W10, W8 family, W7, XP, Browsers…true market shares?

from JoeUser Forums

 

So, W10 now has a higher market share than XP. Really? Do you trust NetMarketShare’s numbers? They say IE is still beating all other browsers easily. When was the last time YOU used IE?

The Federal Government’s Digital Analytics Program (DAP) gives different numbers than NMS. They count differently, though. DAP lumps mobile and desktop together. NMS separates the two.

So, NMS says W7 – 52.5% (desktop), W10 – 11.5%, and XP – 11.4%. W8.x – 10.4%. Hard to swallow, because by their numbers, XP actually increased last month. Check it out:

DAP says W7 – 33.9%, W10 – 8.8%, W8.x – 7.7% and XP – 1.8%, iOS – 18.3% and Android – 17.2%.

So, Apple is really in second place when you look at overall devices.

NMS to me is less reliable. Why? Look at the browser stats when you go to their website.

So, W7 is still top dog. And XP is dying out…thank goodness.

Why does all this matter? Because MS is marketing W10 hard. Why? Because it’s a PITA to maintain all the OSs and to update them the way they’ve been doing. Easier and cheaper to go cloud and change over to a subscription model…and don’t think for a minute it’ll be free forever. It most definitely will not. W7 is already not being supported for new SkyLake CPUs. Why? Because they want W10 on all the new machines. Period. They tell you that’s because W10’s new architecture makes it harder to violate and hack. Uh huh.

So, from the stats it looks like W10 is catching on and eating away at W7’s market share. Is that because W10 is so incredible? Maybe it’s because of the “aggressive marketing” MS has been doing with W10? Maybe because of the tricky GWX notifications making it seem you have to update to W10? Maybe it’s because of the “very few, accidental downloads”?

OK…so let’s say W10 is more secure than W7. It’s possible. BUT, the updating mechanism (as I’ve written before) is a time bomb. Remember Murphy’s Law. It’s inexorable: One of these times, an update is going to seriously screw up.

When that happens, you’d better have a second machine on a different OS to read how to fix your W10 machine…and that’s just ridiculous. Really. Also, What are you going to do when MS charges you $10/month to use your machine? Me? I’ll be doing Linux. Hey Hank, wanna start teaching me Linux?

Source:

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3032976/microsoft-windows/there-s-something-fishy-about-those-windows-10-market-share-numbers.html

91,143 views 25 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Lies....damn lies....and statistics....;)

 

Oh....and my browser of choice on this machine [the big one] is IE.

 

Of course...on all my Win 10 machines it's....

 

 

Chrome....;p

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

It may be somewhat true, but only because Microshit forced Windows 10 on to PC's where user's had no idea what was going on and then just decided to live with it.  :annoyed:

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting LightStar, reply 2

It may be somewhat true, but only because Microshit forced Windows 10 on to PC's where user's had no idea what was going on and then just decided to live with it.  :annoyed:

So true. I have rolled back to win 7,  3 machines for people. They know very little about a computer and just thought they were supposed to upgrade. Must be millions of these people. They saw a little icon and just thought they had to click it. 

There are so many people in this situation that just don't know.

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Jafo, reply 1

Oh....and my browser of choice on this machine [the big one] is IE.

So you're the one.  X|

 

Should have known.   :grin:

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Personally, I prefer Win7 but that's because Win10 is so hard to navigate. They've hidden stuff and trying to find it is frustrating! I don't need MS' attempts to pretty up the desktop. Much prefer WindowBlinds. :thumbsup: :beer:

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting LightStar, reply 2

It may be somewhat true, but only because Microshit forced Windows 10 on to PC's where user's had no idea what was going on and then just decided to live with it.  :annoyed:

That was the whole idea. Plauseable deniability or accidentally on purpose. Whichever comes first.

 

Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I would think that a decent piece of the Win10 installations are directly related to the pragmatic approach of pushing the End Of Support date out to 2025 at no cost.  I'd guess that there will be an additional shift to Win10 as the period for the free upgrade offer draws closer (waiting for Win10 to bake a little longer).

