Windows 10 Increases Its Lead as Windows 7 Begins Going Down

[The AchieVer]

Windows 10 Increases Its Lead as Windows 7 Begins Going Down 

The rapidly approaching end of support for Windows 7 is just what Windows 10 needed to become a more widely-adopted operating system, as new data shows Microsoft’s latest OS version is finally improving its market share at a more aggressive pace.

According to numbers provided by NetMarketShare for the month of March, Windows 10 increased its lead to 43.62%, up from no less than 40.30% in February. This means Windows 10 improved its market share by 3.32% in just a single month.

At the same time, Windows 7, which has long been the number one desktop operating system, dropped from 38.41% to 36.52% during the same month. In other words, the gap between Windows 10 and Windows 7 has now reached 7.1%, and it’s very likely to continue increasing in the coming months.The Windows 7 EOLThis new data can only be good news for Microsoft, especially as the company struggles to convince users to give up on Windows 7 and upgrade to Windows 10.

Launched in 2009, Windows 7 is projected to reach the end of support in January 2020, which means no security patches would be shipped after this date. With this milestone approaching fast, Microsoft is trying to make people aware of the risks of running outdated Windows by sending notifications to their devices, a tactic which the company hopes would also boost the adoption of Windows 10.

Despite Windows 8.1 still getting updates as well, Windows 10 is Microsoft’s recommended choice for users looking to upgrade from Windows 7.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is also giving the finishing touches to a new Windows 10 feature update (version 1903 and possibly called April 2019 Update), which itself could help boost the adoption of the operating system worldwide. Windows 10 version 1903 will introduce several significant improvements, including a new light theme on the desktop, Windows Sandbox for running apps in a secure environment, and further Windows Update refinements.

 

 

 

Source

 

[banned]

Micr

osoft is trying to make people aware of the risks of running outdated Windows by sending notifications to their devices

 

I've been seeing such notices just about every time I visit Microsoft's website in the last 5 years. Easy to ignore it.

[steven36]

Windows 10 makes large share gains, while Windows 7 declines significantly

 

 

It took quite some time for Windows 10 to overtake Windows 7, but it finally did it in December 2018, at least according to NetMarketShare’s figures.

 

 

In February however, Windows 10 actually lost share, while Windows 7 gained some, narrowing the gap between the two operating systems once more. In March though, roles were reversed, as Windows 10 made some big gains, and Windows 7 lost a sizable chunk of its share.

 

In the month just gone, NetMarketShare shows Windows 10 going from 40.30 percent to 43.62 percent, a big gain of 3.32 percentage points.

 

In the same timeframe, Windows 7 fell 1.9 percent, to give it 36.51 percent, down from 38.41 percent in February. Overall the aging OS has lost 6.93 percentage points in a year, while Windows 10 has grown by 9.79 percentage points.

 

There is currently a gap of 7.11 percentage points between Windows 10 and Windows 7.

 

Elsewhere, Windows 8.1 declined 0.24 percentage points. It now has 4.13 percent share.

 

Source

[steven36]

@Archanus   what are you confused about it's not rocket science ?  That  soon the masses will be on Windows 10 . I don't give a  ether way i stop using windows  i still have Windows 8.1 on my other partition  and every  time boot into it , i need rest the trial on IDM and get a new NOD32  key  , Windows is a pain and  then I reboot right back in Linux  and stay i may of been in windows 10 minutes in the last 90 days i've not done Windows updates in along time  because i don't use it..  i'm happy using Ubuntu  because i get all my software updates without  having to use cracks or go to shady sites with ads to get them,. you think i care about windows market share i even hardly read  the Windows PC centric news  because i don't have and  time and  Windows don't even interest me !!! What these reports  fail to say that Android Linux is always ahead of  Windows  anymore.

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share

 

Linux won the war against Microsoft  because it's in everything not just Desktop.

[Karlston]

After losing ground to Windows 7 in February, Windows 10 came charging back in March, posting its largest monthly user share gains since August 2015.

pan xiaozhen modified by IDG Comm. / Microsoft (CC0)

Windows 10 made up for lost ground last month, adding the most user share since the OS's first full month of availability four years ago.

 

The large March increase stood in stark contrast to February's odd couple: a decline in Windows 10 share and a corresponding boost to the aged Windows 7.

 

According to California web analytics company Net Applications, Windows 10's share leaped by 3.3 percentage points in March, closing the month at 43.6% of all personal computers and 49.9% of all PCs running Windows. (The second number is always larger than the first because Windows does not power all personal computers; in March, Windows ran 87.5% of the world's machines. All but a tiny fraction of the rest ran macOS, Linux or Chrome OS.)

 

The 3.3 points was the largest one-month gain since August 2015's 4.9 percentage points during the initial explosion of installations caused by Microsoft's free upgrade offer. Windows 10 launched July 31, 2015, and the offer ran a full year.

 

Meanwhile, Windows 7 dropped 1.9 points in March, falling to 36.5% of all PCs and 41.7% of those running Windows. Even the walking-dead Windows XP — officially retired from support five years ago this month — chipped in, shedding 1.1 points, sliding to 2.3% of all PCs and shrinking to an insignificant 2.6% of PCs powered by Windows.

 

The upturn of Windows 10 and downturn of all other editions flipped the world from its February upside-down state, returning it right-side-up so the newest OS grew and older OSes didn't. A month ago, Computerworld pointed out that Net Applications' baffling February data would quickly sort itself out, as it had before. It has.

 

Windows forecasts turn more favorable for Microsoft

The massive increase in Windows 10's user share and the smaller-but-still-significant decrease in Windows 7's made a mess of the predictions Computerworld posted 30 days ago.

 

Our new forecast — based on the operating system's 12-month average movement — puts Windows 10 in the majority spot sometime this month, not in October as said the previous prediction. According to the latest projection, Windows 10 should be at nearly 51% of all Windows by the end of April.

 

Likewise, Windows 7's return to its normal state of decline means that fewer machines should be running the operating system on Jan. 14, 2020, Microsoft's retirement date for the 2009 OS. At the end of January, Windows 7 should be powering around 35% of all Windows PCs, not the 40% that February's forecast asserted from skewed numbers.

 

(Windows 10 should be running 59% of all Windows systems when 7 shuffles to OS assisted living.)

 

Even if Windows 7 runs the smaller number — 35% — of PCs come its retirement party, the OS would have a bigger problem than did Windows XP, which ended support still running about 29% of all Windows personal computers at the time. A few more months posting declines like March's — between 1 and 2 percentage points — would ease the pressure to purge Windows 7 as the deadline looms.

 

There's some hope that will happen: In Windows XP's final 10 months — about the time Windows 7 has left — the OS had five with declines of 1.4 points or larger, and three of 2 points or more. If Windows 7 sees similar drops during its remaining time, it would reach retirement running just under 29% of all Windows systems, almost exactly the same as did XP a half decade ago.

 

Elsewhere in Net Applications' March data, the overall user share of Windows climbed less than one-tenth of a percentage point to 87.5%. MacOS and OS X rose, too, by two-tenths of a point, to 9.9%. Linux's user share stabilized at 2.1% while Google's Chrome OS edged up slightly to 0.4%.

 

Source: Windows by the numbers: Windows 10 posts explosive growth (Computerworld - Gregg Keizer)