Netmarketshare: Win7 still at 50% usage, Win10 at 28%

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StatCounter says it’s Win 7 at 46%, Win 10 with a bullet at 37%. No increase in Edge. Per Netmarketshare: Gregg Keizer should have details coming this
[See the full post at: Netmarketshare: Win7 still at 50% usage, Win10 at 28%]

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flackcatcher, AJNorth, MrBrian, SueW, Elly

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I can’t say I’m surprised. I don’t see that anything has been done to increase the appeal of Windows 10 or lessen the appeal of Windows 7. Those who were going to change to Windows 10 did it a long time ago, when they thought they were getting a shiny new toy for nothing. Those who saw no benefit in changing then don’t have any reason to change their mind now.

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DC, GoneToPlaid, Microfix, BobbyB, woody, JDeC, flackcatcher, ryegrass, Noel Carboni, Charlie, Bill C., lurks about, AJNorth, David F, FakeNinja

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I might add that those who have not moved to W10 probably have fewer reasons to do so given the maintenance overhead and other issues this OS imposes upon users. It is ironic that MS actually thought this OS would be their answer to gaining a mobile presence given the constant stream of released builds that are typically as buggy as a Florida condominium. I for one would not touch W10 unless MS seriously addresses the concerns often voiced on this blog. Unfortunately, the prospects of that occurring seem rather dim.

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DC, GoneToPlaid, Microfix, JDeC, flackcatcher, Karlston, ryegrass, Elly, Noel Carboni, Charlie, Bill C., lurks about, FakeNinja, AJNorth, Seff

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Seff and anonymous have it exactly right. Microsoft is just no longer capable of delivering things people “must have”.

Next thing you know – and I really HOPE they don’t actually do this – Microsoft could be trying to think up ways to degrade the old software (Windows 8 and earlier or Internet Explorer) to boost the usage of the new software, which apparently they find it difficult to improve upon. It’s not hard to imagine them delivering such degradations via Windows Update, and hiding them in such a way that they cannot easily be correlated with a particular delivery of software.

Trouble is, that would be not only unethical but stupid (in the basic sense that “throwing the baby out with the bath water” or “cutting off your nose to spite your face” are considered bad ideas). They actually DO still carry some respect, which they would lose entirely. Not to mention lawsuits.

They should know that trying to hide intentional degradations of Windows internals from the public won’t really work, because there are a lot of folks out there who are actually smarter than Microsoft, and who care very much if their systems continue to work. Let Microsoft never forget how BAD adding GWX went!

I have not detected such intentional degradations so far, though I’m certainly not all-seeing. And at this point they may just figure their own incompetence will do the job. We *do* see botched patches now and again, after all.

Beyond that, in fact there are already processes in place that will ultimately ensure people have to “move up” to newer systems. Many things can be done in the name of security. For example, cipher strengths are getting relatively weaker given that compute power is still blossoming (cheap teraflop GPUs anyone?). Sooner or later – in the very same vein that XP and Vista have already been left behind by more stringent SHA-2 code signing requirements, Windows 7 and 8.1 will also lose the ability to provide “sufficient security” to their users. And of course we know how Microsoft is not supporting older systems running on the newest hardware, even though the hardware is fully capable of running them.

Sure, your older OS might run on your old hardware just as well as it ever did, with the software you already had, but you just won’t be able to download and run new software, connect to your bank with your browser, or buy new hardware for faster performance or to replace failed gear.

And so we all continue to think, sometimes a bit uneasily, about our “end of support” dates for the various systems we run, and hope springs eternal for a new Windows version actually worth installing on the hardware.

Stay vigilant.

-Noel

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Cybertooth, Microfix, David F, dononline, flackcatcher, lurks about, Charlie, Seff, Karlston, AJNorth, ryegrass, Elly

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Did you miss these?

-Windows 7 Updated to not update on new CPUs (and some older ones too)

-Internet Explorer no longer printing correctly

-BSoDs after updates on Windows 7 with older hardware

-Mysterious driver updates pushed by Updates that break working hardware

That’s just a few off the top of my head.  Microsoft must be doing it right for some not to notice this planed obsolescence.

