How To Read Windows Files On A Mac

• How To Read Windows Files On A Mac Hard Drive
• How Read External Mac Disc On Windows
• How To Read Windows Files On A Mac

Nov 16, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions

Nov 24, 2014 If you are running both Macs and PCs on your network, there’s a good chance you might want to share files between your Mac and PC. You can do this in one of two directions: either access Mac files from a Windows PC or access Windows files from a Mac. Today I’m going to talk about how you can share files on your Mac and access them on your PC.

Mac's impressive library of apps gives you everything you need but let's face it: Windows has a far larger library.

The combination of using 'Adobe Reader for Mac' to open the file, but using the print option in 'Finder' in the Mac menu (not from within the Adobe Reader PDF file) let us print the document out correctly formatted, with proper fonts, etc. So, Adobe Reader worked fine for us in that case, but, I'm posting here because the title of this thread. Mar 29, 2019 How to Open Exe Files on Mac. This wikiHow teaches you how to run Windows' executable (EXE) files on a Mac. To do so, you can either install WINE, which is free software, or install Windows 8 or 10 using your Mac's Boot Camp feature.

Haven't you ever come across software native to Windows which endear themselves to you? But since they all come with the EXE file extension, your Mac is incapable of running them. Well, there are workarounds to this problem and you'll learn about them today.

It's possible to safely open and run EXE files on your Mac using mediums like Boot Camp, Remote Desktop, CrossOver, Virtual Machine, and WINE, to mention the most prominent ones. And you don't need to be an expert to do this. As long as you can follow simple instructions, you're all set.

Part 1: Can You Run an EXE File on a Mac?

Yes, you can. With how innovative and creative developers have become, it was only a matter of time before they devised a means to run EXE files on Mac, even though such files are incompatible with macOS.

What's an EXE file, though? It's a file extension that denotes an executable file format. Okay, but what's an executable file? It's any file capable of being executed as a program. To put it simply, it's what makes the installation and running of software possible.

How To Read Windows Files On A Mac Hard Drive

EXE files are used in a few operating systems, the most notable of them being Microsoft Windows. You can think of EXE files as the Windows version of APP files (APP files, if you're unaware, are executable files under macOS). Jixipix moku hanga 1 450.

Running EXE files on Mac is very possible but only through backdoor means, so to speak. You need an emulator (WINE is by far the most popular), or you install a virtual machine software on your macOS to enable you to load Windows VM or make an extra partition on your disk where you can simultaneously have both macOS and Windows in your Mac.

Part 2: How to Open EXE Files on Mac

Again, you have several options to choose from when attempting this. So many software out there can help you open EXE files on Mac. You are advised to go with the Parallel Desktop.

Parallel Desktop

This software is simplistic and won't take up much on your time because it doesn't even require a Mac restart anytime you wish to run a Windows application. A copy of Microsoft Windows is required though. You have to install it on your hard disk but it's easy to do:

Step 1: Windows Installation

• Open up your Mac's Application folder and double-click on the 'Parallels' icon (you have to do this to install Windows).
• Click on 'File.'
• Click on 'New.'

• Click on 'Install Windows or another OS from DVD or image file.'

• Click on 'Continue.' You can easily install Windows either from a DVD or the more popular .iso disc image; or even a bootable USB drive.

• You can even switch to the manual mode, locate the source for the Windows installation, and choose it by clicking on 'Select a file…'

• Click on 'Continue'. You will be taken to a Windows product key window.
• Leave the 'Express installation' as it is, input the key and click 'Continue.'

• You will be asked to select how you wish to use Windows: Whether for productivity, games only, software development, design, etc. Once you're done selecting, click on 'Continue.'

• Type in a name for the virtual machine and select the directory or location for the Parallels Desktop.

• Click on 'Continue' and the Windows installation will commence. All Intel-based Macs are compatible with both 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows: From Windows XP to Windows 10.
• Once the installation concludes you can open up Windows by clicking on the 'Power' button in the list of the Parallels Virtual Machine.

Step 2: Using Parallels Desktop

• The very first time Windows restarts, 'Parallels Tools' will be installed. This will be what ultimately integrates your Mac with your Windows desktops. After the installation is done, you will be asked to restart Windows.
• Open up your Parallels Desktop from 'Spotlight.'
• Click on 'Virtual Machine.'
• Select 'Configure' in the drop-down menu which appears.
• Click on 'Options.'
• Click on 'Shared Folders.'
• Click on 'Add.'
• Click on 'Choose.' Doing this will add a location from your Mac's desktop to the virtual machine. Simply put any EXE file in this location to enable Windows to access and install them

Part 3: How to Run Windows APPs on Mac

The question now is not whether you want to run EXE files on your Mac, but rather how to go about it conveniently. There are countless of great Windows apps that never made it to macOS, and they probably never will. A lot of them have very attractive features that make Windows the envy of all Mac owners.

