Windows 10 market share fell in September Microsoft may have used its Ignite conference to trumpet Windows 10 now running on 400 million devices, but the operating system's market share went backwards in September according to two of three traffic-watchers we track each month. StatCounter Global Stats has Windows 10 at 24.42 per cent desktop OS market share for …
Time for some decisive action, Redmond ...
Those figures appear to be within margins of error, so don't mean a whole lot really. The only thing I would take from them is that Windows 10 adoption appears to have stalled for the moment (probably due to the ending of the free upgrade and a few users now rolling back since the end of July).
As for bigger businesses having still yet to roll out Windows 10, that will depend on how much they can implement their own controls and be confident that MS aren't going to try and retro fit their forced updates onto the Enterprise edition. If I were a bigger business I.T. officer, I'd certainly be wary of Microsoft's retro fitting tendencies and for now I'd stick with Windows 7, or be looking at moving away from MS OSes to platform independent software that can run on anything (i.e., web based applications running from either private servers, or from a 'reliably secure private cloud'*).
*is there such a thing?
Those figures appear to be within margins of error, so don't mean a whole lot really.
Indeed, why El Reg persists in conducting monthly "analysis" of the noise contained in someone's over-precise Excel spreadsheet cells is a mystery. Presumably the near-universal use of teabags now in place of loose leaf tea has killed that particular alternative analysis method, but a bag of chicken bones would probably be equally accurate.
> Indeed, why El Reg persists in conducting monthly "analysis" of the noise contained in someone's over-precise Excel spreadsheet cells is a mystery.
Exactly.
From the article:
> down just .01 per cent from its August share
I would be surprised if the underlying data could justify +/-1 percentage point margins; I expect it is closer to double that.
Any smaller change is statistically meaningless.
RE: "why El Reg persists [...Snip...] is a mystery."
No mystery at all. There is a hardcore of anti microsoft readers that love to gloat over negatives and mock over positives, and those like me who love to giggle at the mockers - so lots of clicks all round and we all know what clicks make...
Its not really a margin of error when each of the different stat trackers all show the same decline, even the Steam monthly stats show a reduction, and an encouraging increase in Linux users.
Windows 10 has had a multitude of bad updates taking out webcams, etc, maybe being a beta tester is the price of "free" that some have had enough of.
>> The acid test is the next few months.
Is it really? Do you honestly believe that the majority of computer users consciously upgrade their OS (if it aint broke and all that). Now that forced upgrades have ended, the majority of new win10 installs from home users will come from new devices. I imagine most businesses planning deployments will be looking at win10, but most will do nothing until end of support of win7 looms in 2020
Microsoft, when you are ripping features and the ability to control out of W10 pro are you surprised by this ? Why do I need an Xbox app on a business machine that keeps reappearing like a dose of herpes.
Silly me, perhaps it's to force me on a cut down SAAS enterprise plan a la Office 365 business, and you thought Larry Ellison was a money grabbing slime ball.
"It takes a company with an IT department and dedicated staff to keep MS in check these days."
Really? most folks just wander through 'settings' telling W10 to bugger off.
Other than the usual crap that home users have -- like finding no uninstall for Macafee, W10 doesn't seem to have been any hassle.
>Really? most folks just wander through 'settings' telling W10 to bugger off.
Really? ..and how long, precisely - so I can rereset them the instant some pseudorandom enforced patch 'accidentally' unresets them again, will M$ remain "buggered off" this time? ..and next time?
re: " enforced patch"
I might have finally cracked it and gotten Win 10 Pro to advise me of updates only (instead of auto updating/auto rebooting outside of the stingy 12-hour 'core hours' MS grace me).
Open the Policy Editor (Start+R, gpedit.msc)
Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update.
The settings I've modified are:
"Configure Automatic Updates" -> Enabled, and change to "3 - Automatic download and notify for install"
"No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations" -> Enabled
There could be more to tinker with,but so far, so successful! Today I got a "You've got some updates" message instead of it installing and rebooting off its own back.
MS should take note, this shouldn't be the way!
Nah. It just takes me. All by myself. My own personal IT dept. And I set up my own machines, and many others, exactly twice with some preventive measures which took all of minutes to set up, and hence forth had no nags, no surreptitious updates that brought problems, nothing. Fully buggered off. If you struggled then you aren't worth your salt.
Here's an upvote for you. Not sure why people downvoted you.
"no nags, no surreptitious updates that brought problems, nothing. Fully buggered off. If you struggled then you aren't worth your salt."
