Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mazda 3s 
1) Windows Update updates Windows, Office, other Microsoft programs, AND hardware device drivers -- just like Software Update and respective Apple software. So what's your problem?
2) Disk Defrag is built into Windows. Memory defrag? WTF? Mail and Contacts are built-in with Windows. IE8 is a sucky browser for power users, but it works just fine for everyday users. My parents use it just fine (they're 59 and 60). Malware detection is present natively in Windows 7 with Windows Defender.
I'll spot you the antivirus, but Microsoft provides their AV software for free:
http://www.microsoft.com/security_Essentials/
Don't quit your day job
It's interesting how you sugarcoat the reality of Windows maintenance. I do it everyday and my job requires setting up windows machines for corporate and personal use.
Here's what you "conveniently" failed to mention in your points:
1) Windows Update does update everything it can. Unfortunately, it requires multiple restarts, multiple updating, and then those updates after restart requires even more updates to the updates it just applied. Then, any 3rd party add-ons and plugins need to be updated. Depending on the release-date of the install, it takes literally hours to get a windows PC fully patched and updated. Hours of lost productivity.
2) The Disk Defragmenter included with Windows is a crippled version of Executive Software's Diskeeper. It is useless and does little to address the problem. On corporate and personal levels, I install the full-version of Diskeeper and recommend to personal users to also purchase and install it. There are freeware version that holds promise that I've been testing called Defraggler from Piriform:
http://www.piriform.com/defraggler . In addtion, I use another freeware product from Piriform called CCleaner
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner to keep the registry in check and remove all wasted disk space. It also has an excellent program uninstaller which does a better job of removing unwanted programs compared to the regular windows-supplied add/remove programs option. The sad part is that I have to seek 3rd party solutions since Microsoft does not provide for it or includes a crippled version of it for whatever reason. It's a sad state when I have to clean up registries that are so easily corrupted again impeding performance. Microsoft fails big-time in this area.
AntiVirus is a necessity for Windows folks. I personally don't use it on my personal windows machines since the performance hit of every vendor (including Microsoft's new - and free - AV solution) is just too much to accept. Is it any wonder why a Window's machine requires twice the horsepower just to keep all the necessary maintenance systems running? It's a joke.
So the point of my response to you is that Windows requires a ridiculous amount of handholding just to keep the system humming. My machines run great as I have the knowledge and knowhow to do it. But for the 99% of regular folk, it is a lesson in futility. Even when I get someone's machine running perfectly, in a month it will be back to some level of problem as windows does not do a good job to fend for itself.
If you really think that what is provided within Windows is adequate to keep a system running smoothly, I recommend to you that you don't quit YOUR day job. You probably have a very low standard of how a PC should run. Productivity takes a back seat in that case soon enough.
On the Apple systems I work on they take care of themselves right out of the box. Within 15 minutes, they are ready to go and be put to use. And in most cases, I never have to touch them again.
This is from years of experience on BOTH systems and it is my day job.
By the way speaking about ancient file systems NTFS was introduced in 1993 and HFS+ in 1998 
My 1 TB HDD is half-full and iDefrag shows 1.2% fragmentation 
Latest addition per-file compresion.
tMach-O executable ppc
