Mac vs. PC: Round 1

Mac vs. PC is a new series of posts I am going to start writing describing my use with both operating systems.  I will try to post them periodically, but if something happens, I might just post a random one.  I have a Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard and Windows 7 Ultimate and  I try to use them about 50/50, so I believe I have a good feel for each OS.  Each post will have a new topic and how each OS handles it and then I will try to find a ‘winner’ or the OS I believe does better in that category.  So without further adieu, Mac vs. PC: Round 1 is on networking.

Networking has quickly become one of the major aspects of the computing era.  With all the different specs like 802.11a,b,g, and n it all get confusing.  Couple that with all the different types of network encryption, and you have many, many network combination.  However, each of these OSes do a good job of connecting to networks.  However, with Leopard, I sometimes have a problem connecting to my school’s network, with is a WPA2 Enterprise network.  I can get it connected, however, it does take a bit of luck every now and then.  I believe the problem of this is that on Leopard, you cannot set a NetBios name with a slash.  What I mean is that to connect to the network, I need my NetBios name to be l-whatever, however, Leopard will never go past the slash and will only recognize “l” as the NetBios name.  This posed a problem (we got around it), but was fixed in Snow Leopard, which I now find plays much more nicely with enterprise networks and servers then Leopard did.  With Windows 7 and Windows Vista for that matter, have always played nicely with enterprise servers, mostly because the domain, workgroup, and MSCHAPv2 are all Microsoft created and because of that, Windows plays better with them.  However, Apple has made leaps and bounds of increasing compatibility and with Snow Leopard rivals Windows 7 in compatibility with Microsoft’s own product!  However, I believe the ease of use on Windows 7 for joining networks surpasses Snow Leopard’s.  All you do on Windows 7 is click on the network icon and it connects you to the network of your choice.  If it needs any information from you it will ask you.  This happens on Snow Leopard as well, however it seems to me that I have to go into System Preferences and change the settings myself more then I have to do the same in Windows.  Because of this, I give this first round of Mac vs. PC to Windows.