Running EXE files on Mac is made easy and convenient via Boot Camp and Remote Desktop. You can use any. It depends on preference and what you find more convenient.

Boot Camp

This application makes it possible for you to install Windows on your Mac. Switching between macOS and Windows thus becomes a matter of you restarting your system and deciding which OS to log into.

Step 1: Windows Installation File

• Boot Camp is compatible with Windows 8,8.1. and 10 (you will need an ISO file of any of these three releases).

Step 2: Launch Your Mac's Utilities folder Wow client download mac.

• Type in 'Utilities' in your Mac's search bar, then click it.

Step 3: Launch Boot Camp Assistant

• The app's icon looks like a grey hard drive. Click it.

Step 4: On-screen Instructions

• You will be instructed to choose the Windows ISO, the drive you intend to install it on, and restart your Mac.

Step 5: Your Mac Will Restart

• Once you're done setting up Boot Camp, you will be asked to restart Mac.
• After that, you will be taken to the Windows installer screen.

Step 6: Install Windows

• Follow the instructions to install the version of Windows you chose.

Step 7: Startup Manager

• Once the install has been completed, your system will restart. Press and hold the 'Option' key while this happens and the 'Startup Manager' will appear.
• Let go of the 'Option' key and you will see all the drives you can boot your Mac from.

Step 8: Boot Camp

• Select 'Boot Camp' and click on 'Return'.

• Your Mac will now be loaded into Windows.
• Navigate to your EXE file and run it.

Remote Desktop

This free tool does what many others fail at: lets you take full advantage of your Windows apps from your Mac. That's pretty convenient, don't you agree? Even though you'll need Mac and PC to use the Remote Desktop, it's still a great software that deserves praise. Here's how you use it:

Step 1: Get Your PC Ready

• Open the start menu and navigate to 'Settings', then 'System', then 'Remote Desktop.'
• Turn 'Enable Remote Desktop' on and 'Confirm.'

Step 2: Know Your IP Address & PC Name

• Still on the 'Remote Desktop' menu, and below the 'How to connect to this PC', jot down your PC name.

• Go to your 'Settings', then 'Network & Internet'.
• Click 'Wi-Fi' and select the network you're connected to. This will bring up the network connection properties screen. At the bottom of the page is your 'IPv4 address'. Jot it down.

Step 3: Install the Mac Version of Microsoft Remote Desktop

• Pick up your Mac and open up your Mac App Store, then search for 'Microsoft Remote Desktop.'
• Download and install it.

Step 4: Open Add Your PC to Remote Desktop

• Open up Remote Desktop on your Mac.
• Click on 'Add Desktop.'
• A dialogue box will pop up. Type in the PC Name you jotted down; if it doesn't work, type in the IP address.
• Click 'Save'.

Step 5: You Can Now Connect

• Keep your PC turned on and make sure it is connected to the network your Mac is connected to.
• Remote Desktop will now show your computer below 'Saved Desktops.'
• Double-click on it to connect.
• You will be required to enter your username and password.
• Click 'OK.'
• A security warning will pop up. Since you're on a private network, ignore the warning and click 'Continue.'
• That's the last step. You can now view and use your Windows on your Mac via Remote Desktop.

Closing Words

Well, there you have it. Running your EXE files via your Mac is now a thing of the past. As long as you have the right tools, you can do it in a matter of minutes.

These tools make your Mac more versatile than even Apple intended and anticipated because they enable you to go beyond what your Mac is capable of doing. You can achieve an end goal that would have otherwise been impossible. That's the power of a Mac for you.

A Comprehensive Guide to Files Recovery on Mac Summary :

If you connect a drive formatted in Mac to a Windows PC, you’ll be prompted to format it before use. That is to say, you are not allowed to view anything saved on it before formatting. But the question is: if you click Format disk, your data will be ruined. This post from MiniTool will introduce several useful ways to help you with that; please read carefully.

Can You Read Mac Drive on Windows

Many people doubt that whether they can read Mac drive on Windows. Some took action: they removed the drive from Mac and connected it to a Windows PC properly. But after connecting the Mac-formatted drive to Windows, a prompt window will pop up automatically on the screen, saying that they need to format the disk before use.

Don’t Format the Drive

You should click Cancel instead of Format disk when seeing this prompt. Why? That is simply because the formatting action will damage your data saved on that drive. Is there any other way to read a Mac-formatted drive on Windows? Sure, it is; some effective ways used by other users will be shown to you later on this page.

What Does Formatting a Hard Drive Do

Some users said they clicked on the Format disk button by mistake when seeing the prompt window mentioned above; they were wondering if there’s any way to help them recover a formatted hard drive. Luckily, the answer is yes.

