Windows XP vs Apple document compares the Windows XP and Apple operating systems and desktop environments. Windows XP is a personal computer OS produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family, released in 2001. Apple OSX is a series of Unix-based graphical OSs developed and marketed by Apple. Both Windows XP and Apple have desktop environments, which are implementations of the desktop metaphor using programs with a shared graphical user interface that run on top of the underlying operating system.