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Elly

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While that’s true, anonymous, Microsoft’s problem is that they’re messing up Windows 10 with their botched/pulled updates too.

The nearer people get to January 2020, and the more they suspect Microsoft is targeting their existing OS while failing to provide any better alternative, the more people will be disinclined to install any Windows Updates at all. They’ll take their chances with newer software, and if they find they can’t do their banking online perhaps they’ll remember they were always a bit apprehensive about risking their funds that way and will think that maybe popping in to their local bank branch isn’t such a bad way of doing things after all. Everything in life tends to end up going full-circle in time!

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Yes they are breaking Windows 10/Edge as well but they are also fixing the broken patches for 10/Edge.

For 7 you will not get a fix for CPU support (working as designed).  The BSoDs their answer is to uninstall the patch or to buy new hardware for new drivers.  You now have to avoid the Windows Update driver updates and there won’t be a fix for those (their answer was to uninstall the driver updates and reinstall the previous driver).  How many regular users will be able to do any of that?

I will be surprised if you get a fix for IE that doesn’t mess something else up.

They are pushing you to buy a new device which will probably have 10 on it or upgrade to the shiny new always up to date (for better or worse) 10.  They are trying to push you to Edge with ads, hiding IE in 10 and breaking IE in both 7 and 10, hoping that people are not going to jump to Chrome instead (which they are).

Why did Microsoft get so user-hostile?  They should be proud that they made an OS most everyone likes in 7 and support to the best of their ability until their own scheduled end of life for the OS.

 

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Elly, Cybertooth

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Noel – I agree. I would add the underlying problem with software today is most are mature products with more features than most people will use or even be aware of. OSes, photo manipulation, office suites, etc. all in the same boat. In reality, other than bug fixes and security patches, there is no need for most to get a new version of X. MS and others are faced with trying to get money out of users who realistically need a mild upgrade/update to W7 (support for the latest USB specs as an example). Otherwise the feature set can remain the same  Ditto for Office, ditto for Photoshop, etc. Thus the push to subscription and ad-based revenue.

This push risks antagonizing users in two ways. Ad-based revenue requires users put up with ads. Also, many ad-slingers have bought the idea of using targeted ads which requires finer demographic data and identification of the user. But it is unclear if this is nothing more than snake oil. The other risk is that users do not have infinite amounts of money to pay for a lot of subscriptions. So the more they rely on subscriptions the harder many are going to look at whether it is worth it. Right now I have exactly one software subscription with no plans to sign up for more.

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AlexEiffel, AJNorth

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Noel Carboni wrote:

Seff and anonymous have it exactly right. Microsoft is just no longer capable of delivering things people “must have”. Next thing you know – and I really HOPE they don’t actually do this – Microsoft could be trying to think up ways to degrade the old software (Windows 8 and earlier or Internet Explorer) to boost the usage of the new software, which apparently they find it difficult to improve upon…

Microsoft has been doing this for decades. Remember when Vista was released and  spurned by users? Microsoft’s solution for increasing the adoption rate for Vista was to make XP users think that they needed Vista to run older Win9X programs, and to make XP users think that they needed computers with more memory. How did MS pull this off? They released IE7 for XP which, when installed, deleted two DLLs on XP computers. Those two DLLs have been included in Windows since Win3X. The result was that when an XP user ran an older Win9X program, the program wouldn’t launch and WinXP would report that the program required “a Windows Vista only DLL.” Uninstalling IE7 resolved this issue since removing IE7 also restored the two DLLs in question which came with WinXP.

The other trick which MS employed was to have the IE7 installation replace the wow32.dll with a new version which deliberately offset every memory pointer by one byte whenever any Win9X program was run. (Actually, it may have been an XP update which did this, but I can’t remember). The result was that you could run a Win9X program on XP only once per session. It didn’t matter if you closed and then tried to restart the older Win9X program, or if you tried to launch a different Win9X program. The result would be an “out of memory” error. The only workaround was to reboot your XP computer. Back in 2008, a programmer fixed the wow32.dll issue by creating a patched version of the new wow32.dll which removed the deliberate 1 byte offset. Yes, that was his conclusion — the offset was deliberate since just 1 minute of the most rudimentary testing by launching a Win9X program, closing the program, and then either relaunching the same program or any other Win9X program would have instantly revealed the issue.

