Windows 8 adoption cracks 3% in March, 10% among Steam users

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Windows 8 has continued its leisurely stroll upward in Net Applications' operating system rankings, with the web traffic analyst recording Microsoft's latest platform holding a share of 3.17% in March. If only by a couple points, that's an increase from 2.67% in February, 2.26% in January, 1.72% in December and 1.09% in November. For reference, in the same timeframe, Windows 7 closed March 2010 with a traffic share of 10.23%.

As paltry as Windows 8's 3.17% sliver may seem next to Windows 7's 44.73% majority cut, it's enough for the new operating system to maintain its fourth place position ahead of Mac OS X 10.8's 2.65% share. However, 3.17% wasn't enough to elbow past Windows Vista, which remains the third most-used platform at 4.99%, nor was it within an earshot of Windows XP's second place share of 38.73%, which is slowly shrinking.

Unsurprisingly, it seems enthusiasts and gamers represent a sizable chunk of the early adopters. Valve has also just released its latest Steam survey results and Windows 8 now holds over 10% of the OS breakdown if you combine the 32- and 64-bit versions, though the latter comes close on its own at 9.92%, up 1.03% and just behind Windows 7 32-bit's 13.40% share, which fell nearly half a point from last month's report.

For curiosity's sake, we checked to see how Windows 8 adoption looks among TechSpot readers and it's not far off Steam. Over 90% of the folks who visit our desktop site are on Windows, with about 10% of the overall pie running Windows 8 -- more than all OS X versions combined. Windows 7 still dominates at a healthy 57% share, XP trails with just shy of 18%, Vista is hanging at 4% while Linux represents between 1 and 2%.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/52106-windows-8-adoption-cracks-3-in-march-10-among-steam-users.html

 

[Jad Chaar]

I bet those 10 percent are using touchscreen PCs are are playing non demanding games like CS:S.

 

[Demigod001]

Im using win 8 on two systems here now neither have touch screens. It just works for me. I can get my work done on one and play on the other. Ive never understood why people have problems with it. All I really miss from windows 7 are the jump lists I wish they would put them back in for the tiles.

 

[Kibaruk]

Im using win 8 on two systems here now neither have touch screens. It just works for me. I can get my work done on one and play on the other. Ive never understood why people have problems with it. All I really miss from windows 7 are the jump lists I wish they would put them back in for the tiles.

The same here, in my gaming rig and notebook (Neither of them have a touchscreen). Can't say a single thing that I miss from W7.

People that think that only touchscreen users might use W8 are not well informed, you don't have to use any "tablet-like" app if you don't want to, it runs the same as any other windows platform.

 

[Chazz]

^ Same here.

I've never played Angry Birds in my life, nor cut the rope or jump the stick or beat the butcher or any other title similar to that.

128 GB Intel 520 SSD Boot drive (content)
2x 500 GB Samsung SSDs running in Raid 0(must upgrade as it's just about full).
Dell IPS 2560x1600 (content)
AMD Phenom x6 1050 @ 4.1ghz (content)
ATI 6970 (used to be xfire but, I didn't like it. Must upgrade.)
Windows 8 (content)

 

[Guest]

It was definitely worth it for 39.99 or less. Too bad for the people that got persuaded not to touch it, especially XP and Vista people.

 

[PCNP543]

I bet those 10 percent are using touchscreen PCs are are playing non demanding games like CS:S.

I'm using it, and I'm neither on a touch-screen nor play any games. I purchased several upgrades during the initial $40 into price. Overall, I really like it, but I've installed Start8 and have disabled Metro in all of it's uselessness, so I'm talking just the core OS here. It works really well, it's very fast and, so far, has been pretty stable.

That said, I'd never spend the $120+ they want for it now. I really thought they were going to make the $40 upgrade price permanent, considering the OS has really plateaued in terms of features. $40 seems like a reasonable price, $120 absolutely does not.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I'm happy for all of you that enjoy Windows Start Screen and Windows Classic look for desktop. Forget about the Start Menu, I can learn to live without it or the jump list that I am so fondly proud of.

 

[Chazz]

I'm happy for all of you that enjoy Windows Start Screen and Windows Classic look for desktop. Forget about the Start Menu, I can learn to live without it or the jump list that I am so fondly proud of.

Jump Lists are still present in windows 8, unless I'm mistaken. It's the option to right click your pinned icons and open up recent or commonly used features of that program yes? That's still there. I think the previous dude was referring to the metro interface.

 

[Jad Chaar]

I am not hating on Windows 8, I am just saying that I prefer Windows 7 for gaming. I may think about Windows Blue, but Win 7 is fine for me right now.

 

[windmill007]

With start8 I'm fine with it. It was worth $40. I agree anymore than that I would not buy it. I don't really see much improvement over windows 7 and if I couldn't install start 8 I wouldn't use it. It was pretty annoying being a power user avoiding that dumb start menu. I wish I had a win 8 tablet so I could see how it's really suppose to work because at this point windows 8 made me hate Metro with a passion. Maybe the "blue" update will make it barable but I doubt it.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Blue will be a minor update. If they dont bring a new version of Direct X with it, I am probably not gonna buy it.

 

[spydercanopus]

Laughably pathetic.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

I don't know what you lot are crying about. I find that Windows 3.1 still does the trick.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

I'm happy for all of you that enjoy Windows Start Screen and Windows Classic look for desktop. Forget about the Start Menu, I can learn to live without it or the jump list that I am so fondly proud of.

