back to article No, Windows 10 hasn’t beaten Windows 7’s market share. Not for sure, anyway

Web analytics outfit StatCounter last week trumpeted news that Windows 10’s market share overtook Windows 7’s for the first time in January 2018. But other ratings services didn’t find the same result. StatCounter’s assessment of Windows version market share for January 2018 suggested that Windows 10 scored 42.78 per cent of …

  1. gypsythief

    And they were so close...

    I get to use Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB at work, and you know what? It's great. It's fast, it's stable, it has (virtually) no slurp, it has 10 years support; y'know, like Windows versions always did.

    There are no unmanageable [cr]apps to deal with, no frantic 6 month upgrade treadmill, just quite, peaceful computing. So, it gets slapped on everything that comes with any other version of Windows 10, and Just Works.

    I think that if Microsoft had made the standard Windows 10 like they made the LTSB version, they would have had a much more compelling product, that would have done a lot better. As it is, the stats speak for themselves.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And they were so close...

      But.... (there is always at least one isn't there)

      Your company is paying for the [insert description here] of using 'Enterprise LTSB' where as at the moment the rest if us mere mortals (well most of us anyway) got it imposed on us for free. We are the real beta testers of this [insert appropriate description here] OS not you guys.

      I'm sure that a lot of the rest of us would like to get this stability instead we are treated to their whims and when we see a reboot happening we just pray that our system has not been borked by some stupidity on their part.

      One rule for those that Pay and one for those who don't.

      My company is too cheapskate to want to pay for the LTSB so we are getting the 'bog standard corporate edition' plus all manner of controls that even stop us from turning off the camera (I kid you not). As a result most of my team will only use the corporate laptop for emails and filling in timesheets. The rest of the time we'll go back to a Win7 VM on our Macbooks. All of us have taped over the camera's and microphones on our company kit for obvious reasons. Thankfully, it won't be a problem for us much longer as our jobs are going to an indian outsourcer on April 3rd.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And they were so close...

        "My company is too cheapskate to want to pay for the LTSB so we are getting the 'bog standard corporate edition'"

        They are the exact same product license (and cost). And LTSB isn't for standard use - it's for embedded devices, etc. so that's far more likely to be the reason they are not using that option.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And they were so close...

      "I get to use Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB at work"

      You know that's only meant for kiosks and medical devices, etc? And specifically NOT for anything that runs MS Office? And doesn't support Office Pro Plus at all? And leaves you stuck with IE instead of Edge? Sounds like someone didn't bother to do their research properly.

      "It's fast, it's stable"

      But not as fast and stable (or as secure) as the more regularly updated builds like CBB.

      "it has (virtually) no slurp"

      Just like CBB and other enterprise builds.

      "it has 10 years support"

      And only gets feature updates every few years. And requires a full rebuild each time instead of in place updates like CBB.

      1. Adrian 4

        Re: And they were so close...

        "You know that's only meant for kiosks and medical devices, etc? And specifically NOT for anything that runs MS Office?"

        You know that's an advantage in a significant fraction of installations, right ?

        We're not all stuck with running the consumer dross.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: And they were so close...

          "You know that's an advantage in a significant fraction of installations, right ?"

          A fraction being less than a whole 1% in this case presumably.

      2. johnnyblaze

        Re: And they were so close...

        That's exactly why we *are* looking at running the LTSB on the standard desktop. No Edge, Cortana, App Store, data slurping etc by DEFAULT. We don't want feature updates - just security ones. We want a stable, reliable platform to run Win32 apps, just like Win7 does. I don't care you have to do a complete rebuild to update - that's fine with me.

        If MS had actually asked enterprises what they wanted - they'd have said Win7 v2, not 8 or 10. Win10 (Pro) is a nightmare to manage as things just keep changing all the time. Who needs feature updates in the workplace? People do the same jobs day in day out. It's all just crap. Win10 is a clusterf*ck, but we don't have a choice.

        1. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Unhappy

          Re: And they were so close...

          "If MS had actually asked enterprises what they wanted"

          If MS had actually asked *EVERYONE* what they wanted (that's not a 4-incher, aka someone who sees the world through a 4 inch screen) we'd have had Win 7 v2. WIndows 7 was the _LAST_ time Micro-shaft listened to customers and responded appropriately.

          But Micro-shaft is currently in self-shoot-in-foot mode, and won't listen to customers any more. Expect more of same, subscription level, and [from what I heard 3rd hand] ABANDONMENT of the WIN32 API by 2022.

          "Developers Developers Developers Developers" - whatever happened to THAT?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: And they were so close...

            Microsoft Corp. has the luck that Apple Corp. has the same kind of idiot at its helm.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: And they were so close...

