I really had no choice but to install Windows XP on the MacBook. I got really tired of firing up the old hoover of a Pentium IV laptop just to do a few silly things, and I was curious about how it would work on the Mac. So I did it.

It’s freakishly fast. Crazy stupid fast. I love it.

I didn’t notice the lack of a right-click option right off the bat, but it’s there. Or rather, it’s not. No right click for you. This seems like something rather trivial to fix. I did it by getting AutoHotKey and making a quick one-liner script:

^LButton::click right

It maps Control+Left Click to the Right Click command in one fell swoop. Voila. If you’re suffering from this problem, I made an exe that will run this script. Problem solved. AutoHotKey is a free, open source scripting engine. It includes a utility which will convert a hotkey script to an executable file. I created one and added it to my startup folder in Windows, so I can now get my right-click on even in the absence of the trusty trackball. Get the executable for the script here. (see the source).

So there. I’ve done my part. Now somebody get it together and throw together a trackpad driver that will give everyone two-finger scrolling and tap-clicking.

Update: Another gotcha, another hotkey. There’s no Delete key! This is fixed with the hotkey script:

F12::delete

Sweet.

Anyway, the post mentions ‘Mixed feelings’ because it seems so awful to ruin a perfectly good Mac with Windows, but on the other hand it definitely does fly. It helps that this is a fresh Windows install and the registry hasn’t had a chance to get all rotten yet. I need to remember to back it up now for the day will surely come when I’ll need to reinstall to get rid of the Windows cruft that will set in.