I'm one of those who's (unfortunately) tied to Wi(n)dows 7because of my work flow. As soon as I found out what was up with the malware-style updates, I took defensive measures, never had any problem. Then again, I actually read what shows up on my screen, and think before I click...
"If you struggled then you aren't worth your salt."
You do realise, don't you, that the majority of Microsoft users out there don't know anything about the precautions you know about? Maybe you don't in which case I've got new for you: that's the way it is. They simply bought their PC with Windows on it and are wide open to anything Microsoft chooses to do to them. That's because they just bought the PC to use, not to exercise specialist IT knowledge on.
I do realise that most windows users aren't tech inclined, and I do sympathise with them if they had problems and I helped those I know that did, but I was responding to all the whinging going on here from people who aught to have been able to suppress the WinX nagware and various other sins. I can't help wondering if they are truly reporting what they experienced or if they aren't just reporting what they have read on the internet. Some of the statements are so hyperbolic my credulity is being stressed tested to destruction, and the snarky comments are becoming so lame and stupid my wife thinks I'm having hysterics when I roll around on the floor laughing my proverbial off. Not sure why I'm responding sensibly, I only ever come into these threads for the entertainment value. I get my information elsewhere. Perhaps that's why I haven't had many winX problems on my win7 machines.
Installed Windows 10 to every single computer in my posession using the same blanked SSD each time, first installing Windows 7 SP1 (no updates) then upgrading to Windows 10 1511, and checking it was activated. Then removed SSD and blanked it, replaced existing Windows 7 disk, 'rince and repeat' just so each machine has activated Windows 10, in case sometime in the future, Windows 10 needs to be installed.
So assuming others did the same, plenty of activated Windows 10 installs getting rolled back to Windows 7.
We're also looking at percentages. Perhaps fewer Windows 7 users were not using the tracked sites on the previous report and now are (like business users where people had taken time off over the school holidays)
10 out of 100 is 10%
10 out of 500 is 2%
...
See, the absolute number can stay the same (or even increase) even if the percentage goes down.
> See, the absolute number can stay the same (or even increase) even if the percentage goes down.
Approximately 20 million new PCs are sold every month. Most of these will have Windows 10 pre-installed. A smaller number of old PCs, many with XP or even earlier, will die or be retired or replaced.
Thus the percentage of W10 should increase even if no one 'upgrades' an existing machine.
Whether people taking time off from work causes a decrease in W10 usage or an increase is entirely a matter of speculation, but W10 is likely to be found more often in homes than at work.
"Windows 10 market share fell in September. Not by much and we know mass enterprise adoption is still to come"
Hm. How confident are "we" about this? Yes, I'm aware that the intellectual inertia of most large organisations, coupled with executives' technical gormlessness, lends credence to the belief that the big sluggish lemmings will—ahem—'up'-grade ... but even among corporates, Windows-scepticism seems at an all time high, and it wouldn't be the first time businesses have been very reluctant to move away from a platform that they and their employees are familiar with, which meets their needs and which they have finally learned to maintain. We've even seen organisations resist quite decent Windows upgrades in the past because they couldn't see the point of the expense—so what should they do now, faced with a ¿-grade that appears to be 'down', which their employees won't like, will cost them a fortune and actually leaves them less in control of their on on-prem IT than they've ever been?
I am a Windows sceptic, of course, and no doubt influenced by my long held observation of Microsoft as a basically quite despicable organisation (when you separate what it says from what it does). And I'm not predicting the end of either Windows or MS just yet.
But I think it's reasonable to suggest that many organisations, once they have analysed Win10 and considered what migration will cost and what they might be left lumbered with once it's done—not least their increased dependence and lock-in to Redmond: intentionally manipulated, of course, by MS—will take a very long hard look at alternatives.
The supreme ascendancy of *ix over Windows has been exaggerated and anticipated for far too long, but this time, given the awfulness of Win10 and Microsoft's transparent desperation to kidnap users, you're entitled to wonder: is Win10 the best business case we've ever seen, for mass migration to Linux?
> I am a Windows sceptic, of course, […] given the awfulness of Win10
You start by assuming it is bad. And then it is: what a surprise.
Please do not pretend to perform any analysis where you've already determined the conclusion. (I'll withdraw that if you confirm you're a management consultant when, of course, your job is to confirm said management's choice.)
Windows 10 does not have a massive number of fans and there is no convincing reason to upgrade to it from Win7. Microsoft knows this full well because after failing to persuade everybody over the course of a year with their free upgrade offer they just deliberately rammed it down everybodies throat and made it almost impossible for a normal user to decline the generous offer of their upgrade.
