Business users will decide when Windows 10 installations eclipse Windows 7

[Shawn Knight]

Microsoft has already admitted that it won’t hit its lofty goal of one billion Windows 10 installations within the first three years of launch. Still, the Redmond-based company is off to a great start with its latest operating system.

According to Net Market Share’s desktop operating system figures, Windows 10 has managed to capture 21.13 percent of the global OS market since making its debut in July 2015.

That said, they’re of course skewed by Microsoft’s free upgrade offer but either way, with Windows 10 installations trending upwards and Windows 7 installs on the decline, the two are on an inevitable collision course. When exactly Windows 10 will overtake Windows 7 – which had an install base of 47.01 percent as of last month (down from 60.7 percent in July 2015) – is a bit difficult to pinpoint.

As ZDNet notes, Windows 10 installations could climb a couple more percentage points rather rapidly as the firm’s numbers don’t yet reflect what could be a sizable number of last-minute installations. What’s more, Microsoft has left open a number of loopholes that people can take advantage of to continue to get the free Windows 10 update. Also, if you had previously started the upgrade before the deadline but halted it for whatever reason, you should still be able to move forward with it free of charge.

Perhaps the biggest unknown of all in trying to predict when Windows 10 will overtake Windows 7 has to do with enterprise users. Up to this point, most copies of Windows 10 have been installed on consumer devices as businesses typically wait until an OS has matured before upgrading their fleets.

Microsoft’s recent decision to make Windows 7 updates cumulative in nature, however, is likely to influence enterprise upgrades as well.

Chart courtesy Net Market Share

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/66069-business-users-decide-when-windows-10-installations-eclipse.html

 

[BSim500]

Still not interested thanks regardless of how many of these "infomercials" get churned out...

 

[dylannnnnn]

Still not interested thanks regardless of how many of these "infomercials" get churned out...

Cry baby

 

[cliffordcooley]

Cry baby

The irony. Sounds like you are the one crying, because they made a concrete decision not to upgrade.

 

[dylannnnnn]

The irony. Sounds like you are the one crying, because they made a concrete decision not to upgrade.

Not really, I have no problems. Upgraded about a dozen computers without fail and had zero problems since.

 

[cliffordcooley]

But yet you seem to suggest those that don't upgrade do have problems. I much like you, have not had any major problems. But why make accusations that someone is crying, when they mention they haven't upgraded and probably won't?

 

[dylannnnnn]

But yet you seem to suggest those that don't upgrade do have problems. I much like you, have not had any major problems. But why make accusations that someone is crying, when they mention they haven't upgraded and probably won't?

Hmm...reasons not to upgrade: 1. It's too expensive..no it's free. 2. It breaks things. Nope, seems pretty good. 3. I'm stubborn. Ah...that explains it.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Hmm...reasons not to upgrade: 1. It's too expensive..no it's free.

No it's not! The free upgrade term is over.

2. It breaks things. Nope, seems pretty good.

You don't know that.

3. I'm stubborn. Ah...that explains it.

Possibly

There are other reasons you just won't listen to them.

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

Hmm...reasons not to upgrade: 1. It's too expensive..no it's free.

No it's not! The free upgrade term is over.

2. It breaks things. Nope, seems pretty good.

You don't know that.

3. I'm stubborn. Ah...that explains it.

Possibly

There are other reasons you just won't listen to them.

Actually if you use the Media Tool and upgrade from Windows 7 it's still Free... have done already 7 computers like that the past week. Thats the only way at the moment to still get it free.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Yeah and you can probably activate an OEM on a new system, that is not meant to be moved to another motherboard. Just because you can doesn't mean it is the correct thing to do. Microsoft made it clear that the free upgrade would end on a specific date, and that has not changed. If you want to press your luck by seeing how long you can continue to activate that is your choice. I may try the same some day but as far as I am concerned the free upgrade term has come and gone. I'm not gonna advertise the door is open when it could be closing as I type.

 

[Timonius]

I always found this, http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ to be an interesting indicator for what it's worth. Granted it is more gamer focused...

 

[fktech]

But yet you seem to suggest those that don't upgrade do have problems. I much like you, have not had any major problems. But why make accusations that someone is crying, when they mention they haven't upgraded and probably won't?

But then you are stuck with a sh%tty OS...

 

[cliffordcooley]

But then you are stuck with a sh%tty OS...

The point is; if they are happy with it, what's it to you?

 

[Kibaruk]

I did the switch, nothing broke, don't have to look for compatibility issues, things work as intended, happy with it.

On the corporate world, that's so annoying... I mean, if you change java versions some crap doesn't work already, let alone speak about changing the OS. It's a slow testing process that not much departments have time for but now they have to make the switch if they don't want to pay the fee for extended support on W7 machines.

 

[amstech]

We don't have anything against Windows 10, but with a few hundred workstations and about 800+ users (Hospital) we try to keep things as similar/simple as possible.
Windows 7 Pro is such a good business OS we won't move from it till we have to.

 

[Raoul Duke]

Look at the picture at the start of the article. Does that really look in any way like a business computer?

 

[cliffordcooley]

Well when they don't want to freely advertise, that's likely the closest you are going to get to a business illustrated picture.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I'm glad I wasn't working on anything productive. If I had to use my machine for business, I couldn't use Windows 10.