          "That's exactly why we *are* looking at running the LTSB on the standard desktop. No Edge, Cortana, App Store, data slurping etc by DEFAULT."

          You get only IE instead of Edge - significantly less secure. And data slurping is the exact same. App store and Cortana can easily be turned off if you don't want them.

          "We don't want feature updates - just security ones"

          But you DON'T get the security feature updates with the LTSB. Which have been quite significant so far.

          "I don't care you have to do a complete rebuild to update - that's fine with me."

          But is pointless effort and cost - and it causes support issues - for instance no option to run Office Pro Plus - which is a common requirement in most enterprises that are not fully O365. And you have to use an insecure spyware by design browser like Chrome if you want anything to actually work. And you cant make sites that require IE automatically select it like you can in Edge. The list of problems with such an inappropriate build choice is significant...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: And they were so close...

            " And you have to use an insecure spyware by design browser like Chrome if you want anything to actually work. "

            Chrome is far more secure than Edge let alone IE, plus the slurp can be disabled via GPO.

          2. Sandtitz Silver badge
            Facepalm

            Re: And they were so close... @AC

            "You get only IE instead of Edge - significantly less secure."

            How is it less secure? According to CVE Details, IE had "only" 79 vulns last year, whereas Edge has 202 vulns and for comparison Chrome had 153 vulns.

            In any case, lack of Edge doesn't mean IE only since there are several other browsers available, Chrome and Firefox come to mind. IE can be locked down pretty well through GPOs.

            "And data slurping is the exact same"

            Wrong. The telemetry shit can be tuned down (but not off) as in the normal Enterprise versions.

            "But you DON'T get the security feature updates with the LTSB."

            "Security feature updates"? LTSB versions, release every now and then, will all get 10 years of security updates from the release dates. For example, the 1607 LTSB version ("anniversary update") will get security updates for about 8,5 years as of now, but whatever fancy things MS has concocted in later versions won't be backported to it.

            for instance no option to run Office Pro Plus - which is a common requirement in most enterprises that are not fully O365."

            The recent Reg article referred to the MS article which specifically states that the upcoming Office 2019 will run on LTSC 2018 version. Office 2016 Professional Plus has feature parity with 365 Proplus.

            "And you cant make sites that require IE automatically select it like you can in Edge. The list of problems with such an inappropriate build choice is significant..."

            Many choices have pros and cons. Lack of Edge is either a pro or con for some.

          3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: And they were so close...

            "And you cant make sites that require IE automatically select it like you can in Edge."

            Are you seriously suggesting that even considering using sites that require IE shouldn't be a sacking offence?

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: And they were so close...

            Why would I WANT Office.latest? What, exactly, that I care about is Office.latest doing for me that Office 2010 or even 2003 doesn't do? Why do I WANT the latest "features" that Microsoft is forcing into Windows 10? What's the benefit and value to me?

            XBOX GAMES HALF OFF, BUY THE XBOX SUPERPASS, ONLY TWO VIRGIN SOULS!

            I know why the NSA want me on this bullshit consumer Windows 10 splurping fucktocracy of a treadmill, but I don't understand what benefit it is to me. More to the point, I don't see how any of the so-called benefits are worth giving up full control of my operating system, privacy or sanity?

            CLICK HERE TO HATE SKYPE MORE NOW

      3. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: And they were so close...

        "And only gets feature updates every few years"

        that's a BAD thing? I have "opt'ed out" of "feature updates" for quite some time... by sticking with 7 (and before that, XP).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: And they were so close...

          Oh. If those idiots at Microshaft just made a bloody Aero-capable Windows 7-theme for Windows 10 (and a classic grey one) and just kept the classic control panel complete (until the new settings thingy was FULLY operational) then they'd win the hearts of millions.... instantly!

          Especially since there's a theme-engine build into win10.

          But now we're stuck with a UI where some people can't distinguish the buttons from window-decorations. Can the idiot who designed this fugly crap please follow some classes in ergonomics! PLEASE!

          1. JohnFen

            Re: And they were so close...

            "then they'd win the hearts of millions.... instantly!"

            I doubt it -- they probably already have the vast majority of hearts they can win. But I think that they might make people hate using Windows a little bit less.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And they were so close...

      >>I get to use Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB at work

      And you will have to rebuild them all to the 2018 version of the LTSB to for instance be able to use Office 2019. No in place updates for you!

      1. OldCrow

        Re: And they were so close...

        Well now. Seeing as the alternative, the current state of things, is that Windows 10 "Bog Standard" regularly loses sound playback and/or recording ability, as a result of a "background" driver update. Regularly, yet unpredictably...

        I, for one, would much prefer a yearly full installation of the latest build, if it keeps the sound going when we have a 200+ person audience.

        1. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Flame

          Re: And they were so close...

