Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard: Which features should be compared? (Updated)

chuck I suspect you'll find that Paul will do a more neutral job comparing the two operating system update than any of the many Mac fan sites. However, I suspect from the inherent biases present in your list that anything short of a "Let's use the exact feature set of OS X as the ideal and see how each did at meeting that 'neutral' criterion" will fail to meet your personal prerequisites.

Iwould compare printer sharing, as many households use it through a single PC. So far IMO, Vista wins, but I would like to see the difference between the two new OS's.

@Bjoarn2 "Has the installation of the OS become as userfriendly and non-technical as mac os x?" Erm, I take it you've never had to install OSX on a completely clean (not HFS format) disk then? Honet to gods, FreeBSD is easier than OSX

@ rr0de74@live.com "Time machine works great with an external USB drive, or even a second drive in a Mac. There is no need for a NAS." Unless you have several macs, and you don't want to fork out for a seperate external USB drive for them all. Anyway, as for what to compare, I agree with the guys who've suggested comparing comomn TASKS, mostly. However, it would also be worthwhile to discuss the discoverability of features, and individual feature-ettes. Between those two approaches, I think a valid comparisson could be made. Just for the record, I think the "control panel" layout in OSX is much better than in windows. However, the Vista and win7 control panels are getting there, but not quite - they look a bit cluttered.

All right, Mike steps in and everything gets messy... It's pretty simple I think. Nobody cares about a specific professional environment or whatever, or tablet PCs ... We care about tasks that people do day to day at HOME. Communicates in between PCs, stream music library, share printer on network, edit photo, setup wifi , updates, security... Sounds like you find that unfair...

Shark, someone pointed out on this blog once, that the reason behind forcing only one button on the mac was to force application developers to make things more easy to navigate, to remove the option of right clicking, if you will. Whilst I'm not sure whether I totally agree with that, I certainly can see merit to the concept. However, when working on complicated audio software (for example, Logic on the mac Vs Pyramix on Windows), one of the things that annoys me in Logic is that I need to choose a different "tool" to do everything, whereas pretty much everything in Pyramix is done with the mouse cursor, and holding down modifier keys. Admittedly, I haven't used the two most recent versions of Logic, but I got the impression that it was "meant" this way if you will. Of course, on the flipside, this makes learning to be fast at Pyramix quite an uphil struggle for the uninitiated, but you do always have the OPTION of having seperate tools, on a toolbar. It's the different approaches of the two OSes in these and similar aspects that fascinate me most.

what a complete farce. All Paul will do is snipe in this canard. All one needs to do is listen to that last windows weekly when paul played up win7 as revolutionary retooling but snow leopard as a service pack. paul made a point to disagree with laporte who equated the two OSs similarly. gutless wonder that leo is, he didn't stand up for himself... and later on when paul called him a rare rational mac user,leo THANKED him. What a sock monkey he is... just like paul's gonna try to make out of snow leopard in this 'comparison'.

paul is a partisan hack right out of the gate with this: Fundamentally, I feel that both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are minor, evolutionary updates, technologically. Windows 7 is a major update from a user experience perspective, while Snow Leopard is not. Mac purists may argue that OS X didn't need a major user experience update, but I don't agree with that, and feel that OS X--from the end user's perspective--has been pretty stagnant for a while. But it's not all wine and cheese on the Windows side of the fence. Windows changes a lot between versions, but it sometimes feels like Microsoft is just experimenting to see what works. In fact, there's some Mac envy in Windows 7 I absolutely don't agree with, including the new OS X Dock-like taskbar. ...so to be clear, both are minor revisions, however Win7 is a major update too? And of course he can't keep back his contempt of the OSX dock here (I didn't hear any of this garbage from him and Windows start button holding on for 14 years!) and his only complaint so far with Win7 is that it's too mac-like at times. What a complete and utter waste of everyone's time.

Mike, "However, I suspect from the inherent biases present in your list that anything short of a "Let's use the exact feature set of OS X as the ideal and see how each did at meeting that 'neutral' criterion" will fail to meet your personal prerequisites." I'm not suggesting that approach. I suppose there are inherent biases, but at least some of those comments (multiple user viewpoints, switching costs in either direction) were fairly neutral. I'm not even sure I see a point to this exercise, other than to let Paul say that Windows has "caught up". No surprise, he already thinks XP(!) than OS X.

