Windows 7 Gets Ready to Leapfrog Windows XP on Desktop

[Brink]

Windows 7 is two months away from becoming the second newest consumer desktop operating system from Microsoft (it already is, if you count the Windows 8 Release to Manufacturing, or RTM), but will it surpass Windows XP in market share before Windows 8 is made generally available to the public? It's going to be a tight race, but it looks like Windows 7 will jump ahead by the end of August.

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Maximum PC | Windows 7 Gets Ready to Leapfrog Windows XP on Desktop

 

[Dallas 7]

With that kind of success you'd think they'd want to stick with it for a while, but instead they want to replace a young excellent OS (W7) with an experiment designed for smart phones and tablets. Amazing. Microsoft has totally lost it.

 

[smarteyeball]

With that kind of success you'd think they'd want to stick with it for a while, but instead they want to replace a young excellent OS (W7) with an experiment designed for smart phones and tablets. Amazing. Microsoft has totally lost it.

Not really. I doubt MS really expect the desktop/corporate environment to embrace Windows 8. 7 is going to be the new XP.

Windows 8 is simply an experiment.

 

[Dallas 7]

I wonder how much longer the manufacturers will be able to sell W7 on their new computers? Are they going to cut off W7 as soon as W8 hits the shelves?

 

[FerchogtX]

I wonder how much longer the manufacturers will be able to sell W7 on their new computers? Are they going to cut off W7 as soon as W8 hits the shelves?

They will regret if doing so, Windows 7 is designed for working, as opposed to Windows 8...

 

[UnknownReverent]

With that kind of success you'd think they'd want to stick with it for a while, but instead they want to replace a young excellent OS (W7) with an experiment designed for smart phones and tablets. Amazing. Microsoft has totally lost it.

Not really. I doubt MS really expect the desktop/corporate environment to embrace Windows 8. 7 is going to be the new XP.

Windows 8 is simply an experiment.

Windows 8 is pretty much going to be like Vista, I think.

 

[x BlueRobot]

With that kind of success you'd think they'd want to stick with it for a while, but instead they want to replace a young excellent OS (W7) with an experiment designed for smart phones and tablets. Amazing. Microsoft has totally lost it.

Not really. I doubt MS really expect the desktop/corporate environment to embrace Windows 8. 7 is going to be the new XP.

Windows 8 is simply an experiment.

Windows 8 is pretty much going to be like Vista, I think.

Yeah agree with you, Windows 7 will be the new XP, and Windows 8 the new Vista. I could not imagine working with an OS designed for tablets and phones on a desktop interface :/ Why do Microsoft feel the need to completely change a interface which has been so successful for so long, and the trend doesn't seem to end any time soon.

 

[darkdisturbed]

With that kind of success you'd think they'd want to stick with it for a while, but instead they want to replace a young excellent OS (W7) with an experiment designed for smart phones and tablets. Amazing. Microsoft has totally lost it.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
I've played around with W8 -- while it definitely has some interesting features it gets absurdly difficult to sensibly navigate and organize your workspaces / programs etc - especially if you install large applications like Adobe Master collection Cs5 , Visual studio or even the full office suite.

The navigation system doesn't handle any sort of sensible hierarchical structure like the classic W7 start menu but displays everything as a selection of individual square tiles about 5 deep and as many across as you have applications allowing you to scroll leftwards almost without limit-- however the real bugbear of this is that at install time every single application plus all "the bits and pieces" are stored as tiles so you could get 100's and 100's of these - organising these into a sensible structure for LARGE applications is by no means a simple task and takes a lot of time too.

Note also that these tiles are not stored in any hierarchical level - but just individually as single tiles. What they really need is to have had the tiles to include "sub tiles" so you could for a large application simply drop down the hierarchy like the classic menu.

This will NEVER make it into a large workplace -- most Help desks are overloaded anyway even dealing with quite simple problems - sorting out someone's lost Metro tile out of 450 say for example - so the poor user can't start the application won't be an easy one for the help desks of these organsations to sort out in any shape or form.

I suspect like it did with VISTA that people will simply uninstall W8 and install W7 on their new computers -- this happened with VISTA when XP was often re-installed on new computers that came already installed with VISTA.

Finally a lot of corporate upgrades from XP to W7 are just starting. No way are they going to incur the expense and sheer inconvenience of doing this exercise again anytime soon (W7==>W8).

W8 definitely has possibilities for tablets / mobile applications but for working places using apps like Photoshop -- don't think so some how.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[M1GU31]

With that kind of success you'd think they'd want to stick with it for a while, but instead they want to replace a young excellent OS (W7) with an experiment designed for smart phones and tablets. Amazing. Microsoft has totally lost it.

Not really. I doubt MS really expect the desktop/corporate environment to embrace Windows 8. 7 is going to be the new XP.

Windows 8 is simply an experiment.

My exact thoughts,I will be staying with win 7 until it loses support and programs stop being compatible with windows 7.Hopefully by then Microsoft made a os I actually would like.

 

[cmmtch]

Win8 was developed specifically for mobile devices, tablets, smart phones, etc... (my opinion)

I haven't had any experience with Win8 myself. Comments from those who have tried it don't sound like it would be a workable OS for a corporate/business desktop environment.

 

[Layback Bear]

Windows 8 was never designed to replace Windows 7. Microsoft just hasn't found the gubla gaas to tell the world. It is designed for a completely different market. The new wave of poking on apps like a big cell phone. Their is a big market for such things and Apple is proof of that. You can't do much on them but the people that buy these toys don't want to much other than poke it and something happens. Easy to transport and show off to the in crowd. This is no small feat, that market is billions of dollars and a large share will have to be taken from competitors. I can see in the future that when buying a PC/Laptop of having the choice of Windows 7 or Windows 8. I can't see Windows 8 as it is today taking Windows 7 place. Microsoft has a huge market share with Windows 7. They are not going through that away with a toy like Windows 8. Some good improvement that are in Windows 8 could be applied to Windows 7 with a SP-2. Now is not the time to boost up Windows 7 when you are trying to sell Windows 8.
Just think in the PC operating system market it's Microsoft competing against Microsoft. In the computer toy business it Microsoft against Apple and the rest of the world.