Windows 7 overtakes XP - finally Windows 7 has, finally, become the world’s most popular desktop operating system. It overtook Windows XP in the first ten days of October with a 40.18 per cent share of the market, according to statistics gathered by Statcounter. At the latest measurement, 38.66 per cent of desktop computers in use online are powered by XP …
Anyone that has the misfortune to do an XP build nowadays can easily expect to wait all day for updates to go through.... starting with an XPSP3 + OIffice 2003SP2 base build can easily download and install 800Mb+++ extra (even WSUS doesn't really help) and on the slower PCs XP tends to run on you're backwarding and forwarding for hours watching all these updates install. Slooooowly. These days I just sling the old tech and get the client nice shiny new W7 stuff, job done in a fraction of the time even after 300mb of post sp1 update stuff.
Windows XP sp3 (KB936929) is ~ 320 MBytes
Windows 7 sp1 64-bit (KB9768932) is 947 MBytes
I tried to download the Win 7 sp1 patch from home, and gave up after three failed attempts, the Microsoft Download servers WILL abort the download somewhere along 400-600 MBytes if you have only 2 MBit/s DSL. Had to download this at work and use an USB stick to carry it home.
This SUCKS, really!
The day I brought home a shiny new Macbook Air, I downloaded something around 1.6GB of updates (wish I'd written the exact figure down).
And no, it was not an OS upgrade, merely updates. On my 8Mbit home ADSL, it stalled "only" twice.
My latest Ubuntu install also did an incredible number of updates, big and small. To be fair, it contained a lot of non-OS software and localization files for Turkish. I have no idea about the total size of the updates. I only remember it took hours, but went without a hitch.
I updated my father in laws MacBook Pro, and my own MacBook Pro recently and it took an age and multiple reboots before it said my software was up to date.
Neither was an OS update (in fact the 1.xGB of mine was immediately after updating the factory Snow Leapard to Lion!)
A very windows experience! Especially the way the time remaining seems to fluctuate (no one told me before I fot the machine that Macs are worse than Windows in time estimation!)
If you use an nLite disc to install XP then you're talking maybe only one minute of actual keyboard-bashing for a system that's configured the way you want from the outset. I don't know of any way to custom-install 7 that works as well or as simply.
As for more licenses sold, I wonder if that includes licences foisted onto new computers whether the buyer wants them or not? If so it may show a very skewed result.
"Is this the same statcounter that gets routinely blackholed in most decent linux hostsfiles?"
Statcounter does not count me. It is blocked in my hosts file and in the APB Tracking filter subscription for Adblock Plus. Such blocking methods are available for Windows users, but I know of none that use them. Linux users are another story. I suspect a large majority use such methods. Who knows, our usage levels could be triple (almost 3%) what Statcounter reports.
while XP is no longer available in the retail channels, it is to commercial customers, particularly big ones with thousands of seats. My uni is still going through testing Win7 against its rats-nest of disparate backend systems (we are still stuck on IE7 for the same back-end-system compatibility reeasons).
It is really frustrating for my department as we are then forced to use old versions of other major software we have purchaced for OS compatibility. We are going to be on Win7 for next year though: either central IT will come through with their promise to fast track our upgrade or we will be pulling out of central management and going back to managing our own systems (since I am the one that would get lumped with the latter job, I am very much hoping for the former!).
The most telling fact from that graph is really nothing to do with the inevitable replacement of XP systems with Windows 7, but rather the fact the Linux has now firmly fallen below "other" leaving it about the most irrelevant platform on the client side imaginable. But next year is the year of the Linux Desktop right?
This year, like the last 12 or so before it, is the year of the Linux desktop as far as my ability to get useful stuff (TM) done on it is concerned.
Most other folk seem content to be unaware that it is the year of their Linux phone, webcam, broadband router, set-top box, TV, Cable/Satelite box, NAS box and most of their web applications. Guess that's why there seem to be more Linux than Windows users these days. But how long before they realise it ?
"...their counts only measure computers that are connected to the internet."
Have you tried using a computer that isn't connected to the internet lately? I recently moved house and had no broadband for a week. I thought I could use the computer to play games or do some word processing for work, but all I got were dialog boxes complaining about needing an internet connection.
I'm one of those new users which Windows gained, having been using linux at home for about 30 months prior to this summer (and Win2k before that). My new laptop had Win7 on, the setup made a dual boot look tricky to install, so I started using Windows again and found it's pretty good. All I really want from an OS is that it lets me get to my applications and files and then shuts up. Win7 does that very well, and the security is much improved too.
It only cost £320 so I doubt Windows costs £130. It's got Excel and Word started (add-supported) editions too. I have Ubuntu on my netbook but needed Windows for my work. The netbook came with a Dell version of Ubuntu and was £200, but considerably smaller and less powerful than the new laptop.
Windows 7 Pro 64bit (Inc:SP1) (OEM) DVD can be purchased for £75.
Got one just a few weeks ago to build a new PC for my sister, new PC actually dual boots with the old XP disk, but it is noticeably slower than W7 due to all the thousands of patches/bodges that are in XP now.
Linux may be free, but it does not run the software most people want in a PC environment.
Microsoft also gained me temporarly when I refreshed my work laptop earlier this year. I decided to give Win7 a fair shot and for a while it was ok... but I just missed certain things that Linux could do.
