Windows 8.1 Finally Passes Windows 8 in Market Share

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Windows 8.1 finally passed Windows 8.0 and it only took seven short months. It’s amazing what a largely free OS can accomplish. :D One factor was noticed in this month’s latest figures was that Windows 7 also showed a growth spurt since the end of support cycle for Windows XP.

It might be hard to get hold of Windows 7 these days, but that hasn’t stopped the OS packing on growth. It went from 49.27 percent in April to 50.06 percent in May -- finally breaking through the 50 percent barrier -- for an increase of 0.79 percent, nearly double that of Windows 8.x.
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The real headline is Windows 7 continues to gain marketshare, while all the Metro based garbage including Windows Phone is stalling.
 
I suspect the 7 spurt was for Enterprise users starting to abandon XP (if they hadn't already for 7) ... since it usually takes companies years to qualify a new OS for their Enterprise environments they are much more likely to shift to 7 than 8
 
kbrickley said:
I suspect the 7 spurt was for Enterprise users starting to abandon XP (if they hadn't already for 7) ... since it usually takes companies years to qualify a new OS for their Enterprise environments they are much more likely to shift to 7 than 8
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This is what happened at my wife's company.. around 10 years of using XP until late last year when she got a new laptop, it had Win7 on it.
 
kbrickley said:
I suspect the 7 spurt was for Enterprise users starting to abandon XP (if they hadn't already for 7) ... since it usually takes companies years to qualify a new OS for their Enterprise environments they are much more likely to shift to 7 than 8
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Anyone that understands the Windows business predicted long before anyone had seen Windows 8 that Windows 7 would probably see growth past the next version of Windows as 7 is something of a long term release and one that many companies spent lots of time and resources on migrating to from XP, with some of the larger migrations taking several years to complete. And those in this group were NEVER going to Windows 8 no matter what. It's odd that many that don't like 8 seem to forgotten that historically businesses are always behind in adoption the adoption of new versions Windows. 7 was something of an exception because of the long period between XP and 7 with Vista being a generally unpopular release.

While Windows 8 will probably be considered a failure by most, it does seem to be taking shape. With the return of the Start Menu rumored to be as early as just a couple of months from now, 8.x will be a very flexible OS, running on cheap tablets and working well as a tablet to powerful desktops work pretty much like Windows 7. The path should have been smoother and quicker but 8.x will do it all. It's biggest weakness will be the relatively small number of tablet apps compared iOS and Android when the Start Menu returns.
 
There's nothing "free" about 8.1...Lol...;) If you don't have a paid-for key (either retail or upgrade from Win7) that you purchased, the so-called "free" update to 8.1 will not be authorized. Kind of like how anyone could download a Win7 service pack free of charge, but if you didn't have a duly authorized (paid for) copy of Win7 it wouldn't be worth the effort...;)

I like 8.1.1x64 really well actually--of course, I don't use the "Metro" GUI because you don't have to, and with a decent (and free) Start Menu (like Classic Shell) that lets you turn off charms and hotspots, it works just fine under the Win7 explorer.exe GUI (which ships with Win8, standard, just like it did with Win7.) It's leaner and meaner than Win7, and I particularly like the OS mounting of ISOs. If you ever wondered just how much of a kludge Daemon tools is, Win8 will illustrate it beautifully...;)

I didn't get Win8 free...but I did have enough sense to buy it direct from Microsoft when they sold it in the beginning for $39.99--the "Pro" version--best version to own, all the bells and whistles. I still have troubling believing that not everyone bought a copy at that price! But, they didn't! Ripley's Believe it or not...;)
 
WaltC said:
I didn't get Win8 free...but I did have enough sense to buy it direct from Microsoft when they sold it in the beginning for $39.99--the "Pro" version--best version to own, all the bells and whistles. I still have troubling believing that not everyone bought a copy at that price! But, they didn't! Ripley's Believe it or not...;)
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$40 is too expensive for an OS when there's stuff like Mint that you can download for free with an office suite.
 
WaltC said:
If you ever wondered just how much of a kludge Daemon tools is, Win8 will illustrate it beautifully...;)
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People still use Daemon tools?
Never did care for it, virtual clonedrive works so much better in my case.

And not to derail, the handful of times I've been forced to use win8 I absolutely hated it. Felt like a step back in all honesty. Not surprised 7's market share is growing faster than 8's
 
CanesVenetici said:
Not surprised 7's market share is growing faster than 8's
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This isn't true over the life of Windows 8.x. Windows 7 has gone up from about 45% to 50% while 8.x has gone from close 0% to nearly 13% since October 2012. When the numbers from August and September come out, you'll see 8.1 spike over 7 when back to school purchases.
 
CanesVenetici said:
People still use Daemon tools?
Never did care for it, virtual clonedrive works so much better in my case.

And not to derail, the handful of times I've been forced to use win8 I absolutely hated it. Felt like a step back in all honesty. Not surprised 7's market share is growing faster than 8's
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I've been using Virtual Clone Drive on Windows for a while now and it's pretty painless. :)

Yeah that is kinda funny that there's a lot of Windows 7 growth still. I think many IT professionals are sort of waiting to see what new leadership does at Microsoft when it comes to the next OS version. The whole thing where Microsoft leadership was telling its development people to ignore the feedback they were getting during 8's public beta and stay the course for their new UI is haunting them now that the tablet fad is starting to wind down and touchscreen enabled devices aren't leaping off shelves.
 
What's more interesting is that the "desktop" Windows 8.x usage share is now larger than all versions of OS X + all versions of Linux (non-Android, since that's considered a mobile OS) + misc Windows versions (all versions of Vista/XP 64-bit/2000/ME/9x/etc) share combined. But Windows 7 increased almost 2 times faster than Windows 8.x share increased. lol

If there's any good news, XP users seem to be moving to Win7 and Win8.x and the Windows market grew a small percent overall.
 
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