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Do Windows and Mac OS X have processes? If so, are they different from each other?

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I just checked... Googled: "Do Windows and MacOSX have processes" and my computer crashed! – l0c0b0x Oct 9 '09 at 10:34
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+1. I'm not sure what you people are doing, or why you feel this question is merited downvoting in such a way. If it becomes unfashionable to ask questions around Superuser (any type of question which indicates a desire to learn something regardless of the poster knowledge), then this website serves no purpose. – A Dwarf Oct 9 '09 at 11:52
Why on earth does this question have downvotes? This is on par with Joel's "How do I make the turtle move?" question... – David Pearce Oct 9 '09 at 12:52
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+1 I find this question interesting. @joshhunt people seem to love downvoting. It does seem to have intensified lately. – alex Oct 9 '09 at 13:52
@joshhunt ...i thought it was a robot named Karel... – quack quixote Oct 9 '09 at 14:02
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migrated from serverfault.com Oct 9 '09 at 11:10

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2 Answers

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All modern operating systems (yes, including Windows) have processes. The Windows and Linux implementations do differ - for example, on Linux separate processes (fork()/exec()) are used more often, and Windows prefers threads of a single process. Mac OS X is based on BSD, so its processes are the same as in any other BSD (or Linux).

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+1 because you actually tried to answer the question instead of making snide remarks. Not sure what's going on lately, but some people seem too eager to hit the downvote button. As for LMGTFY links, I'd advise not. That too seems to hit the grumblers around (superuser.com/questions/53086/your-favorite-gag-websites) – A Dwarf Oct 9 '09 at 11:49
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Posting of LMGTFY is not appropriate. If you want to post links to relevant sources, that is fine, but let's try not to be a big bunch of jackasses, k? – TheTXI Oct 9 '09 at 12:32
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The idea behind S[OFU] is to be primary and permanent sources of information. Links to other sites, or LMGTFY, neither put information into the databases here nor are guaranteed to be available years down the road. – David Thornley Oct 9 '09 at 13:49
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up vote 2 down vote

There are quite a lot of articles on the internet that deal with processes in both Windows and Mac OS X. Processes are different from one OS to another.

You can find a bit of information about processes in Mac OS X from this knowledge base article from Apple. It is a bit old, but the general idea is relevant.

You can find information about Windows and Linux processes in this stackoverflow question. The discussion is interesting because it deals with differences between the different ways processes are created in an OS.

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If I have time and can find one of my college books, I'll add a bit more information to my answer. – alex Oct 9 '09 at 13:53
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