Move LR4 catalog of pictures from Windows pc to mac

[twdi]

Saterday I've bought a new macbook pro retina and now I want to move a LR4 catalog with pictures I'm working on from my windows PC to the mac. Is this possible without losing the work I've already done ?

If yes, what would be the best practice? The file locations will not match on the mac and via the network will be to slow.

[AmbientLight]

Curiously I have just performed this operation. I have found this to be surprisingly easy. Here it goes:

1) Install Adobe Lightroom on your Macbook Pro
2) Copy both your image file directories and your Adobe Lightroom catalog and preview files to your Macbook Pro
3) Start Lightroom

You can find your Lightroom catalog (Lightroom 4 Catalog.lrcat) and preview files (Lightroom 4 Catalog Previews.lrdata) per default in a directory named Lightroom in your pictures library on your WindowsPC. You just copy this to a directory named Lightroom in your pictures library on your Macbook Pro.

It is best, if your actual images are stored within subdirectories of the pictures library of your WindowsPC, because then you can copy them to the same subdirectories of the pictures library of your Macbook Pro. If this is not the case, you will need to identify the correct folders to your Lightroom installation on the Macbook Pro.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

The pictures are not in the catalog, just previews that have been generated.  Best to not move them at all, new ones will be generated automatically.  That just leaves the settings and catalog itself, which is a relatively small file.
If you have organized your images by placing them in hundreds of folders, you will need to preserve the folder structure or reimport them.  If they were saved with image settings as DNG files, its very easy.