Windows 10 set to unseat Windows 7 by year end

[HEXUS]

Windows 10 already trumps 7 in StatCounter, soon it will do the same in NetMarketShare.

Read more.

[peterb]

Surely a statement of the blindingly obvious? Windows 10 is the upgrade path - it is difficult if not impossible to buy a retail version of Windows 7, so not surprising that Windows 10 is going to surpass Windows 7. Funnily enough it has surpassed windows NT3.4 too.

[Saracen]

....Funnily enough it has surpassed windows NT3.4 too.

No? Damn. I'd better upgrade my 3.3 system while I can. Oh, wait ....

[philehidiot]

I have an NT4.0 machine right here... Luckily it isn't networked.

[big_hairy_rob]

Thing you can't buy less in use than thing you can? Who'd have thought that a lack of sales would've had such a profound impact on OS use?

Well everyone I guess...

[Saracen]

I have an NT4.0 machine right here... Luckily it isn't networked.

I was being fascetious about 3.3, though I do have it laying around. NT 4 was a useful upgrade, but since my attitude is to not fix what sin't broke, it (like my W7 and even W98 machines are still doing what I need.

Mine are networked. Just air-gapped from the outside world.

[Ozaron]

I was being fascetious about 3.3, though I do have it laying around. NT 4 was a useful upgrade, but since my attitude is to not fix what sin't broke, it (like my W7 and even W98 machines are still doing what I need.

Perhaps a little tangential but I'm curious; it seems to me you've got a variety of very different machines and actually use all of them. Does that feel natural? Even if you don't want to change something that does a job, I could see myself tiring of remembering how to control so many versions of Windows, even just slimming the count I had to work with down would feel rewarding.

[Gunbuster]

So really Windows 10 will just manage to overtake Windows 7 once Win7 is in its final year of support. After 3.5 years. Slow clap?

[Saracen]

Perhaps a little tangential but I'm curious; it seems to me you've got a variety of very different machines and actually use all of them. Does that feel natural? Even if you don't want to change something that does a job, I could see myself tiring of remembering how to control sto many versions of Windows, even just slimming the count I had to work with down would feel rewarding.

I take the point, but yeah, I have a variety of machines and OS's. It's more complex than it sounds, because several run different OS's depending on which removable drive is inserted at boot time.

Going through the entire rationale would be lengthy, but suffice it to say some are initially for reasons buried in history some are to support legacy hardware and/or software, and so on.

Given that I'm semi-retired, rationalising down would either involve stopping doing some things I do, or spending quite a bit of time and probably money replacing software and/or hardware and, well, given that I'm semi-retired ..... why bother?

I think at last count I had 14 or 15 machines here (home office) but that doesn't mean they're all on. Some only get booted up for specufic tasks. As/when many of them croak, I'll have to decide whether to invest time/effort in finding a replacement and/or way of doing things, or just stop doing it.

[Wolfclaw]

Crap, better retire my WIndows 1.0 RM80186 PowerPC as not compatible

You have to admit though, after all the stumbles by Microshaft, Win10 is decent and reliable OS, as good as Win7 and getting better. They still have a lot of work to strip out parts of the legacy GUI. I would like to see a version with all the pre-32bit support ripped out, to force full x64 software migration.

[Saracen]

....

You have to admit though, after all the stumbles by Microshaft, Win10 is decent and reliable OS, as good as Win7 and getting better. ....

Well, I sure don't have to admit that. It may be reliable (I'm not the one to ask) but it's so full of major conceptual problems that I ended up with my main machines on a mix of legacy (and not internetted) Win 7, and Linux, with the switchover being a major investment of time, and a right-royal PITA.

The only Win 10 system I have is an insertable boot drive for my test machine when I absolutely have to run W10 for something.

If anyone wants to know why, I 'm sure a search on Win10 and my name would bring up numerous examples of why I think that, but regulars can breathe easy, as I'm not in the mood to rrhearse it again.

[Iota]

You have to admit though, after all the stumbles by Microshaft, Win10 is decent and reliable OS, as good as Win7 and getting better.

Any installation of any version of Windows is only as stable as the software you are trying to run on it, in my experience. Windows 10 is far from flawless, if anything with the enforced updates, it's been far more unreliable than prior versions of Windows. Yes the GUI can be quite intuitive to use in some scenarios, however stripping out some of the legacy GUI without a decent replacement such as the newer Windows Settings GUI forcing people into using Windows Administration Tools (could access most of this via prior Windows Control Panel) is pretty poor.

The GUI isn't consistent between versions, it's like Microsoft haven't really thought Windows 10 through properly. As for the version updates? I've had issues across multiple PCs running Windows 10 with those, so much so that I've deferred new versions due to unreliability of them actually working.

Never had some of these issues with Windows 98, NT, ME, Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7. Definitely didn't have the enforced updates causing reliability issues.

[spacein_vader]

Never had some of these issues with Windows 98, NT, ME, Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7. Definitely didn't have the enforced updates causing reliability issues.

You've led a charmed life indeed if you never had issues with stability on ME, Vista & pre-SP1 XP in particular.

As for enforced updates, they may not have technically forced on you but installing the service packs for XP onwards was always a bit dicey and they were as good as forced given the "no support without the latest Service Pack" line from MS.

[peterb]

You have to admit though, after all the stumbles by Microshaft, Win10 is decent and reliable OS, as good as Win7 and getting better. They still have a lot of work to strip out parts of the legacy GUI. I would like to see a version with all the pre-32bit support ripped out, to force full x64 software migration.

No, I don’t admit that at all. I’ve installed a couple of Win 10 systems (for other people) and it was not pleasant - starting with the awful Cortana onwards. To be fair, part of the problem was some security software Dell downloaded, but I would not call the operation of the software intuitive. The block layout GUI is not to my liking and I spent a while removing links to bloatware that should not (IMNSHO) been on a professional installation. The apology for a the control panel seems designed to discourage users from changing the system.

Windows 7 is likely to be my last Windows operating system (for the odd legacy application) as it’s stable, intuitive and familiar!

[Corky34]

As for enforced updates, they may not have technically forced on you but installing the service packs for XP onwards was always a bit dicey and they were as good as forced given the "no support without the latest Service Pack" line from MS.

At least with those you were talking about years between them, iirc XP was something like 2 to 3 years between service packs so you'd have a fairly good chunk of time for problems to become apparent and either MS or someone to come up with a solution, added to that was service packs not departing drastically from the initial product.

With Windows 10 you may as well be installing a new OS every 6 months and the patches between each of those new OS is like installing a service pack each month, they can't even get their own software to work together without issues, July alone saw them publish 47 known issues, its even prompted an open letter from patch management people who have to deal with the fallout, unfortunately Microsoft don't seem to give a damn.

[Iota]

You've led a charmed life indeed if you never had issues with stability on ME, Vista & pre-SP1 XP in particular.