Trust is earned, not given. Microsoft has been withdrawing a lot of trust from their bank, and we have reached the point the bank manager is clucking about the size of the debt in trust exceeding their overdraft agreement.
This manifests itself in the simple fact that people can't trust their systems running on WinX. If Microsoft is going to break every webcam in the world then they could just as easily wipe out our business by breaking software we rely on. "we'll fix it next month" is not good enough if they break something mission critical.
If Microsoft wanted to make everybody happy then they'd just declare that Win7 is now being rebranded "Win Classic for Business" and will have security patches until 2050 for $1 per computer per month.
They'd make more out of doing that than they will make out of WinX and the windows desktop monopoly would be secure for decades. However, Microsoft probably won't do that because they are determined to kill themselves off.
A comment of mine a couple of years ago deals with moving to other OS's, and bugger all has changed since.
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/6/2014/08/19/munich_dumping_linux_for_windows/#c_2275198
" How confident are "we" about this? "
Well... I believe it's M$ intention to keep the Win10 name/brand for a long time, well past the point where we'd have gotten a Brand New Version in the past. Given that whichever actual version of Windows the corporate world will actually switch to in, say, 4-5 years, it will quite likely still be branded as "Windows 10".
So quite confident, actually, as long as you ignore what's actually under the hood.
"Well... I believe it's M$ intention to keep the Win10 name/brand for a long time, well past the point where we'd have gotten a Brand New Version in the past."
Intentions are all very well but reality has a nasty habit of creeping in. When a brand becomes toxic it has to be ditched. If you're doing it right you also fix the underlying problems, of course, otherwise the new brand also becomes toxic.
"If Microsoft wanted to make everybody happy then they'd just declare that Win7 is now being rebranded "Win Classic for Business" and will have security patches until 2050 for $1 per computer per month." - If they did this I just might sign up.
"Please do not pretend to perform any analysis where you've already determined the conclusion"
ok how about MY story then?
a) got into insider program in january 2014 so I could help microsoft correct the problems they CREATED when they created windows "Ape" aka 2D FLUGLY and tile screen.
b) saw what was happening, made LOTS of noise about it (along with MANY others) as part of the insider program AND on the answers.microsoft forum. Was generally IGNORED.
c) watched win-10-nic roll out, hit icebergs, still trying to stay afloat but LAST month took on more water than the pumps could handle. Let's see what happens NEXT...
So yeah, I _GAVE_ _IT_ _A_ _CHANCE_, Microsoft COMPLETELY screwed it up, rolled out a WORSE version of windows than "Ape", and I most definitely _HATE_ it.
I didn't determine the conclusion before my analysis. I honestly wanted micro-shaft to succeed. But they don't listen to customers any more. It's "take what we shove into your orifice" in lieu of "have it your way", on a daily basis. No *WONDER* it declined in September!
Oh, and keep in mind: end of availability of Win 7 Pro is looming over our heads.
...is Win10 the best business case we've ever seen, for mass migration to Linux?
Yes.
At least Win 10 is what finally motivated me to take a serious look at, and migrate to, Linux for my personal use. From other comments I've read on El Reg, it clearly has caused a lot of others to make the same decision. My wife works for the State of California, and they recently forced Win 10 on everyone in her office, and she tells me everyone hates it. She's seen what I'm doing with my computer and wants me to convert her home computer over to Linux.
This is not a scientific sampling by any means, but it seems to me it's pretty obvious which way the wind is blowing, at least among those who understand the issues and are able to accomplish a switch to Linux.
My wife and her team are losing HOURS of productivity EVERY WEEK because of Windows 10 ... so is the IT team, trying to hold back the tide.
They happen to have an AS/400 client and the thing is as buggy as ever since Windows 10, it was already quite bad when they were on 7. Then you have all the ui changes, then you have printer issues ... simple, wife might be leaving soon, cannot stand it anymore ... Yes, they have filed "support requests" ... but MS, as usual, replies: Please contact the vendor of your AS/400 client ... to which I say: good luck with that, mate ... especially since all the systems were upgraded courtesy of MS, merci!
"How confident are "we" about this?"
Intel will be releasing their Kaby Lake processors in the coming months.. Microsoft will only support Windows 10 on that silicon. If you are a business and buy a PC from one of the big players (Lenovo, Dell, HP) it will have a Kaby Lake processor in it soon enough. If you do an annual refresh of your PC's, you're probably going to have to move to Windows 10 (if you want support).
