If you switched from Windows to Mac, you may feel like you’ve been dropped into an “Alice in Wonderland” scenario where up is down, right is left, and things are not as they seem. Although the two operating systems are largely similar, there are a few significant and potentially irritating differences that may take some getting used to.

The “start” button is at the top.

Windows users are familiar with the four-paned blue icon in the lower left of the screen in their taskbar. The taskbar is where the icons of active programs appear along with the icons for other programs and functions. When you click the blue Windows icon, a window pops up showing recently used applications and the options to sleep, shut down or restart your computer using the “power” button in the lower right corner. On a Mac, what you might call the “start button” is the Apple icon at the top of the screen in the upper left corner. That’s where you’ll get a pop-out list of recently used applications and the sleep, restart and shut down functions. The potentially confusing part is that Macs also have a “dock” at the bottom of the screen showing available or currently running applications which looks similar to the Windows taskbar

Scrolling up is down and down is up.

On either operating system, you can scroll up or down in documents and websites using the scroll button on your mouse (trackpads are another story). If you roll the scroll button down (towards you) on a Windows mouse, the document scrolls down. You can see easily how this works in a long Word document or when scrolling through a Facebook feed. On a Mac, the same action does exactly the opposite. Rolling the scroll button on your Mac mouse down makes the document move up. To scroll down in a document or web page on a Mac, you would roll the scroll button up. If you’re using a mouse, this may take some getting used to, especially if you find yourself frustrated that the scroll button doesn’t seem to be doing anything.

“X” doesn’t always mark the same spot.

On Windows, there are three icons in the upper right corner of documents, web pages, and more that look like a minus sign, a small box offset by another tiny box, and an “X.” Clicking the minus sign minimizes that window to the taskbar. Clicking the “box” icon gives you the option to shrink, expand, or share that window with another document. The “X” icon closes that window and, if it’s the only document open in that application, it quits the application as well. On Macs, the same functions are represented by three colored dots in the upper left-hand corner of the window. The red dot closes the window, but not the application, which remains running in the background. The yellow dot minimizes the window and the green dot gives you options to enter full screen mode or split that window to the left or right side of the screen.

These are only a few of the differences between Windows and Mac.The good news is that once you’re in a familiar application like Word or Chrome and adapt to the Mac “command” key replacing the Windows “control” key, most everything still works the same. Well, at least until you get to key commands, which sometimes differ. I’ll cover that in a future blog.

If you need help making the switch to a Mac or Windows, please email [email protected] I’ll be happy to smooth your transition to either operating system.