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Something gamers might fail to consider is the fact that, for some gods-forsaken reason, the Steam client uses IE.  I know because if a Steam page fails to load in the client, it throws an IE-branded error page about not being able to find the site, etc.  So when you are browing Steam games with the Steam client, you help boost IE's market usage share. :/

Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting SpicyGirl, reply 5

Personally, I prefer Win7 but that's because Win10 is so hard to navigate. They've hidden stuff and trying to find it is frustrating! I don't need MS' attempts to pretty up the desktop. Much prefer WindowBlinds. :thumbsup: :beer:

 

Me too!

Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I like Windows 10. My new laptop came with it. Loving it. Of course I use Start10, but thats it. Everything is easy to find. I use Chrome, but I must say Edge is really fast. If Edge had an ad blocker and a way to set a minimum font for all web pages I would use it.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Those stats fluctuate so radically in both directions that it's clear they're not accurate.  Usage statistics of that sort can be taken as ball parking the trend over years, but I wouldn't pay their monthly changes any mind at all, nor the actual percentages.

Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top

There was an article in yahoo news the other day, tried to find it again but couldn't, about those who don't want W10 can 'upgrade' to W3.1. I say go for it. In a VM of course.

Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Uvah, reply 13

There was an article in yahoo news the other day, tried to find it again but couldn't, about those who don't want W10 can 'upgrade' to W3.1. I say go for it. In a VM of course.

Actually, what you saw was regarding W3.1 games... https://www.yahoo.com/tech/10-best-windows-3-1-151156533.html

 

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting SpicyGirl, reply 5

Personally, I prefer Win7 but that's because Win10 is so hard to navigate. They've hidden stuff and trying to find it is frustrating! I don't need MS' attempts to pretty up the desktop. Much prefer WindowBlinds. :thumbsup: :beer:

I'm staying w win7 as well.  Further, I resent that every version of wins is set up differently, making it a royal pain to do even simple things.  For such an advanced software company, MS is very stupid not to include an easilly found and accessible toggle switch allowing users to toggle between the various windows interfaces.  

Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Unfortunately, according to my own web server data, W10 has been slowly gaining ground on Windows 7. Slowly but surely.

Current stats for the month of February (100% = all versions of Windows together) are:

7: 44.82%

10: 37.22%

8.1: 10.77%

XP: 3.98%

8: 2.71%

Vista: 0.48%

OK…so let’s say W10 is more secure than W7. It’s possible. BUT, the updating mechanism (as I’ve written before) is a time bomb. Remember Murphy’s Law. It’s inexorable: One of these times, an update is going to seriously screw up.

They did already. Luckily they 'only' managed to break HTML in Outlook, Windows Gadgets, Asus Media Center, and any application that used GDI+ to render text and images (which means they broke *all* docks, Winstep Nexus and ObjectDock included).

It 'only' took them 3 days to recognize there was a problem and fix it.

After the recent layoffs, Microsoft's QA has gone completely down the drain. And these are the guys that are supposed to force-update your OS? Ok. :)

Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Jorge...those stats are more indicative of who has an OS that 'needs' prettying up....hence 10 being higher on the list....;)

https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0 

...is probably closer to general reality...;)

 

Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Could well be, lol. I can only hope you're right. :)

Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting DrJBHL, reply 14

Actually, what you saw was regarding W3.1 games

I know......decided to leave that part out. But can you imagine......Windows 3.1 making a comeback.  :w00t:

Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Yeah Jorge, I saw that, too...

They supposedly have a special bunch of 'citizen testers'. Bull thwacky. Bigger and better disasters will become the rule: Just like Adobe Ps whose update wiped out a directory for iOS users.

Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

So where is Vista in the stats? 

 

Lots of people out here still use it.

 

Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting DMF, reply 21

So where is Vista in the stats?
Quoting JcRabbit, reply 16

Vista: 0.48%

Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Wizard1956, reply 22


Quoting DMF,
reply 21

So where is Vista in the stats?
Quoting JcRabbit,
reply 16

Vista: 0.48%


10%

Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting gmc2, reply 23

10%

Not in this decade...;)

Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top

oops, more like 1. something percent.