Windows PCs crash 3.1x more often than Macs, report finds - and apps hang 7.5x more on Microsoft's OS

A new report has highlighted how much more reliable Macs are than Windows PCs in an enterprise setting.

The Register brought the report from Omnissa to our attention, which is officially entitled the 'State of Digital Workspace' (with the company, which was formerly a VMware business, offering a 'digital work platform').

There are a whole bunch of findings, as you might imagine, but the real eyebrow raiser here is just how much more prone to crashing Windows systems are than macOS, at least going by Omnissa's telemetry data.

With instances of forced shutdowns, Windows PCs had 3.1 times more of these than macOS devices.

What we don't know is that if these instances were still relatively rare in both cases, of course, but triple the number of complete lock-ups of the system hitting Windows devices isn't great, whichever way you dice it.

Things were even worse when it came to apps. Under Windows, apps freezing up happened 7.5 times more than on Macs, and 'total application crashes' (where the software bombed out completely, as opposed to remaining running, but being unresponsive) were 2.2 times more prevalent than on macOS.

These were identified by the report as being the key points where Windows PCs were more likely to waste the time of employees, with Omnissa explaining that:

"Employee productivity is tied directly to the digital employee experience - even small disruptions to an employee's workflow can accumulate as workers require almost 24 minutes to refocus after a disruption."

The study used anonymized telemetry data gathered from millions of devices over the course of 2025. While it's focused on the enterprise environment, there's no reason to imagine that outside of the business world, consumers won't experience a similar rate of failures in terms of OS and app crashes.

That said, I've found Windows 10 and 11 to be pretty reliable these days, and a full system lock is not something I've encountered in a long time. It could just be the case that macOS is simply even more stable - ultra-reliable, if you will - and not many crashes happen at all on both platforms, but that isn't made clear as noted.

It is clear enough, however, that Apple is ahead of the game in this respect, and also in terms of the longevity of its hardware versus a Microsoft system.

Omnissa found that 90% of Windows devices on its platform were less than three years old, and only 2% managed to last into a sixth year of existence at any given business. However, when it came to Macs, 11.5% were still going after six years of operation, so almost six times as many. Only 65% of Macs were less than three years old, the report found.