Windows 7 and OS X Comparison

McKenzie | Jun 22, 2009 | Comments

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With Windows 7 and Snow leopard each nearing their respective release dates, the hype for the two operating systems is reaching its peak. Let’s go over what each OS is bringing to the table in terms of features, market, and performance.

I’ll start with a short description of what both operating systems mean for each company.

Windows 7: A product that’s turned a lot of heads, especially those who believed that Microsoft was dead and done after the lackluster reception that Vista received. The product has received quite a positive welcoming by the internet community with the leaked betas, and MS can only hope that attitude towards W7 remains steady through October 22nd.

OS 10.6: The refinement of an operating system that many believe is already the most advanced OS on the market. Apple is looking towards the 64-bit processing world with this release with x64 optimization being its leading feature. This OS is meant not only to add more speed and utility to the everyday user’s experience, but it also takes a big step towards using Macs in the business world with its Microsoft Exchange support. With the Mac community growing every day, Apple hopes to refine and revise its technology to allow simplicity of use more and more each day.

Now for the comparison of features.

Windows 7: A brand new taskbar that is reminiscent of the Dock present in OS X. It allows you to drag and drop programs to the taskbar so that you can launch from anywhere at anytime, without having to dig through explorer. That being said, even Explorer, the name for the Windows file catalog, has been updated for search speeds. The indexed-searches are much faster than those indexed in Windows Vista, allowing for a more convenient and easy to use Explorer. Along with these two features, W7 also receives enhanced performance with multi-core processors, advanced touch/handwriting recognition, a new version of Windows Media Center, support for virtual HDDs and more.

OS 10.6: Almost all programs have been rewritten to include full 64-bit optimization, providing a more streamlined experience throughout the entire operating system. Grand Central Dispatch is a new technology in 10.6 that follows suit with the “theme” of 64-bit improvement. This is what allocates the tasks across the multiple cores as well as what allows programmers to finally optimize their Mac programs for the 64-bit computer. Another new technology, OpenCL, allows developers to open up the use of the graphics card to much more than just Photoshop and Aperture. It strengthens the current use of the card and also makes way for more many more usages down the road. Along with these features also come Quicktime X (an enhnanced, streamlined Quicktime client), a more speedy Finder, new looks for Exposé and Stacks, faster backup/bootup time and more.

Both operating systems show a movement towards each others target market. Windows 7 features more user-centric capabilities that allow the operating system to be more customizable (the ability to disable multiple features is a great example of this) than any other Windows release to date. I see W7 as what Vista could and should have been – I believe it’s finally a legitimate successor to Windows XP. OS 10.6 seems to be just what Apple needs to reach out to businesses, which is a great move. Snow Leopard should keep the Mac market growing, as its new technology will allow more gaming capabilities through OpenCL and hopefully garner more third-party developers for the growing Macintosh userbase.

Apple’s looking towards the future and Microsoft’s fixing its past. Both operating systems appear to be on an even playing field, and I for one am anxious to see how both of these milestone releases are received.

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About the Author: Always been into technology and writing, so I feel right at home with the Win7 news staff.

