Windows 10 surpasses Windows 7 in global market share according to StatCounter

Shawn Knight

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Windows 10 reached a new milestone in January as Microsoft’s current-generation operating system narrowly edged out Windows 7 in global market share.

According to web analytics company StatCounter, Windows 10 in January captured 42.78 percent of the desktop market share worldwide followed closely by longtime favorite Windows 7 at 41.86 percent. Windows 8.1, meanwhile, wasn’t even close with an overall share of just 8.72 percent.

Windows 10 launched on July 29, 2015, and managed to quickly capture a sizable share of the market thanks to Microsoft’s free upgrade offer. That said, Redmond was a bit too ambitious with its goal of hitting one billion Windows 10 installations just three years after launch, scrapping those plans in 2016.

Windows 7 continues to have a loyal following, especially among business users. With any luck, Microsoft will phase out Windows 7 faster than it did XP. Originally launched in August 2001, Windows XP only fell below five percent usage worldwide in June of 2017 according to StatCounter.

Keep in mind that figures discussed here are only from one firm. Net Applications' NetMarketShare, for example, sees things quite differently. The firm’s data for January shows that Windows 10 was installed on 34.29 percent of machines last month versus 42.39 percent for Windows 7 and just 5.56 percent for Windows 8.1.

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Were these stats paid by microsoft or something? So basically only computers that are browsing certain websites? How about all the machines and images (virtual as well) that aren't being used to access certain websites? How about all of the script blockers like me that are not being counted? How about all the firewalls that block statcounter? I have several computers at home running Win7 that aren't used to browse the web.... Don't believe these numbers.

What really makes me laugh is how poorly Win10 has been accepted given that it is a "free" upgrade (they are making money off you. no such thing as free). LOL. So basically we have a very rough count of people who don't care about privacy.
 
The only desktop operating systems that have a chance of eclipsing Windows 7 will either be a Google OS that runs most legacy windows programs..or Windows 11.
 
And the XP fanboi crowd committed suicide ...

Yeah, I would like to know why they aren't sharing the XP results... I doubt it is less than 1%. Also note that Win8 and 8.1, which was released as an "upgrade" to Win7, is dragging the bottom. If Win10 weren't "free", then I have to say it would be near the bottom as well. One reason Win10 is actually going up is that customers don't have the option of Win7 when buying a new OEM system. If it weren't for those two stipulations... that line may not even be going up.
 
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Yeah, I would like to know why they aren't sharing the XP results... I doubt it is less than 1%. Also not that Win8 and 8.1, which was released as an "upgrade" to Win7, is dragging the bottom. If Win10 weren't "free", then I have to say it would be near the bottom as well. One reason Win10 is actually going up is that customers don't have the option of Win7 when buying a new OEM system. If it weren't for those two stipulations... that line may not even be going up.

Win 10 is just fine and far superior to Windows 7.
And to all the 'come at me bros' - the list of advanced functionality, features and reliability is so lengthy now - it doesn't even dignify a response. Research it!
"7" IS your daddy's XP.
Windows 7 will lose extended support soon enough.

And without stating any numbers, anecdotally throwing out there that somehow the installed base is highly weighted by the "free installs" of Windows 10 by the penny-pincher types out there -
well that is purely fake news.

Just sayin' ...
 
Win 10 is just fine and far superior to Windows 7.
And to all the 'come at me bros' - the list of advanced functionality, features and reliability is so lengthy now - it doesn't even dignify a response. Research it!
"7" IS your daddy's XP.
Windows 7 will lose extended support soon enough.

And without stating any numbers, anecdotally throwing out there that somehow the installed base is highly weighted by the "free installs" of Windows 10 by the penny-pincher types out there -
well that is purely fake news.

Just sayin' ...
Another M$ shill heard from. We'll see you at the Windows store....or not.

BTW, forgive me for not being "Cortana". I'm sure she'd agree with everything you said.
 
Win 10 is just fine and far superior to Windows 7.
And to all the 'come at me bros' - the list of advanced functionality, features and reliability is so lengthy now - it doesn't even dignify a response. Research it!
"7" IS your daddy's XP.
Windows 7 will lose extended support soon enough.

