ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGE OF USING WINDOWS


ADVANTAGES OF USING WINDOWS.
 Ease of use, users are familiar with earlier versions of Windows will probably also find the more modern ones easy to work due to the existence of software which describe everything from the standardized look and feel of almost all programs written for Windows to the way the file system has been presented ever since the days of MS-DOS This is one of the main reasons why Windows users are often reluctant to switch operating systems.
Support for new hardware, virtually all hardware manufacturers will offer support for a recent version of Windows when they go to market with a new product. Again, Microsoft's dominance of the software market makes Windows impossible for hardware manufacturers to ignore. So, if you run off to a store today any buy some random new piece of computer hardware, you will find that it will probably work with the latest version of Windows.
          Plug and Play, as an operating system for the average home user, Windows still has an edge over the competition in the area of Plug and Play support for Personal computer hardware. As long as the right drivers are installed, Windows will usually do a good job at recognizing new hardware. Other operating systems also offer Plug & Play functionality, but to a lesser degree and more frequently require manual intervention.
DISADVANTAGES OF USING WINDOWS.
          High resource requirements, as opposed to the makers of other operating systems, Microsoft requires its customers to invest the most in their computer hardware: a faster processor (the CPU), more internal memory and a larger hard disk. Microsoft have always maintained that this is due to all the extra functionality that they've added, as demanded by their customers. Actually, few people make use of many of those features, yet everyone is still forced to contend with the additional overhead that is the result.
Poor security, compared to other operating systems, Microsoft security is weak. According to their own developers, their products "just are not engineered for security." The result is that Windows computers are more likely than other systems to be hijacked and used to distribute everything from spam to pornography (Ref: Inquirer) to hate mail. Even worse, any such activity only points to the computer that was compromised: since Windows does not generate log files, the owner has no way of proving anyone else's involvement.
Another aspect of this issue has to do with internal security from an administrative point of view. Configuring any computer is time-consuming and Windows is certainly no exception. Therefore, it's better if users can be prevented from making changes to certain parts of the system for purpose or by accident.
Poor technical support, few of Microsoft's support staff truly understands security or high-end enterprise issues, and even less have access to or understand any of the source code. Extremely high-volume accounts get special treatment, but for others the odds of getting good support on truly difficult problems are extremely poor. To make matters worse, the free support provided to end-users has been dramatically reduced over the years. For businesses that depend on Microsoft products, this translates into greater risks and higher costs.
These days, all Windows users rely heavily on the automated Windows Update system that applies all the necessary patches to Windows computers via the Internet. Unfortunately, this update system is not very reliable; it's had all kinds of problems. Recently, for example, it was giving computers that were in need of critical security patches a clean bill of health. So much for Microsoft's much vaunted Trustworthy Computing Initiative.
 Additional expenses, after setting up a series of Microsoft computers, or even a single one for that matter, sooner or later customers invariably find themselves in need of additional software. For example, a virus scanner is mandatory nowadays, but many also believe a spyware blocker is essential as well. But, that's just the cheap stuff. If you run a Windows-based website, for instance, you may find yourself investing a lot of money in development tools, most of which are Microsoft products. The costs of applications that can run on your web site are usually higher than that of other systems. For example, you can find loads of free scripts and applications to run services such s web boards, chat rooms, web statistics and email for Linux-based web sites, but you won't find many free applications in the Microsoft world.
After window became the world most popular desktop operating system   internet explorer began bundling it with windows 95 under to squash competition from rival Netscape Navigator browser since Nets capes demise Microsoft have introduced more and more and proprietary features into the web servers that can only be taken advantage of with internet explorer.