          "Windows 10 'Bog Standard' regularly loses sound playback and/or recording ability, as a result of a 'background' driver update"

          This makes it NOT a candidate for doing things with media production software like Cakewalk (also making a compelling case for getting a Mac for that kind of stuff).

          /me points out that while doing music-production-related things on XP or 7, I would always make sure that windows update was tuned off. Of course _NOW_ it's ALWAYS off, but that's for different reasons...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: And they were so close...

            >>Windows 10 'Bog Standard' regularly loses sound playback and/or recording ability, as a result of a 'background' driver update

            I have never seen such an issue and I have worked on many dozens of different hardware types with Windows 10. Probably you have faulty hardware. Or an outdated driver.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "No in place updates for you!"

        Really, who trust in-place updates? You still have all the crud accumulated here and there. If the file system has been upgraded, you would need to re-format the disk anyway. And if you align moving to a new releases with upgrading to new hardware as well, or even replacing the disk(s) with new ones, a fresh install from scratch is not only a non-issue, is also welcome.

        1. WolfFan Silver badge

          Re: "No in place updates for you!"

          If the file system has been upgraded, you would need to re-format the disk anyway.

          Not necessarily. Apple has form in changing the file system from under users without having to do a reformat. Back when they moved from HFS to HFS+, no format was required. They are currently moving from HFS+ to APFS, and again no format is required. MS can move from FAT to NTFS without formatting. I have no idea whether it's possible to go from NTFS to ReFS without a format. If I were running things at MS, I'd certainly try to get that done without a format if it were at all possible. Then again, if I were running things at MS there would be a lot of things done is radically different ways.

          1. Richard Plinston

            Re: "No in place updates for you!"

            > MS can move from FAT to NTFS without formatting

            There is a conversion process which rewrites the drive to NTFS without needing to reformat. This is a one-way process, it cannot be reverted and it cannot be done on a partition that is in use. A 'format' will write the sectors and interblock gaps onto a bare disk, the conversion will move stuff around on the existing sectors to get the new layout.

            > I have no idea whether it's possible to go from NTFS to ReFS without a format.

            There seems to be no conversion process to get ReFS, it needs a reformat.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "No in place updates for you!"

          "Really, who trust in-place updates? You still have all the crud accumulated here and there."

          No you don't - all previous crud is nicely moved to a "Windows.old" folder.

          "If the file system has been upgraded, you would need to re-format the disk anyway"

          Not with Windows you don't - it updates on the fly.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "all previous crud is nicely moved to a "Windows.old" "

            No. The Windows directory only. Whatever you have in the registry, program files, and users folder will be still the same.

            If the on-disk structure of the file system changes, it won't be upgraded. In the past, NTFS had several version, and the only way to get the new version was to reformat. Feel free to check, if you don't believe me. Magic changes don't exist in IT.

          2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: "No in place updates for you!"

            "Not with Windows you don't - it updates on the fly."

            You wrote that as if it were a good thing. A lot of users seem to disagree.

    4. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: And they were so close...

      " they would have had a much more compelling product"

      it's a fair bet that Micro-shaft *NEVER* wanted to give you the features you highlighted in your post, even for the "you paid through the nose for it" Enterprise aka 'executive' aka 'First class seating' version.

      In other words, paying extra to NOT be tracked/advertised-to/force-upgraded

      OK so the Enterprise LTSB version has lipstick on the OINKY end, then. And maybe a string of pearls to go with it. But it's still A PIG. Oink. And it has the 2D FLATSO interface, and "The Metro"-ness, and UWP-ness. Right?

    5. JohnFen

      Re: And they were so close...

      "it has (virtually) no slurp"

      Whenever you see the word "virtually", remember that it means "not really".

      1. quxinot

        Re: And they were so close...

        "Whenever you see the word "virtually", remember that it means "not really"."

        Thank you.

        When that statement can be written as "none -- verifiably" then we'll start talking about making the UI and update process something usable.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doesn't statistics also prove that the average person has one testicle?

    1. James 51
      Boffin

      And 2.4 kids.

      1. James O'Shea

        "And 2.4 kids."

        You keep goats in the house?!

      2. Naselus

        "And 2.4 kids."

        It's quite hard to add up how many you have without removing them from the freezer and trying to put them back together, tbh.

      3. Martin an gof Silver badge

        And 2.4 kids

        Actually, it's somewhere around 1.8 per woman these days.

        Yup, I was surprised too :-)

        M.

        1. katrinab Silver badge

          The average woman will give birth to 1.8 children at some point. Some have not yet done so, so the average number of children women actually have is less than that.

          1. MyffyW Silver badge

            It is the one statistic that is universal - 50% of men and women are below average.

            1. Roj Blake Silver badge

              Re: 50% of men and women are below average.

              Not always. Less than 1% of people have a below average number of legs.

