When comparing FreeDOS vs Microsoft Windows Desktop, the Slant community recommends Microsoft Windows Desktop for most people. In the question“What are the best Operating Systems for x86 PCs?” Microsoft Windows Desktop is ranked 3rd while FreeDOS is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Microsoft Windows Desktop is:
Since Windows runs on the majority of PCs it supports almost any hardware you can find.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Open Source
GNU GPL
Pro Large and friendly community
You won't be let alone, any question submitted on FreeDOS forums will be detailedly answered in a few hours time.
Pro Compatible with MS-DOS apps
Pro Supports FAT32 partition
As opposite to every MS-DOS version equal or older than 6.22, or any DR-DOS version, you won't be restricted by a 2 Gb large FAT16 partition.
Pro Highly portable OS
It takes ten minutes to make a portable, USB FreeDOS drive, All you need is a USB device FAT or FAT32 formatted (128 Mb should be enough, but a 2 GB device would be better). First make a FreeDOS bootable USB drive with a program like Rufus (on Windows) or UnetBootin (on linux or Mac). Select it at boot and run fdisk to make a Primary DOS partition and install FreeDOS on it. Final step: reboot and run fdisk again to make the new partition active (optional: delete the installer partition). After that, the system is ready to boot with any computer.
Pro Extremely lightweight
Takes less than 10 seconds to boot.
Pro Easy to dual-boot, either with any Linux distro or Windows
If you install a Linux distro after Freedos, GRUB2 will automatically detect it. As for Windows, newer EasyBCD releases implemented FreeDOS and automatically recognize it.
Pro Best universal Hardware support
Since Windows runs on the majority of PCs it supports almost any hardware you can find.
Pro Cheap
You can buy a legal key for ~$15.
Pro Best Software support
The majority of software is available for Windows. You can find a software for any task.
Pro Backwards compatibility
It can even run software that was made over 20 years ago.
Pro Basic Linux support
With a growing subsystem in active development and a stated goal of eventual full cross compatibility.
Cons
Con Unlikely going to be your PC main OS
If looking for a lightweight OS, and thinking of FreeDOS as a possible option, consider that it will only useful when having to deal with legacy software, or other dos-based programs still commonly used at workplaces. Nonetheless it's a fantastic solution for Retro-Gamers who still own a a supported sound card. However the lack of modern software makes it hard to accomplish common everyday tasks, such us opening a document written in UTF-8, not mentioning, obviously docx and pdf files. The best choice is to install it on a USB drive, in order to have a portable OS, with basic hardware and all your files (and if you want games) ready to be launched with every machine. Useful to edit partitions, as well as restore MBR, check errors, install a light bootmanager on any kind of FAT partiton of every IDE-mode compatible hard-disk.
Con Obvious lack of sound card drivers
If you own a sound card produced after than 2000, you won't find a driver to make it work.
Con Data collection
Per default Microsoft is collecting many data on newer Windows versions, and it is very unconfortable to turn them just off(eg you have to do it for every service seperately...)
Con Vulnerable
Due its high distribution and the use of many third party code(eg: software/drivers) it is more vulnerable than any other OS.
Con Not free/open source
Con Tied to Microsoft
Windows suggests the use of Microsoft services (however, it does not force it like Apple does)
Con Terrible and inconsistent UI/UX
Con Not modular/Big fat package
Due all the included drivers, 32bit compatiblty packages and Applications/utilities Windows 10 64Bit needs ~20 gb of hard disk space.
Con Poor performance
Windows is slower than Linux in many cases.
Con Low current cross compatibility
Unix support requires many tweaks and installations of secondary software. No MacOS support and few choices for Apple’s olderOSX and System software. All via third party.