I was also working in a number of countries in Europe at the time and noticed many of my peers had opted for Fedora or some other flavour on their work lappies and were using a physically partitioned Windows install inside a VM... so after a few months it was back to Ubuntu.
>> One should always note that those stats vary a great deal.
It is true that published webstats vary.
But it is also true those most frequently quoted, Net Applications, W3Schools, and so on, have not been kind to Linux.
The trend lines within these sites for Linux are all pool table flat --- and that is more telling then the percentages. I think.
I'm a mac os x user but I have 7 running on bootcamp and it's nice to see MS go back and properly rebuild the os from the ground up and build it properly. I much prefer it to the copy of XP that I run on the MBP (and like les said the twelve million upgrades!) and certainly better than the abomination and paint it shiny shit coat that was vista! I still prefer os x, but if apple exploded tomorrow, it wouldn't be the horrible walk through hell to switch back that it used to be.
Now if only ms would admit that you can't just chop down an operating (7 starter) and bung it on to low spec machine and hoping it's good enough to run and just write a proper os for netbooks they'd be on to a winner!
i never had a problem with it, i think vista especially bfore the SP fell victim to a bad image, once it got out there that was it, to be fair thats usually been MS problem for years, WP7 is another good example of a media frenzy which, at least to me, was baseless.
One thing for sure with vista is that you need a good system
Should MS not have released it, hmm, No, i think it was important that it did go out there, it soaked up a lot of the flack (some largely bassless) which gave Win7 a clean sheet to play with
Way, way back MS had a small Windows add-on that could turn slow PC's into print servers.
Subsequently, users started using the redoubtable XP as print servers. I know of at least 367 refurbished PC 'dog' computers that exist in rural school settings in VietNam not connected to the InterNet directly.
A program, using discarded computers from Toronto businesses, and declined by game playing youngsters, were refurbished and exported to VietNam and Cambodia rural schools, brought in over 7,300 units and volunteers set them up using XP.
Our company only maintains the 367 units in the Central Highlands.
How many more did Statcounter miss?
Windows 7 is just fixed Vista, much the same way Windows ME was broken 98se.
I like the stability of Win7 over XP and Vista, but I can't stand the changes to the File Explorer and Search. As a person that moves files back and forth all day I can't use Vista or 7's stupid Search Bar or their File Explorer, it hides sub-folder status in the left pane when the focus is over the right, you can't right-click a folder to open a search window, and renaming the extension and clicking outside the file being renamed will select every file between where you clicked and the file, these things make it more for grandma and grandpa and not for people doing real work.
Why can't they just give us a "Tech File Explorer" that looks and behaves like 95,98,98se,ME,2000,NT, and XP, hell I'd settle for a addon that I'd have to download from MS.
Until MS fixes those issues I will be an XP holdout. The only reason I have never switched to Linux was my efficiency with the classic File Explorer, and now that is gone, I guess it's time to upgrade....to Linux.
Any user that creates and move large amount of files around will never find the slow indexing any use. So this was/is the stupidest thing M$ could have done.
I always turn off the indexing completely as it just trashes system performance.
The answer is simple though, just download Agent Ransack (free & available in 32 and 64 bit versions) and it works a treat, plus it actually seems faster than the old XP search.
Guess I'm one of the Flatliners then, I 'have' to use XP at work and there doesn't seem any signs of that changing, though everything we do can be done in Linux just as well, but I'm a Linux user at home, been using Linux exclusivity since 2006 now, so have not seen, let alone used, any Windows OS since XP, not seen Vista or Win 7. I wouldn't class myself as a geek(ette) either, I just borked at paying >£100 for an OS (which I then have to buy extra software for, to protect it, what a total con!) when a free one works perfectly well, secure and safe, just simple economics.
If you browse with the browser inside 'XP Mode' it would be counted as XP. Doing so on the public internet would be insane, though, and it's very obvious if you're using an application that Remote Desktop Application Services is exporting from the VM, as it has the XP look and feel. Sticks out like a sore thumb compared to Windows 7's glass look.
I don't fully agree. I mean; XP isn't down and out yet, support continues to 2014 before its put to a stop (this is assuming that will really happen then).
And during the Vista period there have been numerous of people (even computer illiterate's) who started "downgrading" their new Vista PC to run XP. That phenomenon has also declined when Win7 became the standard for new PC's.
So I think there's more than merely age, although I fully agree about the state of Vista ;-)
I'm also on Win7 and really liking my desktop day in and day out.
I think MS knows all too well how people feel about XP and as such have introduces their "Windows XP mode" with Windows 7 professional and up. Its basically a combination of MS Virtual PC with an ISO image of a base XP professional instalation, but it works /very/ well. One of the things I like best is that I can "publish" programs which get installed on the virtual PC into my own Windows 7 start menu. As such if I want to use a specific XP program right away I can simply start if from my Win7 start menu.
Still, I think MS likes pain. Vista would revolutionize the world, and it did but not in the way MS was hoping for. Windows 7 is on several fronts MUCH better. Now Win8 looms on the horizon; and I can't help think "deja vu!" all over again.
io_uring is getting more capable, and PREEMPT_RT is going mainstream The Register 
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