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System Details and Activity

Overview

Mac OS X and Windows XP divide system details (hardware specs, installed software, etc.) and system activity details (CPU usage, available memory, disk activity, etc) into separate applications.

Mac OS X and Windows XP divide system details (hard specs, installed software, etc.) and system activity (CPU usage, available memory, etc.) into separate applications. Both operating systems offer comprehensive details about every aspect of a user's computer.

System Details

Mac OS X:

OS X users can view the details of their computer's current hardware and software via the System Profiler located in Applications > Utilities.

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OS X's System Profiler application

Windows XP:

XP users can view the details of their computer's current hardware and software via System Information Start Menu > Programs > Accessories > System Tools.


XP's System Information application

System Activity

Mac OS X:

OS X users can monitor the activity on their computer by launching Activity Monitor located in Applications > Utilities. Activity Monitor displays how much of the CPU, real memory, and virtual memory every application and system process is using. It also displays application icons next to the process of that application, making it easy to identify applications' processes at a glance.

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Activity Monitor allows you to view the processes currently running on your system in multiple ways. For example, You can choose to show all running processes by all users or just yours.

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You can also customize which columns are displayed in Activity Monitor's details window by going to View > Columns.

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Activity Monitor allows you to view five different types of system graphs.

CPU:


System Memory:


Disk Activity


Disk Usage


Network


You can choose between 5 different graphs that update in real-time to be displayed as Activity Monitor's Dock icon.

  • CPU Usage
  • CPU History
  • Disk Activity
  • Network Usage
  • Memory Usage

Windows XP:

Just like OS X, the Windows Task Manager can display the CPU, real memory, and virtual memory every application and system process is using. You can also display additional columns of system details.

XP users can use the Task Manager to display their system's current activity in real-time. The Task Manager (launched by pressing CTRL-ALT-DLT) has four tabs:

Applications
All currently running applications are listed under this tab. If an application is not responding, you can force quit it by clicking 'End Task'.


Processes
All currently running applications and system services are listed under this tab. Task Manager displays which user the process was started by along with CPU and memory usage by default.


Additional columns of information can be displayed for processes by going to View > Select Columns.


If a process is causing the system to freeze up or is misbehaving, you can force quit it by clicking 'End Process'.

Performance
The Performance tab displays graphs of CPU Usage History and Page File Usage History


Networking
The Networking tab allows you to monitor the activity for networks you are connected to.


Additional columns of information can be displayed for processes by going to View > Select Columns


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Windows XP Task Manager

You can also view CPU, memory, and network usage statistics.

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Select from over 20 different data columns in Task Manager.

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Click .

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Use Performance to view more performance details

Conclusion

While it's clear that OS X displays system information in a more user friendly way, it remains unclear which operating system provides more system information. One reader claims that XP's Task Manager monitors about 773 items, though I haven't seen the full list. Suffice to say, until the "which operating system monitors more useful stuff" question is answered, I don't feel comfortable giving either OS a winning score.

Mac OS X: 9
Windows XP: 9