After nearly two years and after MS finally realized that Vista was a flop, MS released IE8 for XP. The above issues disappeared for all XP users who either uninstalled IE7, or uninstalled IE7 and installed IE8.

The above is just one glaring example of how MS will do anything to force users to upgrade to their “latest and greatest” operating system, and to trick users into thinking that they need to upgrade their hardware.

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radosuaf

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@ … GoneToPlaid

No wonder Windows Update for Win 7/8.1 became slow or broken soon after the launch of Win 10 on 29 July 2015, – broken especially for those who had to do a clean reinstall of Win 7/8.1.

At that time, I was still running Win 7 and rejecting the free GWX offer from M$ since I had set Windows Update to manual or non-automatic. In April 2016, Windows Update suddenly became broken and the workaround was for me to manually install security updates one-by-one through Update Catalog or Download Center. What a hassle.!
… In Oct 2016, M$ implemented compulsory monthly Patch Rollups. Around Feb 2017, the broken Windows Update problem in my Win 7 computer magically disappeared and many pending Patch Rollups appeared on my Windows Update. Unfortunately for M$, by then I had already moved to Linux Mint 17.x as my primary computer OS since I could, ie I knew to learn how to install LM by Google-Searching.

In 2011, I had given Ubuntu 10 a try. It was too technical for me, ie it was not very user-friendly to the average user. If not, I would not have been running Win 7 in 2015. Fortunately for me, the 2016-released LM 17 became very much more user-friendly or less technical/Terminal.

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This data differs from last week’s Enterprise stats I spotted.

Windows 10 Gains In the Enterprise But Windows 7 Is Still The Top Dog (July 24, 2017)
Windows 7 still holds the top position with a penetration rate of 84% … Windows 10 (as it) holds about 13% of the corporate market

Windows 10 only slightly more popular than Windows XP among firms (July, 24, 2017)
Windows 10 is being run on at least one PC within 60% of firms, according to Spiceworks, compared to 84% running Windows 7 on at least a single machine, 42% running Windows XP and 35% running Windows 8.

Windows 10 Adoption: Who’s using it two years after launch? (July 24, 2017)
According to Spiceworks data, the (Win7) OS is present in 84 percent of companies across the globe. But despite its big lead, Windows 7 is past its prime and on the decline. The penetration rate for the OS decreased by three percentage points over the last three months, down from 87 percent.

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The question is, are those 13% happy? What if they regret their decision, the choice to go back is probably not available for practical reasons, but that doesn’t mean they are happy they moved now instead of closer to 2020. If they are not happy, Microsoft might not get the message until a lot more corporate users than the excited early adopters try 10 in a corporate setting and run it for a few feature updates. Those might be a different type of customer than the ones more likely to adopt novelty earlier…

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flackcatcher

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@AlexEiffel

Those 13% corporate users on Win 10 Ent have mostly been compelled to upgrade to Win 10 Ent from Win 7/8.1 Ent. Why? …

Corporations who have previously paid less upfront money to M$ to lease/rent Win 7/8.1 Ent Volume Licenses (VL) were required to also buy M$’s 3-year-term Software Assurance or Insurance (SA), as long as they are under lease. SA entitles the corporate lessee to a one-time “free” Windows upgrade within 3 years and costs 29% of the full Ent VL fee per year (29 X 3 = 87% = a 13% discount).
… With Win 7 reaching EOL in 2020, such corporate lessees might as well upgrade early from Win 7 Ent to Win 10 Ent E3 for “free”, ie utilize their already-paid-for SA. If not, they would have paid for nothing. So, 13% did. Once on Win 10 Ent, SA also entitles them to upgrade to new Versions of Win 10 Ent for “free” within 3 years.
… So, the 18 months EOL for each new Version of Win 10 coincides with the 3-year-term SA, 1e 18 months X 2 = 3 years = twice-yearly upgrades.