              1. MJI Silver badge

                Re: 50% of men and women are below average. Legs

                I can tell you never watch "The Last Leg"

            2. Richard Plinston

              Re: 50% of men and women are below average.

              You are confusing 'median' and 'average'.

              Example: 9 men have an IQ of 99, one has an IQ of 109. The average is 100. 90% are below average.

    2. James O'Shea
      Coat

      lies, damn lies, and...

      "Doesn't statistics also prove that the average person has one testicle?"

      Slightly less than one, actually. And slightly more than one chesticle.

      [looks up, sees that SWMBO has a sharp implement in her hands, runs away really fast]

  3. Christian Berger

    One should add to the graph...

    ... that it shows the fractions of "Desktop Windows users which do not have an ad-blocker". Their service is based on access logs of ad servers, so they are heavily biased towards novice users who do not know how to operate an ad- or javascript-blocker.

    1. Naselus

      Re: One should add to the graph...

      Also known as "heavily biased toward about 98% of the actual market". Adblock is very popular, and still probably only has about 5-10% potential market penetration. Most users are not tech savvy and don't really mind looking at the internet through a blur of massed advertizing.

      I was on an adblock-free PC the other day and actually didn't recognize one of the websites I regularly visit.

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: One should add to the graph...

        Most users are not tech savvy and don't really mind know there is an alternative to looking at the internet through a blur of massed advertizing.

        Fixed that for you.

        1. Naselus

          Re: One should add to the graph...

          "Fixed that for you."

          No, I think my way was better. Try it. Inform one of them that they don't have to look at the web through a mess of ads, and tell them about Adblocker.

          But don't install it for them. Let them install it themselves. They won't; if it actually involves looking for and installing something themselves then they decide that they 'don't mind the ads'.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: One should add to the graph...

            "They won't; if it actually involves looking for and installing something themselves then they decide that they 'don't mind the ads' 'think computer is too hard'."

            FTFTFY

      2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        Re: One should add to the graph...

        I should point out that ad block penetration has surpassed 30% already.

  4. MJI Silver badge

    I helped 7

    Just migrated to it this weekend, still have to sort printer scanner and my MSDOS stuff.

  5. FF22

    StatCounter = irrelevant, amateurish

    StatCounter

    1. doesn't count unique users - let alone installations -, but page views

    2. their statistics are not representative.

    Because of that, their numbers are practically irrelevant and non-indicative, when it comes to market share of operating systems, browsers, etc. The fact they don't even know that, makes just it obvious how amateurish they are and operate.

    1. Christian Berger

      Re: StatCounter = irrelevant, amateurish

      Yes, the best example was that weird >50% share of Windows on the Internet which everybody knew was obviously fake.

      Back in about 2014 or so I did conduct some research of my own on a camping holiday. Of about 100 laptop I've seen, about 80 were running Linux (usually Thinkpads), 18 or were Macs (usually with stickers on them indicating they were paid by the employer, and about 2 ran Windows.

      1. Alister

        Re: StatCounter = irrelevant, amateurish

        I assume this was a camping holiday organised by the Linux Users Group?

        In any normal grouping of users an 80% share of laptops running Linux would be very unlikely indeed.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: StatCounter = irrelevant, amateurish

          There was him, Cooper, Hofstadter, Wolowitz, Koothrappali....

      2. inmypjs Silver badge

        Re: StatCounter = irrelevant, amateurish

        "Of about 100 laptop I've seen, about 80 were running Linux"

        So where was this Camp Nerd place?

    2. Richard Plinston

      Re: StatCounter = irrelevant, amateurish

      > 1. doesn't count unique users - let alone installations -, but page views

      It identifies individual machines and may differentiate multiple logins on that machine. That is because it works by downloading Javascript from sites and this then communicates directly with Statcounter. The Javascript stores unique identifying information which is reused with later contact.

      https://statcounter.com/how-it-works/

      > 2. their statistics are not representative.

      Quite right. The sites that are recorded be Statcounter are self-selected. They must register with them and add the Javascript to their pages. It may be, for example, that sites of interest to Windows users may be more likely to use Statcounter, or similar, while sites mostly visited by Linux users do not. This would skew the stats. Also, there are many blockers. My machines will not be in any of those stats at all.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: StatCounter = irrelevant, amateurish

        "This would skew the stats."

        It will also skew the stats against people who don't download and run random bits of Javascript. In fact use the things which will skew the stats about users showing up on Statcounter will be expected to show some correlation with use of blocking the enforced W7 > W10 downgrade.

      2. FF22

        Re: StatCounter = irrelevant, amateurish

        "It identifies individual machines and may differentiate multiple logins "

        It does not. It counts page views. http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#page-views-uniques

        1. Richard Plinston

          Re: StatCounter = irrelevant, amateurish

          > It does not. It counts page views. http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#page-views-uniques

          Yes, the statistics are based on page views, but the mechanism does identify individual machines and individual visitors.

