Windows Question
 

I admit I'm not great on computers. So I'm asking for help. On this Windows PC I had downloaded a program from Amazon. What I'm trying to do is copy this program onto a thumb drive. Then place the thumb drive into a new Macbook. But, when I plug the thumb drive into my pc a bell sounds so I know the PC is recognizing the thumb drive but I can't find it.

Last night the thumb drive worked great. I copied my bookmarks from my PC to the new Macbook. Then I erased the thumb drive so I could do the same with the program I want to move from my PC to the new Macbook.

Any help will be appreciated. :confused:

I am GUESSING the program is not compatible with the MAC PC, I do not know of any Windows programs that run on MAC computers, unless you have additional Windows emulator software installed on your MAC computer.
If you have additional information, on the name of the program, etc., I am sure someone in the MAC side will be able to provide specific information.

The Tinker is correct.

Your Windows program will not run on your Mac, unless you're using emulator software or have an old Mac with dual-processors (which I know you don't).

The odds are, the program you're running on your Windows machine, has a Mac Version of the same software. Simply download that and transfer your data.

I suspect your thumb drive was written (initiated) on a Windows machine? The file capability between Mac & Windows is slightly different. Mac can run a Windows formatted drive, but might not be able to access all file information.

If you're getting a chime, your thumb drive is being recognized by your Mac (doesn't mean it can read it). Here's what to do. Rename the thumb drive, while it's plug into your Windows computer. Name it something weird, like .... "WEIRD".

Plug it into your Mac & wait for the chime. Once you hear the chime, select the "Magnifying Glass" on your Menu bar, type in "WEIRD" and it will find your thumb drive.

If you get more specific on what your ultimately goal is and the software involved, I can probably tell you how to do it.

Even if the program were compatible with a Mac, a lot of software programs cannot be copied and moved to another computer. You can copy the files, but you may need the Product Key to reinstall the program onto another computer. Read the software license agreement.

It's also possible that the download has code in it to protect it from being copied to another device (prevents warez/pirated content).

I was able to use the thumb drive on my PC and copy all my bookmarks, then put the thumb drive into my Mac and it worked fine. So, I erased the bookmarks from my thumb drive. Now when I put the thumb drive into the PC a bell chimes to let me know it recognizes the thumb drive "but I can't find the thumb drive to transfer items from the PC to Mac.

I'm sure I'm not explaining this very well.

It doesn't matter what I try to copy. (On my PC), I can't find the thumb drive after I insert it. When I put it in a bell chimes rings but I can't find it.

I would suggest that you try to copy the files to your Google drive at "drive.google.com". Upload the files to this drive and then download them to the other computer. If you have a Google account, you will have 15gb of free cloud storage space on the Google drive. No need for a thumb drive.

OK, reread your post.
Which computer did you use to erase the thumb drive? If you used the MAC, it may have corrupted the drive so Windows cannot find it. Next how do you define "find it", are you using file explorer or something else? If the drive is corrupted, it may not automatically appear in Windows. Try using file explorer, if you see a "D" drive this should be your thumb drive, you can remove it to make sure. Once you plug the drive in again, reformat the drive, then you should be able to copy the program over, but as I stated before I doubt it will run on the MAC, unless this is a MAC program you downloaded.

Note that, when you install a Windows based software program, the program uses Windows as a template to operate the program. So, if you don't have Windows installed on the computer, the program will not run. Windows has built-in features that Windows based software programs depend on to operate. They are not standalone programs that can be copied to a thumb drive. Without the Windows program, they can't do anything.

Tinker is right of course, as far as I know Windows.

What likely happened, when you plugged the drive into your Mac, it was (sort of) re-formated, which can make some of your data hard to get at (corrupted files?).

If you initiate a Mac Drive (Thumb or otherwise), I think you get a choice of how to format the disk and you want to use FAT32 as the format (I haven't done it in a while and don't want to reformat a thumb drive to experiment).

Also, if you renamed the thumb drive on your Mac, Windows might not recognize it. Windows & Mac OS use different "naming" conventions and you have to be careful.