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/01/15/windows-10-embracing-silicon-innovation/#FzD1OFriEbAMCFm5.97
Also, businesses which wish to keep their PC's with a supported Windows OS, have until 14th Jan 2020 to replace all their Win7 devices. We are getting very close to the 3 years to go mark. With businesses now frequently running a 20% annual replacement cycle, they are going to have to start moving soon.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/search?alpha=windows%207
"Also, businesses which wish to keep their PC's with a supported Windows OS, have until 14th Jan 2020 to replace all their Win7 devices."
Given than many businesses have been reluctant to move from XP what makes you think they'll be enthusiastic about moving to 10?
> you're probably going to have to move to Windows 10 (if you want support).
You have that the wrong way around. Kaby Lake processors will run all versions of Windows, Linux, and all other x86-64 OSes just fine. However, these CPUs contain new features. Windows pre-W10 will not be updated to utilise those features, but will be fully supported by MS when running on those processors.
The problems for Linux adoption are inertia and Winbloat only legacy applications with proprietary file formats. Most of the legacy applications will be problematic with 'bloat 10 so it is matter of how much money some are willing to spend
Is this why the "annoying update that just won't die" KB2952664 has suddenly made another appearance? I think it's up to something like revision 24 or 25 now. *rolls eyes*.
https://www.askwoody.com/2016/win-7-8-1-customers-getting-hit-by-the-old-kb-2952664-get-windows-10-telemetry-patch/
Oh, I'm posting this from the last install I have of Windows 7 that is allowed online - and, I have it as a dual boot with Linux Mint. If MS start with more W10 nag and telemetry BS then W7 will be taken offline for good.
I already have a 10 year old HP laptop that runs beautifully and exclusively on Linux Mint 18 (with a SSD as well) and I'm predicting that my main PC (which I'm using now) won't be far behind.
I had my first Windows 10 blue screen of death this morning. Was running ~11 tabs in Firefox, all but one were the same ones I launch every morning. I haven't seen even one of these since back when I was using 7, XP, 2000, 98SE, 95, 3.11, DOS 6.something down to when I first started with DOS 3.3, .... Come to think of it, since I skipped over 8, Vista and ME, this might be my first blue screen of death ever. Interesting.
Meh, it works.
Obviously an oversight on MS's part. But don't worry, the next enforced patch will make sure some part of the hardware is taken out. Might be just a webcam which you might have taped over anyway. or could be a bluetooth device you don't use. Or a fingerprint reader.
Or could be LAN/WiFi.
Or maybe they'll go for something new and knock out the CPU or video card or something. And I have seen 10 brick a machine so it would only run with a certain 1G ram module and then you had to install Win8, get the latest firmware from HP and install that, then the machine would run normally again.
Course, maybe this time they'll not screw the hardware and just take out software. Anything you installed that's not from MS? What about programs you use that are from MS, are they on this month's firing line? You account will be changed from a local to a MS one, with a random password change (without notifying you) just to keep you on your toes. And of course your personal data will be encrypted, then deleted. Because it's not MS data.
Today it's "Just works". Tomorrow you'll say "just fuck off MS". Like so many others.
(really need more sleep!)
I got Windows 10 about 5 months ago (free upgrade from Windows 7 and 8), and I reckon Microsoft have taken one step forwards and 2 steps back with this release. Win10 still has the age old bugs that plagued 7 and 8. But it has accrued new ones. For example, bring up a file open dialog, and use the mouse to click on the pull-down arrow for the "Look in" list (to jump to a different drive or directory). The first time you use it, the drop-down folds back up again, necessitating another click to get it to drop down and stay dropped down! Horrible! And just this morning, I signed into an office PC running Win10, and when I eventually got a desktop, after its "Hi! Getting things ready" shenanigans, the Start button did nothing, no menu, nothing. Win key also did nothing. I had to right-click the Start button to get out! It seems behind every great product is a genius, and when he/she moves on, the product starts to fall to pieces (Apple - Jobs, Microsoft - Gates, Delphi - Hejlsberg).
W3Schools tells a different story. According to them, here are the differences between August and September;
Windows 10 went up from a 26.8% market share to 28%, a difference of 1.2%
Windows 8 went down from 12% to 11.4%, a difference of .6%
Windows 7 went down from 38.1% to 37%, a difference of 1.1%
Windows XP went down from 1.5% to 1.3%, a difference of .2%
Linux went down from 6.3% to 5.8%, a difference of .5%
Mac went up from 9.8% to 10.2%, a difference of .4%
Based on their average share between September and the rest of the year,;
Windows 10 average usage between January and September is 22.48%, up by 5.52%
Windows 8 average usage between January and September is 13.58%, down by (2.18)%
Windows 7 average usage between January and September is 40.74%, down by (3.47)%
Windows XP average usage between January and September is 1.71%, down by (.41)%
Linux average usage between January and September is 5.79%, up by .01%
Mac average usage between January and September is 10.16%, up by .04%
One interesting note to their figures, from January to August, Win NT* showed a market share of 0.1%, but for September showed 0.0%.