What does disk formatting mean?

Formatting a hard disk/drive refers to delete all the file & folders save on a drive and set a certain file system for it. The formatting action is performed to prepare a data storage device (including hard disk drive, solid-state drive, USB flash drive, and SD card) for initial use. Two of the most obvious results of formatting a hard disk are: deleting data and changing file system.

Besides, there are also other benefits of disk formatting:

• Get more space on disk.
• Solve disk problems caused by soft failure.
• Improve disk/system performance greatly.
• And so on.

Do you know how to improve Windows 10 performance effectively?

It’s necessary to improve Windows 10 performance effectively since various problems will occur inevitably on a system that has been used for a long time.

Recover Formatted Hard Drive

The first and the most important thing to do after formatting a hard drive is to recover precious data from hard drive. MiniTool Power Data Recovery can be a good data recovery assistant: it’s clean, safe, and professional. Please free download the trial edition to experience this data recovery tool first before you decide to buy it; after that, double click on the setup program to finish installing the software on your Windows computer, on which the Mac hard drives are formatted.

Follow this guide to recover data from Mac formatted external hard drives:

1. Click Start now at the end of installation to launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery. You can also open it by double clicking on the software icon.
2. Wait for a few seconds until the disk loading process is finished automatically.
3. Select Hard Disk Drive from the pane on your left hand side.
4. Choose the formatted Mac drive from the pane on your right hand side.
5. Double click on the target drive directly or click on the Scan button at the bottom right corner.
6. The full scan will be started at once; more and more files and folders will be found during the scan. Please make sure the Mac hard drive is always connected to your computer.
7. Browse the found items carefully to decide which files are needed and which are not; add a checkmark into the square box in from of all the files you want to recover. If you can’t confirm, go to view the content before recovery by clicking Preview.
8. Click on the Save button in the lower right corner.
9. Select a storage path in the pop-up window to store the files waiting to be recovered; please make sure it has enough free space left. (You shouldn’t select the original Mac-formatted drive as the storage location in order to avoid secondary damage.)
10. Click on the OK button in the same window to confirm your selection.
11. Then, wait until all the files saved on Mac hard drive have been recovered successfully to appointed place. A prompt window will show up to inform you of the recovery result.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is also a great tool for recovering formatted SD card or broken/corrupted USB stick. The recovery steps are basically the same expect that you should select Removable Disk Drive from the left sidebar as mentioned in step 3.

After the data recovery process has been completed, you may transfer back the recovered files to the formatted disk as long as you can confirm that you’ve got back all the files you need.

Windows 10 Read Mac Drive

Can a Mac external drive be read on a PC?

A lot of people are wondering whether they can read Mac drive on Windows 10 with freeware. In fact, there is both free and paid software to help people read Mac drive on PC easily, without formatting the disk. I’ll introduce some of the useful software to you one by one in this part; please choose a proper hard drive reader yourself.

Choice 1: HFSExplorer

HFSExplorer is completely free; it’s a basic application designed to help users read Mac-formatted hard disks and disk images. HFSExplorer gives support to various file systems: HFS (the Standard file system on Mac), HFS+ (the Extended file system on Mac OS), HFSX (the Extended Mac OS file system with case sensitive file names), etc.

What does HFSExplorer allow you to do?

• Browse volumes on Mac by using a graphical file system browser.
• Check the volume related information.
• Extract files you need (copy files to Windows hard disk free).
• Mount & read disk images like .dmg and .sparsebundle.
• Create disk images from the volume on Mac.

The partition schemes including Master Boot Record, GUID Partition Table, and Apple Partition Map are supported by HFSExplorer.

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You need to install Java first if you don’t have it on your PC since it’s required (Sun's Java SE runtime environment version 5.0 or greater in which OpenJDK works fine).

HFSExplorer: Launch error

No Java runtime environment found. HFSExplorer cannot function without Java.

Press “OK” to open up http://www.java.com where you can download a Java runtime environment for your system.

You should just click OK as prompted to download & install proper runtime environment when seeing the window above.

How to use HFSExplorer to read Mac hard drive on Windows:

1. Connect the Mac-formatted external hard drive to the Windows computer properly.
2. Launch HFSExplorer as administrator on your computer.
3. Select File from the menu bar at the top of the opening window.
4. Choose Load file system from device from the submenu (you can also press Ctrl + L directly).
5. Click on the Autodetect button to automatically detects HFS/HFS+/HSFX partitions on your system (you can also Select a device or Specify device name manually).
6. Pick out the files and folders you want to view and click Extract.
7. Choose a folder as the destination place to store the items selected in the previous step (they’ll be copied immediately).
8. Expand the target folder to read files on your Windows PC.