From what I know of Windows, TInker's solution to finding it on your Windows machine should work, but I hardly ever use Windows, so I really don't know enough to give advice on that side of the equation.

Yes, after I copied the "PC" bookmarks onto the thumb drive, I put the thumb into the "Mac" and installed the bookmarks in the Mac. "THEN" I erased everything on the thumb using the "Mac". I will only use this thumb on the Mac because I will sell the PC sometime soon. I had no idea that the PC and the Mac would not play well together.

I will only use the thumb drive on the Mac from now on. The program I was gonna move from the PC to the Mac would not work anyway. I will buy a new program for the Mac on Amazon.

Thank you all for helping.

The Mac and the PC need to see the correct formatting on the thumb drive to be able to use it. I'm guessing when you erased it you formatted it with a format that was incompatible with your Windows PC.

To fix it, just put the thumb drive in your Mac and erase it with GPT partitioning and exFat formatting, then the drive will work on both your Mac and your PC.

I'm only going to use it on the Mac from now on. I hope I didn't break it. It's a 64 Gig.

I'm going to replace the battery on the PC and sell it. it's a HP 15"- Core I7- 16 Gigs of Ram- HD display-Solid State HD. In great condition.

Ahhh ... now I know why you ordered your MacBook Air with 16 Gigs. Probably not necessary with Mac OS, but certainly doesn't hurt.

Nah, it’s ok, but it’s probably formatted with APFS now, that only works on a Mac, and it’s the best filesystem for the Mac.

Try putting the USB Flash drive (thumb drive) back in the mac. Select the drive on Finder. Then Empty Trash. Eject the drive on the Mac before unplugging the drive. Then try it on your windows machine.

Consider using Dropbox for storing all of your "data" files, not program files. Then you can access those files from all of your computers. Also, you won't lose them if your computer is destroyed or replaced. It also synchronizes files, so after you change a file on one machine, the other will eventually have a copy of the new file. Dropbox works on any system you are likely to have - Mac, Windows, and even Linux (which you are unlikely to have or want).

There are alternatives to Dropbox, which stores the files on a "cloud server". Amazon, Google Drive and likely others.

Some USB Flash drives come formatted for PCs and do not support large files - likely if you are trying to store "movies". They can be reformatted to a larger file system on a Mac. Google can help you find out how to do this. Do it BEFORE putting files on it, because files will be lost after reformatting the drive.

If you erased he thumb drive you probably erased the file system too. You need to reformat the drive so that both PC and Mac can read it. "Attach the drive to your Mac.
Launch Disk Utility (from Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility).
Select the drive in the left-hand sidebar.
Click Erase.
From the Format menu, select ExFAT.
From the Scheme menu, select Master Boot Record.
Click Erase and follow prompts to confirm."

First off Windows and MAC are not compatible, even with the emulation software on MAC you will have software that will not work.

Bookmarks don't really transfer because in Win10 they are registry keys not actual bookmarks. There is freeware out there that MAY convert them but I have yet to find one that truely works 100% perfect.

Lastly the drive formats are different between Windows and MAC.

Basically nothing will work the exact way you intend, you should have asked about this prior to getting that MAC.

Sorry.

Just open up iCloud for Windows, follow the prompts and all your bookmarks will be seamlessly shared across platforms. No "freeware" needed. Easy peazy, lemon squeezy.

Try reformatting the thumb drive.

The PC has 16Gigs. The Mac has 24Gigs. Computers love RAM! :024:

Good info. Thanks

Found that out the hard way.

As I said before, it was difficult for me to order one with 16G. I believe that MacOS handles memory much differently than Windows, but you're right ... computers love RAM. I've never seen a Mac with 24G, but now I know they exist.

I started with a Mac that had 128K and the Disk Drive was 400K. McPaint & McWrite ran perfectly fine and 400K seemed like more disk memory than anyone could ever use.

its not 100% been there done that

I got the Mac from Amazon. On PCs, you can add RAM later if you want, but on Macs, you can never increase the RAM because it is soldered into the machine. Buying a Mac with more RAM than necessary helps increase its longevity.