Unix Vs. Windows Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Unix Vs. Windows - Essay Example operating system to be used by complete novices (as a result of the ease of operation and the simple user interfaces), Microsoft has also forged partnerships with many big and small PC manufacturers, thereby ensuring that the operating system is shipped along with the PCs that consumers purchase (Jeurguen Haas, 2005). However, UNIX (as also its various versions) continues to be the preferred choice of programmers and software developers in the case of network programming. This is due to the fact that UNIX offers ready-to-use libraries that facilitate the use of direct networking features such as sockets, semaphores and pipes. In windows however, the user is encapsulated from all such features, thereby denying them flexibility at the core programming level. This, according to them, is due to the fact that the operating system offers additional advanced capabilities when compared to Windows (Jeurguen Haas, 2005). One of the most versatile features of UNIX is the fact that the operating system can be installed on numerous machines consisting of different architectures (be it cluster or distributed architectures). Moreover, unlike window, which is a PC based OS; UNIX can be installed on supercomputers and mainframes with a minimal change of configuration alone (KernelThread, 2006). Another problem that continues to plague windows is the constant occurrence of system breakdowns and frequent hang-ups, while such a problem has been found to have lesser frequency of occurrence in the case of UNIX. As such, a UNIX machine requires less network administration and maintenance. UNIX also offers a greater processing power and is found to have solutions for distributed environments as well. The above points do not mean that windows do not provide networking solutions. The upper advantage of UNIX over windows based solutions lies in the fact that in order to operate across a network using windows, one would have to usually install additional software in order to communicate