Netmarketshare says Win7 and Win10 usage running neck-and-neck

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Source: Netmarketshare As usual, Statcounter has Win10 way out ahead and climbing
[See the full post at: Netmarketshare says Win7 and Win10 usage running neck-and-neck]

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rontpxz81, Elly, ch100

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Per Ed Bott — who’s absolutely right —

https://twitter.com/edbott/status/1068903610786955266

I really don’t trust any of the usage share numbers any more. Too much massaging, too many assumptions. That’s why I stopped writing about it in Computerworld.

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lurks about, UKBrianC, Grond, GreatAndPowerfulTech, Myst, Elly, ch100, Karlston, HiFlyer, WildBill

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Woody, these reports are essentially contradictory. It leaves me with the sense (just like you) that neither can be trusted as meaningful. Essentially, they both destroy each other.

I can only trust what I see. What I see is a vast and stubborn rejection of Windows 10 in the private market. The commercial market is buying new PCs that come with Win10 licences that have only ever had Win7 installed, and likely will never see Win10.

Just like you, I am asked many times to recommend replacements for Win7 systems that are no longer usable. I recommend Apple, Chromebook or Android. Most have chosen an iPad or an Android smart phone.

CT

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rontpxz81

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Canadian Tech wrote:

Woody, these reports are essentially contradictory. It leaves me with the sense (just like you) that neither can be trusted as meaningful. Essentially, they both destroy each other.

How are they contradictory? They both show Windows 10 becoming the predominant operating system and Windows 7 headed for obscurity.

Canadian Tech wrote:

The commercial market is buying new PCs that come with Win10 licences that have only ever had Win7 installed, and likely will never see Win10.

Any evidence for that? I only see businesses doing huge migrations to Windows 10.

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Addendum to your post, new Intel PCs won’t run Win7 properly anymore; thanks to the updates being blocked and the Intel chipset drivers not running.  You can work around this (eg, by having an amd/nvidia gpu to bypass no integrated graphics, dedicate USB card for no USB support) but it’ll add more cost that businesses don’t want.  It also means that it’s unlikely small form factor systems are possible, which can eat into desk real-estate.

AMD still sells some older chipsets brand new (Piledriver for the FM boards), which will work, however few OEMs carry them, making it less likely to be used by corporations for the next refresh.

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The biggest problem is the lack of credible definitions whenever these sorts of things are reported – whether by so-called “independent” analysts or Microsoft themselves.

For example, if someone “upgraded” to Windows 10 and then rolled back to Windows 7, which OS are they credited with now?

Too often I’ve read analysis of the comparable market share statistics and by the end of the first paragraph it was blindingly obvious which OS the author was biased in favour of.

I don’t trust any of them.

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Seff wrote:

For example, if someone “upgraded” to Windows 10 and then rolled back to Windows 7, which OS are they credited with now?

Whichever one they use to visit the web site with the netmarketshare.com analytics script running on it.

There’s no way to know which, if any, of the market share analyses are accurate, but the trends they show are clear.  Whether Win 7 has been surpassed by 10 is not known for sure, but we know 7 is in decline and 10 is on the rise.  Unfortunately.

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ch100

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I agree in respect of those particular surveys, but I also mentioned Microsoft who give out statistics on OS versions and their usage, and that’s not so clear. I suspect if someone installs Windows 10 that is counted notwithstanding that the user then rolls back to a previous version.

As I said, it’s the lack of definitions that makes all such statistics pretty meaningless.

While it’s true that Windows 7 usage is on the decline, and Windows 10 usage on the rise, it is also clear that both trends are exceedingly slow and way out of kilter with all the original hopes and aspirations for Windows 10.

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Microsoft’s figures are for monthly active devices.

70% of target over 3 years doesn’t seem too shabby.