          """When a visitor visits your webpage with the installed HTML and Javascript code, their anonymous details are sent to StatCounter to be recorded. Their details are gathered either from the counter the visitor loads from StatCounter, or an invisible image depending on your settings."""

          http://statcounter.com/how-it-works/

          """Thanks to web trackers and their use of a random javascript number - your counter is forced to load each time and your visitor is tracked."""

          http://statcounter.com/free-invisible-web-tracker/

          The Javascript has a 'random javascript number' which is sent to Statcounter with the other details. Where there are multiple machines behind a gateway all the machines would have the same IP address (that of the gateway) recorded in the site server's web logs. There may be no way of differentiating several machines with the same OS in the logs. The 'random number' identifies these different machines.

  6. Nik 2

    MS is not the one to worry here

    The people who are really shown up here are not Microsoft, but the hardware manufacturers. Every one of those Win7 machines is a sale they haven't made.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: MS is not the one to worry here

      >Every one of those Win7 machines is a sale they haven't made.

      Not necessarily, with care you can still purchase new PC's complete with Win10 COA and install Win7, if you have the relevant licences.

      The laugh is that most of the businesses doing this are on some form of volume licensing and so are paying Microsoft an annual subscription/licence fee, regardless of which version of Windows they install.

      So really whilst some in MS have heartache about Win10 market share compared to Win7, the accounts department don't really care, its still revenue.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: MS is not the one to worry here

        For business, you can also buy a PC without an OS license.

        1. Richard Plinston

          Re: MS is not the one to worry here

          > For business, you can also buy a PC without an OS license.

          Anyone can buy a computer without an OS licence. The problem is that OEMs and retailers are contracted, by MS or via OEMs, to not sell a PC without an OS (except where a buyer already has site licences).

          It is necessary to find electronics and computer parts businesses that will supply and assemble bare machines.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "to not sell a PC without an OS"

            That practice was quashed long ago. MS did in the 1990s, it can't do it now without facing antitrust issues, especially in EU. It's 2018, update your sources - things change, in 25 years.

            You don't need at all to show you have a site license to buy machines without an OS, nor you need to buy parts.

            For consumer models, most OEMs do include a preinstalled Windows - because that's what most customers want. Very few buy separated licenses, and very few ask for Linux. Just look at how many Linux machines those stats return. A few percent don't justify the hassle of selling separate licenses.

            For business models, you can select what OS option you want. Forget to buy them at your local electronics supermarket, they'll sell you only machines with Windows preinstalled, because that's what they asked for.

            1. quxinot
              Pint

              Re: "to not sell a PC without an OS"

              "That practice was quashed long ago. MS did in the 1990s, it can't do it now without facing antitrust issues, especially in EU. It's 2018, update your sources - things change, in 25 years."

              I do not quibble with your statement.

              But I'm aghast at you pointing out that 1993 was 25 years ago. When did I get so old?

              I need a beer. Or ten.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: MS is not the one to worry here

            I bought an Asus without any OS. It was significantly cheaper.

          3. CompUser

            Re: MS is not the one to worry here

            "It is necessary to find electronics and computer parts businesses that will supply and assemble bare machines."

            Computer businesses will have several systems per-assembled and ready for sale that can be easily varied on request.

            Been buying systems without OS's for may years, never been the slightest problem buying them and much cheaper. They also come with OEM Windows on request because the computer business makes the systems (out of parts).

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: MS is not the one to worry here

          "For business, you can also buy a PC without an OS license."

          And not just for business. In the UK PC Specialist will sell PCs without OS to anyone.

          1. JohnFen

            Re: MS is not the one to worry here

            Such PCs are readily available in the US as well.

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: MS is not the one to worry here

      " Every one of those Win7 machines is a sale they haven't made."

      Wait until they figure out that Micro-shaft (via Win-10-nic) is the one killing their sales figures...

      it was obvious when win 7 machines sat next to win 8 machines in stores, and the win 7 machines outsold the win 8 machines by (as I recall) better than 2:1.

      But you can't bitch-slap Micro-shaft with "obvious" and get them to accept it. They're too busy being arrogant and telling the customers what they're gonna accept. And self-shooting their own feet.

    3. emullinsabq
      Linux

      Re: MS is not the one to worry here

      Every one of those Win7 machines is a sale they haven't made.

      Whose fault is that? You have to sell what people want if you want to make money. For some reason, they are afraid to demand anything of MS. Why? What difference does it make if MS charges you more for licenses nobody wants? I'm sure Newegg would tell you Win10 is unhealthy for its business. So quit asking "how high" when MS says jump.

