There are many computer operating systems in use today and each has its advantages and disadvantages. For example, there are operating systems available from Microsoft Corporation, Apple Inc., and Linux as well as many others. Certain operating systems may have performance issues, such as executing more slowly in certain circumstances.
For example, it has been noted that the Mac OS X operating system can be slow in launching large applications such as Xcode, Microsoft Office, iMovie, etc. The process of scanning a computer system for malicious software (i.e., malware) using antivirus software can also be very time-consuming, especially for operating systems such as Mac OS X. A manual scan that takes on order of hours will not be acceptable to many computer users.
While there are many factors that will affect how long it takes antivirus software to scan a particular computer system, it is noted that a file system under an Apple operating system is different than a file system under a Microsoft operating system. For example, the number of actual computer files present in an Apple operating system may be much larger than those present in a Microsoft operating system. It has been estimated that a computer executing Mac OS X may have anywhere from 1,000,000 up to 10,000,000 computer files, while a computer executing a Microsoft operating system may have well under 1,000,000 computer files. In particular, while the browser Safari has more than 4,000 files under Mac OS X, it has only approximately 300 files under the Microsoft operating system.
It is also noted that the performance of a typical scan engine used to scan a computer system for malicious software is related to the number of files to scan but not necessarily to the file size. Given that performance of a scan engine may be adversely affected by a large number of computer files to scan, it is desirable to improve the performance of scan engine for any computer operating system, especially those having a relatively large number of files to scan.