on Windows in a Mac household (cfirst an accounting package, Tracklogs and latterly a home automation config app).
Parallels worked well BUT I got pissed off with paying for an upgrade every year when Apple updated the operating system. Since then I've just settled for using Bootcamp. With an SSD boot time is fast enough that it's no great pain to move from one to the other and it also means no distractions when working on that app!
Is there any particular reason why you can’t just the Mac version of Minitab
It'll probably be because some of the example syntax uses the windows command line (Eg. paths to example data files), and some of the GUI elements and shortcuts are probably different. Most course tutors will not necessarily know their way around a Mac and won't be able to troubleshoot things easily. If you have a good knowledge about Macs you can probably not worry about that. Or less likely it's to do with the license for the software (are they giving you access to the software?).
I've used Windows 10 inside a VMWare virtual machine, it's dead easy to use but relatively expensive for the VMWare software. How long is the course? VMWare have a 30d free trial IIRC. I've also used VirtualBox which was a bit less streamlined but still worked fine.
I never paid for a Windows 10 license - you can use it as unlicensed for as long as you like. You can't change all the settings (E.g. change desktop background) and it nags you to pay every now and again but since I was only using it for a few hours / month that was no big deal. They may have changed that in the last 6 months but a quick Google suggests they have not.
it’s dead easy to use but relatively expensive for the VMWare software.
Dunno about Macs but in the Windows world VMware Workstation is free for personal use. Failing that, if you are going to go down the virtualisation route can the Mac not use a Linux solution like Qemu?
... and answering my own question with ten seconds' googling, yes you can.
https://www.qemu.org/download/#macos
Dunno about Macs but in the Windows world VMware Workstation is free for personal use.
Nah. Mac users are for milking for cash, not giving free stuff to.
VirtualBox is another free virtualisation host software, it runs on windows, mac, linux etc