And without stating any numbers, anecdotally throwing out there that somehow the installed base is highly weighted by the "free installs" of Windows 10 by the penny-pincher types out there -
well that is purely fake news.

Just sayin' ...

If it is so "superior", then what can it do that I can't already? Care to give a single link? I'm doing just fine thank you. It's comical to hear managers testing win10 on their laptops in meetings and comment in disgust when their machine force installs patches and reboots while they are trying to take notes. LOL.

Enjoy your "free" operating system. Like to give away your private information for a few tools?

Would you like to sell your soul for a donut?
 
Yeah, I would like to know why they aren't sharing the XP results... I doubt it is less than 1%. Also not that Win8 and 8.1, which was released as an "upgrade" to Win7, is dragging the bottom. If Win10 weren't "free", then I have to say it would be near the bottom as well. One reason Win10 is actually going up is that customers don't have the option of Win7 when buying a new OEM system. If it weren't for those two stipulations... that line may not even be going up.

Win 10 is just fine and far superior to Windows 7.
And to all the 'come at me bros' - the list of advanced functionality, features and reliability is so lengthy now - it doesn't even dignify a response. Research it!
"7" IS your daddy's XP.
Windows 7 will lose extended support soon enough.

And without stating any numbers, anecdotally throwing out there that somehow the installed base is highly weighted by the "free installs" of Windows 10 by the penny-pincher types out there -
well that is purely fake news.

Just sayin' ...
Hope you got a sandwich at least for shilling this hard.
 
If it is so "superior", then what can it do that I can't already? Care to give a single link? I'm doing just fine thank you. It's comical to hear managers testing win10 on their laptops in meetings and comment in disgust when their machine force installs patches and reboots while they are trying to take notes. LOL.

Enjoy your "free" operating system. Like to give away your private information for a few tools?

Would you like to sell your soul for a donut?

If you don't want Windows to force a update than stay way from Windows 10 home and go with Windows 10 pro.
 
If it is so "superior", then what can it do that I can't already? Care to give a single link? I'm doing just fine thank you. It's comical to hear managers testing win10 on their laptops in meetings and comment in disgust when their machine force installs patches and reboots while they are trying to take notes. LOL.

Enjoy your "free" operating system. Like to give away your private information for a few tools?

Would you like to sell your soul for a donut?

Only sad thing is lack of the Microsoft App Store for Windows 7.
 
@Shawn Knight (Quote) " With any luck, Microsoft will phase out Windows 7 faster than it did XP. Originally launched in August 2001, Windows XP "

Gee Shawn, I never knew you worked for M$ full time...:D
 
>> Win 10 is just fine and far superior to Windows 7.

If Microsoft really believed that they would offer both equally and let the users decide.
I should be able to install Win 7 easily on my new computer. That way I can compare and choose whatever OS is best.
 
If it is so "superior", then what can it do that I can't already? Care to give a single link? I'm doing just fine thank you. It's comical to hear managers testing win10 on their laptops in meetings and comment in disgust when their machine force installs patches and reboots while they are trying to take notes. LOL.

Indeed.

An operating system, really, has only one function, and that is to enable the hardware to perform whatever tasks the owner bought it to perform. Any feature or characteristic an OS has can be fairly evaluated by considering whether that feature helps users (some of them, at least) to perform the tasks of his choosing on that hardware.

An operating system exists to run other software. It's not the star! It's not fun and exciting. The glory belongs to the various applications the user runs on that system. If an OS is doing its job, people don't really notice it... it just quietly does its thing behind the scenes. It needs to be stable, not just in terms of running without crashing, but in terms of ensuring that what worked before will continue to work into the foreseeable future.

An OS, by virtue of its function, has access to every bit of information that is stored on or passes through the hardware upon which it runs. It's a position that requires a great deal of trust, and because of this, it is imperative that an OS be crystal clear in its understanding (so to speak) that it has one and only one master, and that is the owner of the hardware which that OS was chosen to enable on behalf of that owner.

On all of these counts, Windows 10 fails miserably. No number of features or advanced functions or bells and whistles can ever make up for its abysmal failure in being what an OS is supposed to be. Until it gets the basics right, nothing else matters.

