There are downsides to all this flexibility, of course. Do you want to be able to run 10 drives internal to the machine? Well, of course, Windows can do it. Do you want on-board instrumentation inputs? Windows can do it.

Do you want four beefy graphics cards working in tandem? Windows can do it. If you want to build a machine yourself, you can add nearly any configuration of cards and features you want. When it comes to customization, that choice increases exponentially. That means if you want a Windows computer that's really a tablet with a detachable keyboard, an all-in-one, a super-beefy tower machine with lots of blinking colored lights, or even a system on a USB thumb drive, along with so many more options, there's a Windows machine for you. Windows machines are built by hundreds of manufacturers, and users have long built their own machines from easily-available components. Microsoft has long embraced touch-screen computing with Windows, a feature not found in Macs anywhere. No matter what kind of computer you want, what configuration, or what form-factor, there's a Windows machine for you. In fact, choice is Windows' outstanding feature. For most people, Windows is the default choice. But corporate usage, with the exception of some companies like IBM, is almost all Windows. In developed markets like the US, the Mac percentage is considerably higher, at around 20 percent. The much bigger cost for all these environments will be your ongoing maintenance expenses.īy most accounts, Windows runs on roughly 90 percent of PCs worldwide, with desktop Linux usage accounting for a very low single digit percentage of usage and MacOS making up the rest. Macs always come with MacOS, so there's no cost there. Pretty much the only time you're going to pay to buy Windows is if you're building one of your own, and we'll address that later. If you have an old PC, it almost certainly came with Windows. Which of those two (use versus spend) is more important?.Let's start with the key questions I ask when anyone comes to me for advice about computer purchasing: We've started each OS off with six key considerations, so if you want to just skim, you'll get a good feel for the pros and cons of each system merely by scanning the 18 considerations in our pro and con lists.Īnd, with that, let's take a deep dive into today's three leading desktop platforms. We will consider how these well-understood OSs differ in 2019.

Linux vs windows vs mac