If the connected external hard drive is not showing up on PC, you can’t detect it in step 5. You must make it appear in Windows first.

Is there any other hard drive reader for Windows? Of course, yes; please move on.

Choice 2: Apple HFS+ Drivers

Another way to access HFS + files in Windows 10 for free is installing Apple HFS + drivers.

Steps to read Mac drives on PC with Apple HFS + drivers:

First, you should make sure you don’t have Paragon or MacDrive (the hard drive readers I will talk about later) on your Windows computer. If you do, please remove them now.

Second, you should download the correct Windows driver package to your local drive.

Third, you should configure your Windows as follow.

1. Go to the default download path (Downloads folder) to extract the downloaded zip file.
2. Find AppleHFS.sys and AppleMNT.sys files.
3. Copy them by pressing Ctrl + C (you can also do it by right clicking & choosing Copy).
4. Go to this path: C:WindowsSystem32drivers.
5. Copy them by pressing Ctrl + V (you can also right click on any blank area & choose Paste).
6. Navigate to the downloaded folder to find Add_AppleHFS.reg file.
7. Open the .reg file to bring up a Registry Editor prompt window.
8. Click on the Yes button and then click OK.
9. Restart your computer to make changes take effect.

Fourth, you should connect the Mac-formatted drive to your PC -> open File Explorer (also called Windows Explorer) -> locate that drive under This PC -> access files you want.

Choice 3: HFS+ for Windows

Though the Paragon HFS+ for Windows is a paid hard driver reader, you’ll love it after using.

What can Paragon HFS+ for Windows do for you?

• The speed is fast and the performance is stable.
• The Mac file systems are integrated into Windows File Explorer.
• It provides full read and write access to Mac drives formatted with HFS, HFS +, and HFSX (just like other drives in Windows).
• It allows Windows programs to read from or write to the Mac-formatted drive on Windows.
• There are additional features that worth the cost.

How much does it cost?

The Paragon HFS+ for Windows is sold on the official website for $19.95 with a single seat license; $49.95 with one license worked on 3 PCs.

If you don’t want to spend money in reading Mac drive on Windows, you should download the trial edition; it is free for use for 10 days. You can access, copy files from or to the Mac drive during this period; it’s enough.

Choice 4: MacDrive

If your Mac drive is formatted with APFS (Apple File System), you won’t be able to read Mac hard drive on Windows because there are no free apps designed for it. But you have many choices of paid applications to access & edit Mac drive files on Windows; MacDrive is a popular one designed by Mediafour.

Merits of MacDrive:

• It is used to help users read data from and write data to Mac disks from Windows directly.
• You can read both APFS and HFS+ drives in File Explorer.
• It allows you to create and partition Mac disks on your Windows.
• A graphical interface is offered for Mac-formatted drives verification, format, and repair.
• It’s a trusted solution which can date back to 1996.

The only drawback of MacDrive seems to be the selling price is higher than some similar tools. You need to pay $49.99 for the Standard version or $69.99 for the Pro version.

Is it worth the price? Yes, if you have such needs; it also includes unique features like support for Mac-formatted RAID disks.

Choice 5: Paragon APFS for Windows How Read External Mac Disc On Windows

Paragon also designed an APFS for Windows app for reading APFS Mac drive on Windows; it is considered as one of the main competitors of MacDrive.

Features of Paragon APFS for Windows:

• It provides read and write access to Mac drives formatted with APFS.
• It also allows you to access and edit compressed and cloned files (you can only access the encrypted volumes without making any changes).
• It gives support to auto-mounting at start-up; the partition tools of MacDrive are not included in this app.

The biggest disadvantage of Paragon APFS for Windows when compared to MacDrive is the HFS+ support. The biggest advantage of Paragon APFS for Windows over MacDrive is the price – it costs only $49.95 for one license worked on 3 PCs.

How To Read Windows Files On A Mac

Of course, there are many other tools available for you to read Mac drives on Windows (10/8/7, etc.).

Bonus Tip

You can format your Mac hard drive to exFAT, which supports both Windows and Mac OS X. In this way, you can get full read and write access to exFAT drives on Windows without any additional third-party software.

The only thing you need to worry is that the data on Mac drives will be removed. So you need to turn to MiniTool Power Data Recovery as mentioned in part 1 to recover the files you need after formatting.

How to format a hard drive? Basically, there are three ways.

• Right click on the drive in File Explorer -> choose Format.
• Open Disk Management -> right click on the target drive -> choose Format.
• Format Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard – a professional disk manager.

Final Thoughts

Though you can’t access a Mac-formatted drive on a Windows computer directly, there are useful ways and tools to help you read Mac drive on Windows easily. Please just follow the steps mentioned above and choose the tool depending on your needs.