  • Thirdeye
    "Apple’s looking towards the future and Microsoft’s fixing its past." That's kind of the opposite of the way this release cycle looks to me. Multi-thread and multi-core processing are areas in which the NT kernel and its Vista/7 derivatives are currently ahead of the OSX Mach kernel. That owes to the heritage of NT from the VMS systems of the 70s, and the native support for the Intel architecture in the NT kernel. Thread protection is the bane of the Mach kernel. Marketing spin aside, Grand Central is OSX playing catch-up by making OSX native to Intel and purging the PPC-based code. The task bears some similarity to what was done to develop the Vista kernel from the NT kernel. Win7 is the realization of benefits that were made possible by the architectural changes made with the Vista kernel.
  • McKenzie
    That's an interesting way of looking at it, Thirdeye - thanks for your input. I was looking at the two operating systems from a more modern perspective rather than seeing things in hindsight, but we do still agree. In my opinion, Windows 7 is exactly what Windows Vista could have been.
  • Josh
    Great Review. I think that both Apple and Microsoft are both trying to create a more user friendly PC environment and they have both been successful thus far. As a windows 7 user, I have noticed that microsoft is taking a huge leap foward and working to create a solid OS. After seeing the OSX 10.6 OS demo, i feel that Apple is getting less creative, but they are also trying to solidify their OS making it as easy and comfortable to use as possible.
  • Good article! I think we are in for a big flame war here over these two OS's."my mac is better than your PC." Yada yada yada!
  • Zach
    I really don't think that Windows 7 could have happened without having Vista before it. A lot of Vista's problems weren't really Vista's problems at all. They were third party problems. Microsoft changed Window's entire security structure with Vista, which had to be done to bring it up to today's standards in computer programming. And that is the reason older programs written for XP cause so many UAC pop ups. Older programs were doing things the quick and easy way using administrator privileges and giving up security and stability, instead of doing things the proper and modern way to ensure system integrity. Then there was third party driver developers who took forever to deliver stable driver's for Vista (most notably Nvidia). If Windows 7 was released instead of Windows Vista, it still would have faced a large majority of the problems that Vista faced. Driver incompatibility, software incompatibility, and a new interface learning curve. It would have done better than Vista for sure, but it wouldn't have done as well as it's going to on October 22nd. Vista paved the way for Windows 7. Vista had to break a lot of things to force third party's to write compatible software for a modern OS.
  • Theresa
    My 2.5 year experience with an iMac and OS X convinced (sp?) me that OS X is a superior product to windows 7 and even more so than XP. The problem is that you cannot install a good processor and video card when the technology advances on a reasonably priced (iMac). My "older" iMac is just too slow. You have to spring for a Mac Pro which is at least $1,000 and have to pay for Mac compatible card if you upgrade. I'm sold on Windows 7.

    Theresa
  • Anyone that says that Vista sucks either has no idea what they are talking about, or hasn't gotten the modern version of their software. There is always someone that is going to complain about everything.

    Nonetheless, Windows 7 is honestly the best operating system developed by Microsoft for a while...
  • smilingman
    I can say for a fact that Vista did indeed suck. I used it at launch and it killed my mid-level gaming rig and I recently used Vista SP1 on my current rig which is easily 3 times more powerful and it still ran slow compared to WinXP and Win7. Both were complete clean installs with no other programs running.
    I had to update my old rig to 2GB of memory just to get Vista to run without any mouse lack and forget about trying to run any games or even photoshop with out a lease 4GB.
    The improvements in the OS were out weighted be the heavy load on system resource that it used compared to WinXP.
    But I am loving Win7 and have retired my WinXP disc. It took MS 8 years to make a OS better than WinXP.
  • brunt-fca
    As a Network Administrator who also does planning, purchasing and deployment of Software and Hardware i can say that with out a doubt Apple Mac will never make it in the business world for a couple of reasons.

    1. Too Expensive. For example: if i am purchasing and deploying 200 workstations i can buy Windows based desktops with 2gb ram, dual core 2.5ghz and so on plus with a 3 year warranty for approx $400-500. even just $100 per machine extra for a Mac is $20,000 (every 3 years). Also, no the Mac mini does not cut it and is also too expensive.

    2. Lack of central administration for many elements.

    3. Active Directory integration is non existent and not good enough other than for home folders and log ins.

    4. The few Macs i do have on this network don't have good network print support. I had to special order more expensive printers at one point for the minority Macs.

    5. i won't even go into lack of software support for business apps (no i am not talking about microsoft office).

    6. Security is not as granular and again lack of central organization. You can't compare to how granular Group Policies are and how tight you can make security with relative ease on networked Windows Workstations.

    I could list more points but i think you get the picture. Bottom line is to go Mac you would need to over hall pretty much everything from bottom to top on your network. The initial and ongoing costs are too high plus not to mention time ($) involved.
  • smilingman
    The one thing that has always stopped me from going MAC is the cost. I build my own rigs and you can not do the with MAC. My cousin's iMAC failed and was told she needed to replace a logic board would cost $800. The board was $500 and labor was $300, WTF.
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