*NT includes all Windows Server operating systems (like Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and 2008).
The actual numbers I used may be found at (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp)
A fair number of the "Windows 10 purchases" are actually running Windows 7 Pro, whether preinstalled or re-imaged before use. It would be interesting to know what percentage of machines sold by the likes of Dell are in this category (certainly all the desktop PCs sourced by me for clients.)
Dell doesnt sell you a Win 10 machine and then offer to downgrade it for you. They offer to sell you a machine with an OS installed and it is up to you to choose which OS you want. If Dell are selling more WIndows 7 machines to the public, then it makes no impact to the initial report.
If businesses are buying Windows 10 machines, then that is what they will be getting. Its up to the business to put whatever OS they see fit on there once it comes to issuing their kit out.
So when they are ready to do their Win 10 rollout, they already have the kit out there ready to support the new OS along with the licensing they need.
Dell doesnt sell you a Win 10 machine and then offer to downgrade it for you. They offer to sell you a machine with an OS installed and it is up to you to choose which OS you want.
Not true. Both Dell and Lenovo, to my certain knowledge, are happy sell you a PC with a Windows 10 Pro licence but with Windows 7 Pro actually installed (under downgrade rights). Other vendors probably do the same.
Someone picked the wrong example with Dell here.
As a consumer, Dell only offers certain versions of Windows for it laptops and desktops and none of those are Windows 7.
For professional consumers, they do offer a different OS when you configure their devices and you can get an OS as old as Windows 7 Pro, and you are right, it will come with a Windows 10 license.
The trouble is, most business tend not to worry about the licenses that come with the hardware - they will have some form of volume licensing agreement with someone, or maybe they are part of the MS partnership program.
As a consumer, Dell only offers certain versions of Windows for it laptops and desktops and none of those are Windows 7.
If you buy from Dell "as a consumer" they will try to keep the cost down by offering you Windows 10 Home. The "Home" version of Windows 10 doesn't come with downgrade rights, so you won't then be offered Windows 7 as an alternative.
Even "as a consumer" you can choose to buy a system "for work", and then the Pro OS will be offered with most systems and in most cases the Windows 7 downgrade will be offered where the hardware supports it.
Recently bought new laptop with Win10. I thought:meh give it a go."
After the second hour of setting up the preferences and turning off all the crap that Micro$lop uses to siphons off information , with additional popups, macfee consistently polluting my screen, xbox crap my indifference has turned too pure unadulterated hatred. Once I've finished this certification course I will be taking great pleasure in trashing this travesty of an OS.
why would you not be using Windows 10 Pro, or even Enterprise, for a certification course?
From what you are saying, thats the vanilla version of Windows 10 you have installed there and as far as I know Macafee pop ups are just as annoying, regardless of which version of Windows you installed.
I am putting Windows 7 on our 8 year old home PC. I have just got HDD no 4 for the OS, and it will be triple boot.
Currently starts up into GRUB and a choice of Linux Mint, Windows XP Pro appears.
7 will be added to GRUB.
1) fit all HDD properly (Mint is parked on top of D:)
2) Unplug C: D: Mint
3) Install 7
4) Replug C: D: Mint and do GRUB
5) Move all emails to Thunderbird and use same data location for all 3 boots.
Thank you very much.
For if your software and OS worked properly and did what people want it to, I would not have made so much money out of sorting out your f*** ups.
For a long time, I had toyed with other OS', but when you came out with that monstrosity you called Windows 8, I jumped in wholeheartedly and wiped every one of my (home/office) machines and installed Linux. I now have a fully functional network, which does everything I want it to do. Not what YOU want it to do. The one exception is a Windows 7 virtual, which I use to access web sites which haven't kept up with current technology.
I now never need to reboot any machine, except the W7 virtual. Everything runs as smooth as glass.
My only regret? It's that I didn't jump sooner.
As for the reason that windows 10 is doing well in the home? Simple. Walk into any store selling PCs and laptops and try to find an alternative to W10 installed on them. It's nay on impossible. Microsoft has invidiously infiltrated every manufacturer so that they do not openly offer any alternatives.
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