      This is why there is still innovation in phones. People want off the wintel train. Neither MS nor Intel seem interested in giving people what they want, thus other markets are forming. You can spray perfume on a pile of dung. Some people will not notice it for what it is, but two things happen: 1) nothing. the underlying problem remains unaddressed, 2) people quit paying attention to your freshly sprayed wares because they now know your MO.

      1. earl grey
        Mushroom

        Re: MS is not the one to worry here

        "they are afraid to demand anything of MS. Why?"

        Because they don't want to get bent over the barrel like IBM did back in the early days.

    4. JohnFen

      Re: MS is not the one to worry here

      " Every one of those Win7 machines is a sale they haven't made."

      That's certainly not true. I know a lot of people who've purchased new machines over the past year or so, and about half of them immediately removed Win 10 and put Win 7 on them.

  7. David Lawton

    My favourite stat is that if you use netmarketshare and filter it to just desktop class OS for January 2018 , MacOS has 9.95%, so 1 in 10 desktops/laptops web browsing are now a Mac, not bad considering Apple do not sell cheap end hardware.

    More interesting if you look at ALL operating systems used to access the web, Windows had 61% back in May 2016, in less than 2 years that has now dropped 1/3 to 39%. Windows is nose diving and mobile based OS's are now the first device people use. Just how low will Windows usage go?

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      IOW as many people are going Windows 7 -> mobile or another OS as are going to Windows 10.

      No wonder Microsoft has released a version of "Edge" for Android…

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yeah but that's like saying people aren't driving their cars as much anymore because there's an increase of trucks on the road.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Yeah but that's like saying people aren't driving their cars as much anymore because there's an increase of trucks on the road.

        Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who would say people are driving their cars less and believe it.

        We are seeing this in the UK Brexit debate; the headline percentage of UK exports to the EU has gone down, hence people jumping up and down about how our exports to the EU are declining, yet fail to observe the real reason is due to the UK exporting more to the rest-of-the-world (ie. an increase of trucks on the road). Hence they believe the UK doesn't need a trade agreement with the EU...

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          "the headline percentage of UK exports to the EU has gone down"

          The main nonsense in this is that the UK doesn't export to the EU. The EU is part of the home market. It's a hell of a chunk of the home market to be losing and the Home Sec of Downing St has just said that that's what's going to happen. Of course as soon as she needs to placate the other wing of her party or Ireland she'll say something else.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > 1 in 10 desktops/laptops web browsing are now a Mac

      That sounds about right. Apple are now the world's 4th largest PC maker with a share of about 7.6% of new sales.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Apple are now the world's 4th largest PC maker"

        That's the average percentage Apple always had in the desktop market for many years. Something less in the dark years, something more in the best years.

        Linux made only a little dent in desktop systems, which are those who matters in these statistics (of course the server market is a very different one).

        Consolidation in the upper part of the desktop brands, and still some fragmentation in the lower part (mostly consumer/gamer systems) also makes Apple appear higher in the list.

        Windows 10 could actually improve Apple market share as some Windows users are pushed towards macOS when the same applications are available without Nadella's new clothes (and unknown future nasty surprises) - especially if Cook awakes and deliver some better models, the real issue being the limited hardware choices.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "Apple are now the world's 4th largest PC maker"

          Consolidation in the upper part of the desktop brands, and still some fragmentation in the lower part (mostly consumer/gamer systems) also makes Apple appear higher in the list.

          And possibly the more expensive Apple gear has a longer service life than landfill PCs and laptops.

    4. herman

      On my own web site, Windows is about 40%, Mac about 10% and about 50% is Linux, meaning that UNIX-ish is at 60% share, which is 50% more than the Windows 40%.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "On my own web site"

        That's why you need a significant number of different web sites.

  8. CJatCTi
    Big Brother

    What about next year

    I under a year Windows 7 will have joined XP as unsupported.

    With the end of XP there was a reasonable alternative, so what is going to happen over this year?

    1. Tony J Smith

      Re: What about next year

      You actually have just under two years left for Windows 7 support; extended ends on January 14, 2020.

    2. dhawkshaw
      Happy

      Re: What about next year

      hhmm. Windows 7 is in extended support until Jan 14 2020. So still some life in the old dog yet.

    3. MJI Silver badge

      Re: What about next year

      Just moved off XP and on hardware too old for 10

      Stay on 7 or go Linux

      XP was pretty fast on a quad core with 4GB.

      7 is average.

    4. Richard Plinston

      Re: What about next year

      > I under a year Windows 7 will have joined XP as unsupported.

      That doesn't mean that it stops working.

    5. JohnFen

      Re: What about next year

      "so what is going to happen over this year?"

      There will be a huge percentage of people using Windows 7.

