Windows 7 Still Gaining Users

[lehnerus2000]

According to NetMarketShare:

• W7 market share increased again last month
• The W8 series still trails XP (even though XP lost users)
• No sign of W10 yet

Market share for mobile, browsers, operating systems and search engines | NetMarketShare
​

 

[jimbo45]

According to NetMarketShare:

• W7 market share increased again last month
• The W8 series still trails XP (even though XP lost users)
• No sign of W10 yet

View attachment 358916

Market share for mobile, browsers, operating systems and search engines | NetMarketShare
​

Hi there

those sorts of stats don't really tell you anything -- after all most of W10 users are probably Home users / testers / geeks etc since W10 is only in "Testing" and even Ms say it shouldn't be used for "normal" use.

I'd regard these sorts of stats about as reliable as the Opinion Polls forecasting (totally incorrectly) the British General Election result -- nice to see the Polls got it hopelessly wrong -- nothing to do with politics - but just to serve as a timely reminder that Statistics is only a science of probabilities and it CAN go badly wrong. !!!! Nice to see some of those University profs with zillions of degrees trying to explain how their analysis was all wrong !!!!.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[ThrashZone]

Yep funny when I see poll's about anything really if you ever notice the poll only has 1-2k people participating in them

 

[lehnerus2000]

those sorts of stats don't really tell you anything -- after all most of W10 users are probably Home users / testers / geeks etc since W10 is only in "Testing" and even Ms say it shouldn't be used for "normal" use.

That may be so, but IIRC, the W7 betas appeared in the monthly market share results before W7 was released.
The pre-release W7 share was larger, than the W8 share was a couple of months after it was released.

If the same market share analysis mechanics are used over the long term, then they can be used to see long term trends.

It's just like stock market charts.
Daily charts don't really tell you anything, compared to monthly or yearly charts.

What the long term results seem to indicate is W7 users aren't dumping their OS en masse to use the W8 series.
The W8 series is still struggling to gain users from XP.

I'd regard these sorts of stats about as reliable as the Opinion Polls forecasting (totally incorrectly) the British General Election result -- nice to see the Polls got it hopelessly wrong -- nothing to do with politics - but just to serve as a timely reminder that Statistics is only a science of probabilities and it CAN go badly wrong. !!!! Nice to see some of those University profs with zillions of degrees trying to explain how their analysis was all wrong !!!!.

It was strange if you assume that the polls were actually unbiased and reporting the real results.
IMO, these days most of these so-called media polls are actually fabricated to push specific (corporate/political) agendas.

It should have been obvious (to anyone paying attention) that the UK Labour party was going to be wiped out in Scotland (since they "double-crossed" Scottish voters by opposing "independence").

There was a "total disconnect" between the stories news channels were running and the polls they were showing.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there

Absolutely no reason for people to switch from W7 yet if they don't want to --everything still works just fine -- however in a few years as newer devices come out and W7 support gets patchy then there might well be other arguments for upgrading.

There's the possibility of newer storage devices and more robust file systems appearing very soon and it's unlikely that these will have W7 support so enjoy while you can and remember eventually it will be worthwhile to change.

W10 is a totally different animal from W8 / W8.1 and the latest preview builds are coming on quite nicely -- not a finished product yet by any manner of means but for even a "pre-beta" it's remarkably stable and seems to be progressing nicely.

Your W7 installations will allow you a FREE W10 upgrade in any case when its released. - Take an IMAGE before you upgrade though so you can always revert if you want to -- however the offer of a FREE OS IMO is well worth taking the risk and TRYING it at release time.

When W10 is released into the mainstream those stats will be quite different.

One reason why I now mainly use W10 is that I like the Storage spaces concept - much better than traditional RAID for home users - especially as you can add different capacity volumes into the mix -- so I can still use a load of older IDE 350 / 500 GB HDD's to make large capacity libraries etc -- for multi-media and typical office type documents you don't have to have super dooper fast HDD's.

Being able to dynamically expand the storage space by adding more volumes is also a great facility too. This feature isn't available on W7 but W7 can READ / WRITE to the W10 storage spaces on a shared network.

Here's some intro on storage spaces -- concept was introduced with W8 -- but W8 no thanks -- works fine in W10.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/hh831739.aspx

Cheers
jimbo

 

[margrave]

In this (or any) study, a proper opinion on the results requires a close examination of the study methods. But seldom are those methods shared widely. Lacking that, I can't see a way clear to draw any conclusion.

As for upgrading the OS ... how many people actually do that? I never have. A PC adequate for its initial OS is generally inadequate for the next generation OS. I replace PCs rather than upgrade them.

I've seen the same in corporate environments. PCs are often leased for 3 years, and they exit the company at that time ... replaced with a new PC, and (maybe) a new OS. (Or maybe the same OS.)

 

[ThrashZone]

Yep I agree there's no real reason to upgrade when clean installs work much better
The last "upgrade" I did was from Vista to 7 and the integration was very poor which caused a lot of frustration for me anyway

I'll wait for a oem without stings to a prior os to be killed/ written over.....
Re-installing 10 will be simplified that way.

 

[OnTheRopes]

and yet I have already recieved an email from Blinkbox telling me I will not be able to watch films on Windows 7 machines due to MS pulling support on (something or other, lost the email now)

 

[groze]

and yet I have already recieved an email from Blinkbox telling me I will not be able to watch films on Windows 7 machines due to MS pulling support on (something or other, lost the email now)

I don't how Blinkbox can do that legally(Since you are in Europe that might be the difference) the reason windows 7 is in extend support phase tell January 14, 2020. If Microsoft stop support it, then Blinkbox needs to find an alternative for windows 7 or have BlinkBox remind Microsoft that windows 7 is in extended support phase tell Jan 14, 2020.

 

[Lee]

Yes Groze Microsoft will support Windows until 2020 that does not mean Software developers, and manufactures of software have to write their product to support Windows 7. . .as much as I hate to say it, it would appear that the future is Windows 10 not an OS that is already six years old.

 

[groze]

Yes Groze Microsoft will support Windows until 2020 that does not mean Software developers, and manufactures of software have to write their product to support Windows 7. . .as much as I hate to say it, it would appear that the future is Windows 10 not an OS that is already six years old.

That wasn't the point. Blinkbox is blaming Microsoft according to OnTheRopes. I think Blinkbox maybe be using it as an excuse. It can't be silverlight that doesn't end till 2021. There was no mention of not supporting 8.1 just windows 7.

Software Manufactures & Developers usually wait tell after extended support ends before they stop supporting a operating system. Even Firefox still supports windows xp.


P.S. There is always Linux

 

[RoasterMen]

Welp...

 

[jonnyhillow]

Yes Groze Microsoft will support Windows until 2020 that does not mean Software developers, and manufactures of software have to write their product to support Windows 7. . .as much as I hate to say it, it would appear that the future is Windows 10 not an OS that is already six years old.

I have little doubt that any new software will not only cover Win 7 but previous versions as well , i would expect support for XP to be dropped by new developers though, amazing that that one is still supported by new software today.