In comparison, corporations who buy the cheaper Win 10 Ent E3 VL are not allowed to upgrade if they are without SA. Those who buy the super-expensive Win 10 Ent E5 VL can convert to the 10-year LTSB edition, eg EOL in 2025 for LTSB 2015.
… Since late 2014, first-time buyers of Windows Ent VL are required to buy SA at least once. Thereafter, they can opt to not buy SA.

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AlexEiffel

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“According to Spiceworks data, the OS is present in 84 percent of companies across the globe.”

I find that wording a bit confusing, coming after the linked title about Windows 10 and before the next sentence about Windows 7.  When you say “the OS” I assume you mean Windows 7 although it is set out as if to answer the question in the link about who is using Windows 10.

Thanks for the links tho’, interesting reading as always here.

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Kirsty, flackcatcher

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Seff wrote:

“According to Spiceworks data, the OS is present in 84 percent of companies across the globe.”

I find that wording a bit confusing

Sorry @seff, I neglected to add that (Win7) detail to the ‘cut>paste’ quote.
However, that should have been cleared up by following the link, to the article quoted.
😉

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Seff

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The spiceworks data is accurate as far as its go (thanks Kristy) but does not cover  those facing EOL for their current systems. As I said before, that is when Microsoft will face the crunch. Many of the CTO and their bosses are extremely unsure about what direction to take. Given that many have been using some version of windows since the mid 1990’s this should give Microsoft’s current CEO and his team pause. That window for decision is closing very quickly for their corporate clients. If I were Microsoft, I would not feel too confident right now.

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PC sales slow, no free upgrade anymore to Win 10. Not surprised Win 10 moving up at a snails pace.
For myself Windows 10 has been a total “MEH” for me. Every six months I get another bag of nothing in features and more flaky stuff to work through. Not impressed, and never will be impressed. Windows 7 to me was stellar in performance, looks, and it was a OS, nothing more, nothing less.

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Cybertooth, Charlie, AJNorth, BobbyB, Elly

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As for Windows 7, I turned IE off in Windows 7 ten months ago and am using a combination of Google Chrome and Firefox. Everything is working fine.

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Add comment: also just started using Firefox Focus . Let you know if that works.

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Elly

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All this just reminds me of a Mark Twain quote regarding statistics 🙂

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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Elly

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I foresee, the 2,53% Linux share will rise over the next few years…

At least one Windows 7 install will be taken off the list and replaced by Unix of a kind. Depending on what happens next 25th May, Windows 10 *may* be considered, but as things stands and have developed so far, that scenario isn’t very likely to play out…

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

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Elly, AJNorth

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Perhaps this will help to encourage vendors of various popular professional software to offer versions for Linux before Windows 7 goes EOL on 2020.01.14 (and even for the Macintosh OS, for that matter)… .

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Elly

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Noel,

Recently I got popup 0x8004FE22 for Windows not Genuine on my Win7/64 Ult.

I’ve been running genuine windows for over 4 years now.

I spent many days & hours researching and did various “fixes” and worked with MS level 2 over the phone which ended up killing my license and we had to re-establish it.

Finally I ran across your post about sluicom64.zip, downloaded it and merged it with my registry.

It’s fixed!

Mgadiag is clear, no popups & now clicking change product key or running slui works.

Just wanted to drop you a BIG not of thanks.

Mike in Texas

Mike In Texas

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I found this article from Mr Bott a few years ago that breaks down NetMarketShare and StatCounter in how they compile their stats. I found this to be the most interesting bit:

The crucial difference, as you’ll note if you read the methodologies carefully, is that Net Market Share attempts to measure daily unique users, while StatCounter measures total traffic. If you visit a single page in the Net Market Share network, you’re counted, and then your visits to any other page on any other site in the network are ignored for the rest of the day. Net Market Share weights the data by country, StatCounter doesn’t.

As a result, Net Market Share stats count every user equally, while StatCounter gives extra weight to heavy web users.

So, if you visit 10 sites monitored by each, NMS counts you once and SC counts you 10 times. That makes me think NMS gives a more accurate picture over SC as to what people are using and counting them only once instead of multiple times.

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