Why Windows Needs Installers and macOS Doesn’t

A deep dive into why macOS apps are installed by dragging a folder while Windows requires an installer. macOS uses application bundles — directories with a .app extension that Finder treats as single objects, guided by an Info.plist file inside. Windows instead relies on the Windows Registry to store system-wide application metadata, which means an installer is needed to register the app with the OS. The post also briefly touches on Linux desktop environments and the XDG desktop entry specification, noting that Linux's installation approach is actually closer to Windows than macOS.