Windows 10 doesn't try to pretend that it serves the owner of the hardware first. When you can only defer updates, and only according to the rules Microsoft has laid out (it will decide for how long it may be deferred), it's clear who the master is, and it ain't you, cupcake. You can set the connection as metered, but Microsoft has already said that if it finds an update to be reeeeally important, it will go ahead and send it to you anyway, metered or not. You can set active hours, but only within Microsoft's limits... you can't set all 24 hours a day to active (since the computer is, you know, your property 24 hours a day). With Windows 10, it's only your PC part of the time, and blocking out a part of the day for Microsoft Time is not optional.

That, like so many other things in Windows 10, is not a feature or trait that helps the owner of the PC to put that hardware to work on tasks he wants done. It's his PC, so only the tasks he wants to do with it carry any weight at all. What Microsoft wants isn't secondary or tertiary in importance-- Microsoft's wants, simply, do not exist in context of an OS.

Windows 10 does a terrible job of being the stable, silent partner that lives behind the scenes and enables the programs the user wants to run to do their thing. It's like Lucy on I Love Lucy reruns, always trying to be the star of the show, getting glory for itself. As long as we're saddled with "Windows as a Service," this won't change, and it renders Windows 10 unfit for (any) purpose. There's too much change, too much code churn, too many new bugs (huge code changes always bring bugs), too many things breaking every six months.

If an OS is supposed to be a stable foundation, Windows 10 is the earthquake that never ends. It changes so much that Ivo Beltchev, developer of Classic Shell (which singlehandedly makes Windows 8/8.1/10 tolerable for many of us), has given up trying to keep up with the massive breakage with every new version. The last two releases of 10 have broken drivers designed for Windows 10; first with Clover Trail PCs with the Creator's Update, then every PC Razer sells with Fall Creator's Update. All you Clover Trail owners who were told (back during the GWX days) that your PC had been scanned and was compatible with Windows 10, with all drivers present and accounted for, the joke's on you-- those Windows 10 drivers that worked with 10240 aren't compatible with Windows 10 now.

If you want to keep using your hardware going forward, you'd better be sure that the vendors for every component within that PC intend to keep producing new drivers for as long as you intend to use the device, because the ones that work flawlessly now could fail completely with the next mandatory "feature" update that comes down the pike. What an easy and profitable way for hardware vendors to inflict planned obsolescence on their customers, making otherwise usable hardware arbitrarily obsolete whenever they want it to be!

Windows 10 will never be suitable for use as long as Microsoft sticks to this "Windows as a Service" insanity. It will never be fit for purpose as long as it fails to recognize that being in the privileged position of an OS necessitates showing loyalty to one and only one entity, and it's not Microsoft. No features can ever make up for what Windows 10 lacks as far as the basic qualifications of an OS... until those deficits are fixed, Windows 10 isn't a reasonable choice for any PC that does anything important. For me, it's not even on the list of options for 2020/2023, when extended support for 7 and 8.1 end. It's not even good enough to be considered to exist, such that it is now, let alone be a good choice.
 
It's the same as with vaccines. They can only get "participation" and compliance, when it's forced. How many of the Windows 10 users are those unfortunate ones who didn't know until after the fact they would reboot to see Windows 10? How many of them would go back to Windows 7, if they could?
 
It happened through attrition and strong arming the industry and the people. The people didn't have much of a choice if they wanted to stick with a Windows platform.
 
Not surprised ,10 over took 7. I can still install 10 for free ,did on a vista laptop yesterday.activated instantly,win 7 has to be activated over the phone now.
 
Not surprised ,10 over took 7. I can still install 10 for free ,did on a vista laptop yesterday.activated instantly,win 7 has to be activated over the phone now.
Wut? :mad: This a**hole they have running M$ has hit an new all time low in terror tactics. I have 2 machines in which I'm going to install SSDs very shortly. Not to mention I'll probably have to perform oral sex on someone at M$ to get an XP machine back up and running, should that "need arise". <(pun sort of intended).

Oh well, I suppose as long as it's a toll free number, I have plenty of time on my hands to tie up one of their employees for hours, if need be...;)

BTW, is this only on a fresh install? When last I needed to activate Windows 7, it was because I installed a video card, with the machine off line. I got the "fake Windows notices", but the machine was activated, (eventually), on the web. At the time, I thought that was a bit extreme.
 
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