Todd Fast's Blog

Windows on Mac, a couple issues

Last night I installed Windows XP Pro on a brand new MacBook Pro using Apple's Boot Camp, but there are a handful of small but significant issues that prevent me from using it as a Windows machine comfortably.

1. There is no way to generate a right-click in Windows using the MacBook's single mouse button. An external mouse can solve this, but it's inconvenient. Software can also fix this by adding the ability to use a key modifier for mouse clicks, but I'm not aware of any software available.
2. Macs have a Delete key, which actually corresponds to a Backspace key on a full keyboard. There is no equivalent to the Delete key on a full keyboard. This means that there is no way to delete files from Explorer, delete objects in various programs, etc. without right-clicking and choosing a Delete action from a contextual menu. This is aggravated all the more by by issue (1); on a plain MacBook, you can't effect the desired behavior in any way. This is a serious drawback, and although software can remap the key, you would then lose the Backspace functionality. In case you're wondering, Ctrl/Alt/Option/fn+Delete dosen't result in any helpful behavior. A reasonable solution might be to add a key combination like Ctrl+Delete through software to generate the right key code, but that will be about as annoying as holding down another key while clicking the mouse.
3. Ctrl+Alt+Delete doesn't work (since the Delete key is really the Backspace key), so if a process hangs it's not possible to get to the Task Manager (further aggravated by the fact that I can't right-click on the Task Bar to bring it up without an external mouse).

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Posted at 05:37PM Apr 06, 2006 by Todd Fast in General  |  Comments[3]
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