News - Windows 8 and 8.1 combined market share breaches 10%

[HEXUS]

Windows 7 is still on the up and Windows XP usage is still nearly 30 per cent.

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[Spreadie]

I have 8.1 on my rig, and it's just fine; but I only got it because of the £25 upgrade deal on Win8 - I replaced XP with Win7 on my son's PC yesterday and it reminded me that there's no compelling reason to upgrade from 7 to 8. A well patched Vista install is pretty close to Win7 too. They pushed 8 much too quickly IMO.

So, all in all, the slow take-up doesn't surprise me in the least.

[ChinesePate]

A well patched Vista install is pretty close to Win7 too.

If by "patched" you mean "replaced by" then yes, I agree.

[shaithis]

Win7 vs XP growth is expected. Many corporations are being forced to finally upgrade from XP due to lack of support and most will choose windows 7 over 8 in corp environments.

[edzieba]

it may surprise some observers to see an increase in market share for Windows 7

Only those observers who have never heard of this whole 'enterprise' thing.
With XP support coming to an end, XP -> 7 transitions are hitting the final push, as the last few holdouts get kicked off whatever ancient boxes they're cling to and given new Win7 installs (with XP in a VM for the last few holdout programs).

[eatonm62]

I have 3 PCs in the house and 2 are running W7 and the other is running XP.
I use W7 on my gaming computer as its stable, I did give thought to upgrading to W8 when I added a larger SSD, but at the time there were too many issues. Also I am in the process of building a new PC for my parents they have the XP machine and I will be putting W7 on that machine also.

[3dcandy]

Yup we can all see it coming can't we...Xp > Win 7 with some people having to have Win 8.1 as shiny new toy has it pre-installed. However I'm personally getting loads of people who want to downgrade from 8/8.1 to Win 7

[OilSheikh]

Microsoft have still not realized what a failure Windows 8 is ?

[herulach]

People keep saying this, but honestly I'm perfectly happy with 8.1. Auto-Hide taskbar is still flaky, but has been ever since 95. With the metro launcher basically turned into a full screen start menu its fine. Its also much better at multi monitors than 7 (task bar on both screens by default = good).

Its a much bigger departure from XP than 7 though. Nearly everyone I know that has been using 7 for a while has got into the win key + type launch method rather than point & click.

The only thing I do find frustrating is the 'friendly' interfaces for the settings for everything, which basically don't let you change anything and you find yourself back in the XP control panel for everything useful

[shaithis]

For every 8/8.1 hater I can find a lover

Much like almost every windows release

< 8.1 lover (and the more I dig and learn, the better it becomes...something the haters and reverters are missing out on - knowledge of the UI)

[danieadams]

Seems I might be the odd one out here. After spending a day on a W7 machine recently (first time in more than a year) I found it niggly and slow after getting used to W8 and W8.1. Finding and opening apps and docs are so much more fluent and faster using the shortcuts and Start screen... Maybe it's only me....

[kingpotnoodle]

People keep saying this, but honestly I'm perfectly happy with 8.1. Auto-Hide taskbar is still flaky, but has been ever since 95. With the metro launcher basically turned into a full screen start menu its fine. Its also much better at multi monitors than 7 (task bar on both screens by default = good).

Its a much bigger departure from XP than 7 though. Nearly everyone I know that has been using 7 for a while has got into the win key + type launch method rather than point & click.

The only thing I do find frustrating is the 'friendly' interfaces for the settings for everything, which basically don't let you change anything and you find yourself back in the XP control panel for everything useful

Pretty much my experience/thoughts also, a lot of the less technical settings (i.e. user preferences) are in the MUI settings screens for tablet users but it's not much of a hardship to use them on a desktop for the once in a blue moon times those settings are altered... People blab on about "I don't want to touch-screen use my computer" etc and just completely fail to acknowledge you can spend >99.9% of your time on the desktop of 8/8.1 using it like Windows 7 with a mouse and keyboard.

7 is seeing a corporate rush, it will level out again in the second half of the year. Ultimately though I think it will be around a long time, there is nothing especially wrong with Windows 7, I probably wouldn't advise non-technical single monitor users to bother upgrading and PC hardware is lasting a long time these days so an impetus to upgrade to 8/8.1 will be lacking in the general market, doesn't make it a failure it's just the market limits, to have got to 10% market share probably puts it ahead of Linux and OS-X and if a product is profitable it can't really be called a failure...

[herulach]

Seems I might be the odd one out here. After spending a day on a W7 machine recently (first time in more than a year) I found it niggly and slow after getting used to W8 and W8.1. Finding and opening apps and docs are so much more fluent and faster using the shortcuts and Start screen... Maybe it's only me....

shiathis & I both ninja'd you, so clearly it isn't! 8 is hard work, but 8.1 is better. You see the same thing with any big interface change - look at ubuntu. I dare say people were having the same discussions when they went from Dos to Windows, and from 3.1 to 95.

The best recent example is the ribbon. When it first came round I hated it, now I genuinely find it difficult to use old versions of office.

[cheesyboy]

The only thing I do find frustrating is the 'friendly' interfaces for the settings for everything, which basically don't let you change anything and you find yourself back in the XP control panel for everything useful

Agreed.

Also find the lockdown on editing files in "Program Files" a bit irritating (there might be a way around this which I haven't investigated?)

I actually like the metro, but wish it had the functionality of the desktop (i.e. I wish they had gone the whole hog and ditched the desktop). The live tiles are a nice addition, and the only shame is that they are all powered by tablet apps (facebook, ebay, hotmail etc apps are terrible on a desktop)

[Corky34]

Maybe I'm missing something, but every other site including Net Applications shows Win 7 market share at 47.52%, not 49.26%. Am i reading something wrong ?

[Percy1983]

I will say my work have finally gone to 7 from XP.

I current have 2 7 machines and 2 8 machines.

On 7 I have my HTPC which spends most of its time in MCE so no need or want to upgrade (As other HTPC users will know once you get it all working you don't mess.

The other 7 is my netbook which is upgraded to home premium, not sure if 8 would work.

Now the 2 8 machines, one is my main PC which is for gaming and running my business, and the other is a pure business PC. Both have been spot on with no issues and easy to use.

I actually find myself doing things the windows 8 way on the 7 machines in most cases.