Which operating system is best for a small family business and why?

Answer 1

XP professional is used by most small businesses - good all round system

Answer 2

I recommend Mac OS X 10.4 because you cannot get viruses (well... not many that is) and it's near impossible to mess up your computer by modifying the settings. OS X is driven to give you the full experience without extra hassle. If you don't have the money to buy an Apple computer (they are quite pricey) then I would recommend Ubuntu because ALL of the software is free, including Open Office which can write documents that are able to be read by Microsoft Word. Also, with either of these choices, your hardware is automatically detected and the appropriate drivers are installed, so you don't have to worry about finding the right drivers for your hardware. As a last result, Windows XP. Windows XP is good and bad because it is the most popular operating system around. The only good point that I can find in it is software compatibility; almost any software you find on the internet or other places runs on Windows. The downsides of Windows are: terrible security, its prone to viruses, and once more, it has the worst security out of any operating system there is.

Answer 3

XP home or XP pro would probabably be your best bet. Avoid XP Media Center edition, as it disables some features you may need (such as the autodialer). Avoid Vista until it has been thoroughly debugged (at least a year!) You can't trust your business to a new operating system that always has bugs when it first comes out.

Mac simply doesn't have the volume of programs available for business applications that windows has.

Answer 4

Depends on the business. For design flexibility and performance in that criteria I would recommend Mac OS X. I would recommend Windows XP Pro for any business.

Mac OS X would be the best for any design business, they have the best performance to find in a computer.

Cheers :)