DarkSages - thanks for the infos you gave, but it does NOT look nice.. I hope that Pauls article will show a friendlier way rr0de74@live.com - I had no intention to ask about OS X in Windows-dominated network. I just don't know the names of comparable Mac services, so I wrote Microsoft names. I do want exactly that - how does Win7+Server 2008 R2 work vs Snow Leopard+OS X Server. So I'm not asking for NTFS on Mac, I want to know how NTFS compares to HFS. I don't agree with some people that ONLY thing to be considered in articles should be "common people" stuff. I want advanced stuff as well. If someone could show me that all-Mac business environment is as good or better than all-Windows environment maybe I'd start considering it in the long run. I do agree that we need to compare not just OS itself, but their "free addons" so to say, like Live Essentials, or iLife and iTunes as well. It would only be fair to take the OS on both sides, install them, and install all the Microsoft/Apple created free software for that exact OS as well. If it's iLife so be it. If it's Live stuff, put it on. Bring on the tools made by these corporations, don't just use naked OS. I do know that this would be an interesting comparision, so I'm looking forward to it. And the more info, the better. Oh, and one thing I don't see much purpose in.. stuff like copying files on USB or network.. OK, if it's a huge difference, like 10 minutes on Win7 and 5 on Mac.. but otherwise I believe it to be a moot point. few seconds won't matter in the bigger picture. There is one more thing, which should not be overlooked. How easy is it to find some application for that OS. Free application, that works well. I often just open google and write something like "image compare tool", and few clicks later I'm using some tool. I'd really like to know if it's as easy on Mac as well, or do I have to go to certain sites like tucows or download.com or something similar (for Macs) Cya! And Paul - can't wait for the article! P.S. Have NOT read all comments, I'm going to bed.. if someone wrote something as an answer to me I'll take a look at all the posts in the morning, I hope comments will still be enabled!

How about a consumer reflection on cost. How much value for your dollar do consumers get in visible changes? If you quantify visible changes as a dollar amount, can you compare those visible changes based on a dollar scale? ie. How much is xyz change in UI or other new visible changes worth in dollars? If Windows 7 is $x, how much of that is a user willing to spend for the new taskbar, for instance? How much are they willing to spend on the new wireless connectivity enhancements? How much on performance updates? Then look at Snow Leopard. How much is a user willing to pay for Quicktime X? Um....what other visible changes are there? Compare those dollar values to the actual selling price. How do they compare. How do they compare to each other on value? BTW: Apple advertising printer automatic updates as a feature of Snow Leopard on the main page is a total laugh.

@tayme "Sigh...this is starting to go the way of most of the threads here" agreed just look at Waethorn post above yours for proof of jack ass fangirl stuff.

In my opinion Windows Live and iLife should be included to at least some extent, since such applications matter greatly to the average user. A lot of functionality would be ignored if the comparison didn't include those.

Why has this become an OS debate? He just asked for suggestions as to what he should compare.

"agreed just look at Waethorn post above yours for proof of jack ass fangirl stuff." Oh, be quiet. There were a lot of posts before that.

FYI: My avatar is shaded green in support of the students in Iran today. (It's not, as some might suspect my take on most of the comments in this discussion)

And I'm sure the comparison will be unbiased.. not!

@mikegalos: That's a lot of questions you have there. Should this, should that. Maybe you can answer them on your own blog? Thanks. Bye.

I'm not sure why Paul needs to write this series of articles. It all boils down to this for Paul: MS update = major. Apple update = minor.

This is following the usual devolution, particularly since Mike got involved. Sigh. And, just because I'm curious for a point of information, "I'm working on a multi-part Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard comparison (read the introduction here) and am curious what you guys (and gals) would like to see included" Any "gals" here who want to self-identify? I doubt it; I think you're all too smart for this nonsense.

Death Match Does this mean pistols at 20 paces?

"It's not a major upgrade, but it definitely is not a service pack." That sums up 7 perfectly. Kind of on the subject, and I think this article is dead on as well. http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/12/technology/pc_sales/index.htm?postversio... Some key point that I agree with in it, "But Microsoft's new operating system is set to debut on Oct. 22, and experts for the most part like what they have seen. That's a dramatic shift from the largely negative reviews -- and disappointing sales -- of its current Windows version, Vista." "They fixed some very important features and made an impressive operating system." "Users complain that Vista is sluggish, has too many versions and is susceptible to bugs." Yet at the supersite, having 5 versions or more is good:) "According to a survey of more than 1,000 IT professionals nationwide conducted in March by Dimension Research, 50% said they were considering leaving Windows altogether rather than switch to Windows 7. Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) Mac OS X was the system they are most likely to switch to." I see this one a lot these days among IT people. Unix and Linux geeks tend to flock to Apple because of the nix link. And finally the question Mike could not answer a while ago....... "A stunning 83% of IT professionals in the Dimension Research survey skipped a Vista upgrade and continue to use the eight-year old Windows XP -- which is ancient, by computer standards." Mike you don't have to walk down the hallway to get those numbers:)

If you really want to get into a philosophical discussion, you could compare the innovations of each OS. --tayme

Be sure to compare the configurability of the OS...that is the Control Panel options/System preferences options one by one in detail..like XvsXP.com did. Most of the OS GUI of both OSes lies in this part. Again XvsXP.com and its incomplete newer iteration MacsvsWindows.com is a good reference for deciding what categories to compare.

How about an OS wide dictionary? Mac has it for spellcheck etc complete with a frontent app for definitions. Not sure if windows has a centralized Dictionary or not. Seems like there is a different dictionary for each app that has a dictionary type feature... Also there is no front end app for dictionary.