People can "learn" to live without anything except food and water. My question is what is compelling people to be so bold, brave and disciplined to force themselves to have to learn to live without features that were present in Windows 7 but not in Windows 8? Maybe the ignorant belief that they have no choice in the matter?

Prisoners "learn" to live in prisons, they have no other choice. This is not the case when "deciding" by choice which operating system you will use. I will "choose" which operating system I want to use on my desktop. I will not allow Microsoft to choose for me.

The weak minded will be the demise of us all. Oh well, good thing Windows 7 support doesn't expire until 2020.

 

[cliffordcooley]

The weak minded will be the demise of us all. Oh well, good thing Windows 7 support doesn't expire until 2020.

Cheers bud, I'm with you!!

 

[Burty117]

good thing Windows 7 support doesn't expire until 2020.

Amen to that!

 

[Chazz]

I'm happy for all of you that enjoy Windows Start Screen and Windows Classic look for desktop. Forget about the Start Menu, I can learn to live without it or the jump list that I am so fondly proud of.

People can "learn" to live without anything except food and water. My question is what is compelling people to be so bold, brave and disciplined to force themselves to have to learn to live without features that were present in Windows 7 but not in Windows 8? Maybe the ignorant belief that they have no choice in the matter?

Prisoners "learn" to live in prisons, they have no other choice. This is not the case when "deciding" by choice which operating system you will use. I will "choose" which operating system I want to use on my desktop. I will not allow Microsoft to choose for me.

The weak minded will be the demise of us all. Oh well, good thing Windows 7 support doesn't expire until 2020.

What features are in windows 7 that were taken out of windows 8? Start Menu and the entirety of it's features changed to start screen. Now what features are in windows 8 that aren't in windows 7? Do you even know.

Now if your argument was " My question is what is compelling people to be so bold, brave and disciplined to force themselves to have to learn how to use features differently in windows 8 than they were in windows 7" that'd make more sense.

 

[Lurker101]

Maybe I'm being a bit thick here and looking at this all wrong, but currently, Windows Vista is more popular than Windows 8?

Kinda says it all, doesn't it?

 

[captaincranky]

What features are in windows 7 that were taken out of windows 8? Start Menu and the entirety of it's features changed to start screen. Now what features are in windows 8 that aren't in windows 7? Do you even know.

Now if your argument was " My question is what is compelling people to be so bold, brave and disciplined to force themselves to have to learn how to use features differently in windows 8 than they were in windows 7" that'd make more sense.

For me its Windows Media Center, and DVD playback capability. Good news though, Newegg has been running "CyberDVD" as a "Shell Shocker".

Or does Windows 8 have WMC and I just don't understand how to use it.

So, you have to buy WMC extra, and buy another program to give you back the start menu, then you come here and say how wonderful Windows 8 is. When what you mean is the copy of Windows 8 you just paid for, now acts like Windows 7, and you're thrilled with it.

Oftentimes this sounds more like buyers remorse, with built in ego protection.

I frequent other forums where the thing you just bought, is the thing you promote as being best, reality be damned.

(Oh, and that was the "royal you" in that post, so everyone can take something away from it).

 

[Chazz]

What features are in windows 7 that were taken out of windows 8? Start Menu and the entirety of it's features changed to start screen. Now what features are in windows 8 that aren't in windows 7? Do you even know.

Now if your argument was " My question is what is compelling people to be so bold, brave and disciplined to force themselves to have to learn how to use features differently in windows 8 than they were in windows 7" that'd make more sense.

For me its Windows Media Center, and DVD playback capability. Good news though, Newegg has been running "CyberDVD" as a "Shell Shocker".

Or does Windows 8 have WMC and I just don't understand how to use it.

So, you have to buy WMC extra, and buy another program to give you back the start menu, then you come here and say how wonderful Windows 8 is. When what you mean is the copy of Windows 8 you just paid for, now acts like Windows 7, and you're thrilled with it.

Oftentimes this sounds more like buyers remorse, with built in ego protection.

I frequent other forums where the thing you just bought, is the thing you promote as being best, reality be damned.

(Oh, and that was the "royal you" in that post, so everyone can take something away from it).

I see.

What I did was purchased windows 8 when the price was cheap and when Microsoft offered a code to enable WMC + DVD capability. So, personally, I can use those two. I don't know if they still offer the code, I think it was a limited thing. That's a legitimate gripe.

Edit: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/feature-packs I think it costs 10 bucks now?

 

[Jad Chaar]

Maybe I'm being a bit thick here and looking at this all wrong, but currently, Windows Vista is more popular than Windows 8?

Kinda says it all, doesn't it?

Despite MS spending like 20x as much on advertising lol.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Despite MS spending like 20x as much on advertising lol.

Maybe it was advertising that killed their sales! I don't know about the rest of you, but I thought those commercials were major stupidity.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Maybe it was advertising that killed their sales! I don't know about the rest of you, but I thought those commercials were major stupidity.

Yup I agree.

 

[Per Hansson]

Despite MS spending like 20x as much on advertising lol.

Maybe it was advertising that killed their sales! I don't know about the rest of you, but I thought those commercials were major stupidity.

I don't know what you are saying?
I think the three year old kids making good use of their new Win8 touch systems portrayed the OS well to it's intended audience? (No insult meant to 3 year old kids)