I went to get something to eat and came back to my machine rebooted and installing updates. I've tried to stay on top of the updates so they install at my convenience. Sadly this one got by me. This automatic updating has me worried about starting new projects. The first time I loose work on the count of automatic updates, there is no rebuilding bridges for MS. I'm not sure what I will do but that will be the last time I loose work. And since I don't see a viable alternative, I'm trying to avoid the whole bridge burning by not even starting a project.

 

[Mavrickx888]

I work for a medium sized school district with a heavy Windows environment for staff. The bulk of our users are still using Windows 7, but a few of us in the IT department and in the wild are piloting Windows 10 and we all seem to be enjoying it fairly well. From a deployment standpoint, it's all fairly painless - just as previous installations have been for Windows 7. The one massive difference I've noticed between previous operating systems and 10 is the upgrade process. Previously, upgrades have been a "hit-or-miss" proposition (with "miss" being the more common outcome). Currently, we've done a handful of upgrades ranging from computers originally on Windows 7, 8, and 8 which have a variety of different makes, models, and specs. Happily, all of them have come out the other side with near 0 problems. Full disclosure - we didn't use the built in Upgrade, but rather made a key and launched it from that since we use a different build than the standard 10 Pro/Enterprise. Realistically, if we go for a full 10 deployment we won't be using the upgrade path to do our 500+ devices, but it's good to know that it can be done with little to no issues. Either way, we won't see any kind of mass movement to 10 for a while - which I would imagine will be the popular course of action for most enterprise level establishments.

 

[GirlDownunder]

I noticed a slow-down moving some laptops to 10 from 7....I was surprised, as I'd read it was lighter-weight. For many other folks, there was a big mess- 10 didn't upgrade properly & even ruined the roll-back option to 7 (had to do a factory recovery). With some, their PC upgraded to 10 w/o their approval-- that, it not cool.

Working with 95, 98, 98SE, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8/8.1, & 10, I'd still have to vote 7 as the best MS has managed to produce.

 

[Capaill]

I agree that Win7 is the most stable / safe version for a large-scale business or enterprise. Everybody knows what works and what doesn't. Win10 is still a big question mark. Our company is still on Win7 - we can't even move to Win8 as our office VPN would stop working. So we either have to wait for a fix or buy and roll out a new VPN.
Other than the virtual desktops, I see no reason to move to Win10. Also we would lose the ability to use WinXP in a VM (included free with Win 7 Pro) which is very useful for us.

 

[Kibaruk]

We don't have anything against Windows 10, but with a few hundred workstations and about 800+ users (Hospital) we try to keep things as similar/simple as possible.
Windows 7 Pro is such a good business OS we won't move from it till we have to.

That's the funny thing, probably the users have W10 on their home computers.

I'm glad I wasn't working on anything productive. If I had to use my machine for business, I couldn't use Windows 10.

I went to get something to eat and came back to my machine rebooted and installing updates. I've tried to stay on top of the updates so they install at my convenience. Sadly this one got by me. This automatic updating has me worried about starting new projects. The first time I loose work on the count of automatic updates, there is no rebuilding bridges for MS. I'm not sure what I will do but that will be the last time I loose work. And since I don't see a viable alternative, I'm trying to avoid the whole bridge burning by not even starting a project.

Not that it's not inconvenient to have automatic updates restart your machine... but they are always set up like at 2:30 am so unless you were working the grave shift or pushing them every now and then... and please, you know better than to leave your unsaved work on the computer like that and walk away =P

 

[amstech]

That's the funny thing, probably the users have W10 on their home computers.

Very few people have Windows 10 because they want it.

 

[cliffordcooley]

and please, you know better than to leave your unsaved work on the computer like that and walk away =P

That's funny because some people actually leave their machine running for production work. That takes away the aspect of having your machine work for you.

 

[Luca Vee]

But yet you seem to suggest those that don't upgrade do have problems. I much like you, have not had any major problems. But why make accusations that someone is crying, when they mention they haven't upgraded and probably won't?

Hmm...reasons not to upgrade: 1. It's too expensive..no it's free. 2. It breaks things. Nope, seems pretty good. 3. I'm stubborn. Ah...that explains it.

Software analyst / hardware engineer here with 15 years experience, my father in the same business for over 35.

Let me explain you a reason not to upgrade. Windows 10 has been designed for the mobile device market and offer a very poor desktop experience compared to windows 7, unless you are one of those psychos that like to talk to Cordana. Me: I still have humans to talk and I type when on PC.

Windows 10 was a complete failure on mobile market, bringing down Nokia with it that finally switched to Android. W10 has no hopes whatsoever to go anywhere on mobile devices.


So now we are left with a OS designed a hybrid that penalizes desktop users with a confusing start menu, failing updates (like the disabled logitech webcams when one of the last updates disable MPEJ streaming) and advertising in the start menu which I have to manually change if I don't want to see.

If you claim that w10 is 'stable' means you haven't used it professionally, you are probably one of those that, as soon as a new OS came out, installed the BETA on your machine and, as soon as released, queues up for hours to make sure you get your copy first so you can brag to your guildmate in WoW about your "new wonderful OS".

Anybody who has to WORK with windows knows better.

If I were you know now I would go talk to Cordana a little, see if your PC is feeling ok...