  9. ForthIsNotDead

    So...

    not even giving their new shiny OS away for FREE is enough to beat Windows 7.

    To be fair, there is probably a lot of inertia to overcome with businesses. I was in my branch of Halifax at the weekend, and was surprised to see them using Windows 7. I was even more surprised to see them running what looked very suspiciously like Win 3.x apps on it, too. If it ain't broke...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So...

      "I was even more surprised to see them running what looked very suspiciously like Win 3.x apps on it, too."

      Some companies still use Lotus Notes.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So...

        "Some companies still use Lotus Notes."

        Like IBM? Probably explains the 24 straight quarters of declining sales. That and trying to ignore Microsoft and promote Linux!

        Even HSBC are migrating off Notes these days

        1. Richard Plinston

          Re: So...

          > Like IBM? Probably explains the 24 straight quarters of declining sales. That and trying to ignore Microsoft and promote Linux!

          Typical RICHTO/TheVogon/AC flawed post. The last 12 quarters have shown _increasing_ sales.

          1. Alistair
            Windows

            Re: So...

            Sadly, sales figures mean nothing to the wall street types any more Richard.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 3.1?

      It's all COBAL in a java wrapper under the hood... probably.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So...

      Not just gave away, "RAMMED down people throats", is a more accurate description; or "Snuck in late at night and infected your PC with it".

      Then did their best to bugger up the PC of anyone who resisted by giving out duff updates full of spyware.

  10. davidp231

    Also, how many of those user-agent strings have been fudged? It doesn't take much to tell a website you're running Vista, when you're in say, a Solaris session.

    1. wangi

      That's right. 50% of the folk at home are running Solaris, but go out of their way to spoof it as Vista. Just for LOLZ like.

      1. davidp231

        I wonder which would be worse... spoofing Vista to show 10, or spoofing 10 to show Vista...

    2. Richard Plinston

      > Also, how many of those user-agent strings have been fudged?

      That is not how Statcounter works.

  11. Tigra 07

    Poor figures, but better than Android (unfortunately).

    Sincerely: an Android user/enthusiast

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    New kit = Windows 10

    My own 4,000 seat shoppe is going WIndows 10 Build 1709 over Easter, a trading partner with 15,000 seats will go Windows 10 by the summer. Both linked to laptop h/w refreshes as Windows 7 machines are going EOL.

    1. JohnFen

      Re: New kit = Windows 10

      My condolences.

  13. mgbrown

    I wish they would give figures rather than percentages

    It is never clear from these charts whether total Windows usage has stayed the same with people switching to the new version or whether there are a load of new Windows users and the number of Windows 7 users has stayed the same. It is likely to be a bit of both but without actual figures it is hard to tell.

    1. Naselus

      Re: I wish they would give figures rather than percentages

      It's mostly going to be new machines rolled out in business hardware refreshes, tbh.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I wish they would give figures rather than percentages

      It is never clear from these charts whether total Windows usage has stayed the same with people switching to the new version or whether there are a load of new Windows users and the number of Windows 7 users has stayed the same. It is likely to be a bit of both but without actual figures it is hard to tell.

      Pretty much this. There's a also other possibility like rather than Windows 7 users are moving to Windows 10, they are moving to mobile OS.

      Take a look at this statistic. 2018-01-28: 26.5% Android, 20.3% iOS, 15.3% Windows 7, 15.7% Windows 10. This is from 2017-01-29: 23.2% Android, 19.2% iOS, 18.9% Windows 7, 14.0% Windows 10.

      If we compare only Windows 7 and Windows 10, it will look as if Windows 10 will overtake Windows 7. But if you looked at the mobile OS trend, you'll notice a loophole. What happen when all Windows 7 users just left the Windows OS environment for mobile OS? Then there will be 100% Windows 10 market share when in fact Windows 10 market share didn't really change.

      Actual numbers here would tell the bigger story, instead of us making random assumption.

  14. Dazed and Confused

    Numbers of seats or total uptime

    It will take a huge number of seats advantage for W10 to counter act the uptime advantages of W7. When you switch your laptop on and W10 decides that it won't talk to any USB devices today or your main external monitor it's not easy to show up on any usage logs on a website. If it were just 1 PC showing these sorts of traits I'd assume it was just a one off issue, but this is spread over the majority of the PCs you come across it tends to point to it being a more general issue.

    No doubt I'll get massive numbers of down votes from the MS shills who always down vote anyone who dares to suffer less than perfect behaviour from W10. I'm really happy for them that their experience is perfect. I'm just yet to meet anyone in person who doesn't suffer from random "this bit won't work today" issues.

    1. DJO Silver badge

      Re: Numbers of seats or total uptime

      I'm just yet to meet anyone in person who doesn't suffer from random "this bit won't work today" issues.

      No everything works perfectly here k'l; ';jksdfk#V BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB DFDLKSHDHDJ...../////////////////////////////////ZZZZZZqwqwqwqwqwqwqwqw.o.

      Damn it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "No everything works perfectly here k'l; ';jksdfk#V"

        Looks it happened to you what Windows 10 made us yesterday. My sister was printing some invoices when after the first page Windows 10 decided the printer was offline and there was no way to make it believe it was online. The printer management web site was accessible without issues, and pings reached the printer as well.

        It looked it had unselected the associated TCP/IP port on its own. When I selected it again, the dialog went in the "not responding" state. Tea was ready, so we had a break. When we returned the bastard printed that kind of s**t on about fifty or more sheets of paper, instead of the proper docs in the queue.

        From my Windows 7 PC I never had an issue printing on the same printer....

        1. Dazed and Confused

          Re: "No everything works perfectly here k'l; ';jksdfk#V"

          Bu**er, I forget the printer problems in my tirade. Why is it the print spooler can't find something on the network when the web-browser can with exactly the same name.

  15. Lion

    Far from reality

    Neither Netmarketshare or Statcounter can produce reliable or accurate results. The world wide usage numbers are dubious for several reasons. Stat companies have limited reach and at times they have no access in some countries, they can not access intranet usage, offline systems and they do not scan all networks . It is far from reality. Apple, Linux, Microsoft and Google Android do not issue market share statistics. OEMs release sales info (by device).

    Microsoft has a website; developer.microsoft (apps and data trends) that releases stats based on user telemetry data. Interestingly, they have not released a report for the period, Feb 2017-2018. When Microsoft sponsor a convention or have a shareholders meeting, they reference the number of devices with an OS on board (includes everything from refrigerators to Xbox to desktops and systems on shelves not yet sold). Big numbers impress fanboys.

    As consumers we know about product life cycles. We know that upgrading is 'advised' for support reasons. It is not as if the client/user is driving the demand. The manufacturers control both the availability of the hardware and software and it is usually predictable as to what is going to happen. There are occasional blips that shift time lines or upset expectations, These being mass freebie offerings, products that do not inspire or products that are later discovered to have major design faults.

    Market share percentages do not represent satisfaction or dissatisfaction, it merely represents a product in use. I can love or hate the OS my employer provides me with. The vast number of OSs installed/used are in enterprises and governments. I think that is around 80% for Microsoft OSs.

  16. cutterman

    Win10/1709

    Windows 10/1709 runs just fine on on a Ryzen5 with 16GB and an M.2 SDD.

    Classic Shell and Winaero Tweaker restore at least some sanity to the ugly 2D UI and you can switch all the telemetry off with a bit of 'nous. Backup is unbelievably crap so I use a good 3rd party solution. Never had trouble with updates and if I do I can just reimage it all. System Restore doesn't (and never has IME). Edge is boring and I'm a longterm Opera fan. Configure the FW properly, and there's nothing like a good HOSTS file for keeping you safe & crap-free.

    Much more stable than Win7, and nearly as stable as High Sierra on the Mac or the BSD box.

    Linux Mint for work and everyday stuff and Win 10 for games & fooling around.

    So what's the beef?

    Mac

    1. onefang

      Re: Win10/1709

      So what you are saying is that Windows 10 works fine, so long as you replace large parts of it with something else.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LTSB + Palemoon (with Adblock latitude, Noscript, encrypted web & cookies exterminator) runs Office 16 without any (unsupported) problems. No IE11 or Flash to worry about and regular (curated) security updates. - what's not to like?

    1. Naselus

      The fact it can't run 90% of other commonly-used programs in most industries?

      For most people, work =/= MS Office. Otherwise, we'd have all gone open source years ago.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I tried win 10 once

    But I didn't inhale!

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wouldn't brag about Win 10's market share if I were Microsoft

    During the one year's 'free upgrade to Windows 10' campaign, Microsoft had unleashed malware/spam tactics onto Win 7/8 users. Many users have accidentally 'upgraded' to Win 10 after misclicking, and it could not be rolled back.

    There were also other shenanigans e.g. if you purchase a new PC from a store, it has Windows 10 installed by default. I presume every sale counts as one additional user of Windows 10.

    Certain programs refuse to upgrade unless you have the latest version of Windows. Chrome was stuck at version 49 (?) for Vista users. This was probably another factor pushing people to Windows 10.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I wouldn't brag about Win 10's market share if I were Microsoft

      How come there’s no class action suit against MS for all this hassle and cost?

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Privacy / Forced-Updates - The only solution I can see

    Is air-gapped Win10 for work... With Linux for net surfing. On Win7 for now, but game dev requires DX12. Waiting on Vulkan also, but Linux dev is hard.

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