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Windows 10 was released on July 29, 2015. So it’s taken nearly 3 1/2 years to hit just 70 % of the target they claimed they’d hit in two years, 3 at most. And let’s not forget it was a totally free update (still can’t call it an upgrade) for a full year. Even if you believe Microsoft’s numbers, this is at least slightly shabby.

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Cybertooth, radosuaf

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Windows 7 usage declining slightly… I guess hardware failures are inevitable.

-Noel

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GreatAndPowerfulTech

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… as are software upgrades.

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… assuming that users actually see switching to Windows 10 as an upgrade… Clearly, hundreds of millions have not reached that conclusion yet.

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Cybertooth

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If only all (or some!) of the modern changes to Windows actually were upgrades, using the normal English, non-Microsoft meaning of “upgrade”…

As it is, embracing business practices that only a few short years ago were universally considered malicious (and clearly still considered by many as such) just doesn’t seem prudent – e.g., making unexpected online connections and spying, “opt out” choices, “big shiny button” ruses, use of software to push product, saying one thing while doing another, claiming to provide more control while providing less… The list goes on and on. I wonder what Microsoft’s budget is for “Social Engineers” vs. “Software Engineers” nowadays.

Not to mention that there’s no real merit in the UWP and Apps. What have you ever seen an App do that a Win32 application could not? The promise was easy App development, great integrated licensing, a handy store to market through… All to the benefit of developers (and Microsoft). Don’t look now but the reality turned out a bit different…

There are those of us bright and aware enough to know we weren’t somehow missing some secret fundamental truth all along that changes the game entirely and makes all of what Microsoft is doing somehow good.

-Noel

Edit for content. Please follow the –Lounge Rules–

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Noel Carboni wrote:

If only all (or some!) of the modern changes to Windows actually were upgrades, using the normal English, non-Microsoft meaning of “upgrade”…

Each feature update includes many useful improvements.

Noel Carboni wrote:

Not to mention that there’s no real merit in the UWP and Apps.

How would you know? You gave up trying store apps years ago.

Noel Carboni wrote:

What have you ever seen an App do that a Win32 application could not?

The promise of store apps was never magical new capabilities.

I and others have found the Microsoft Remote Desktop app to be a more convenient and efficient method of managing multiple remote connections than any other free program, and it gets fairly frequent updates.

Microsoft To-Do gets a lot of good reviews, as does Calculator!

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b wrote:

Each feature update includes many useful improvements.

Depends to whom. There are some, sometimes. I’d prefer MS to focus on kernel and UI – Reptoline is in Linux for a long time, MS plans it for 2019H1.

b wrote:

How would you know? You gave up trying store apps years ago.

I tried recently. Really. Wanted to install VLC to play DVDs. Win32 version does. UWP version – doesn’t.

b wrote:

Microsoft To-Do gets a lot of good reviews, as does Calculator! Edit for content. Please follow the –Lounge Rules–

To-Do is still worse than Keep. I have to do use it on my Lumia, since Edge & Keep don’t get along too well and I still miss the option to move ticked items down the list. I reported it straight to developers on Twitter some time ago.

Calculator should have an option to open one instance at a time only – since with Win32 version, when you press Start + “calc” opens the currently open one, with UWP – it opens another. I end up having 20 Calculator sessions open. I reported it via Feedback Hub at least a year ago.

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I know there are people out there who up?graded to Windows 10 who don’t know how or can’t roll back to Windows 7.

Microsoft needs to do a survey of how happy users are with their OS.

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“Microsoft needs to do a survey of how happy users are with their OS.” …

They already get an earful from their enterprise clients about how ‘happy’ they are with their OS on an ongoing basis. They have reps assigned to the account. Reps go onsite regularly. Reps can call in the big guns from MS if the happiness quotient drops. They do not need to survey them. All feedback they get from the enterprise is held in the strictest of confidence anyway, so do not expect to see it made public. A high level whistle blower is about the only way the outside world will ever know what that relationship is and how healthy it is.

Consumers are customers not clients, so MS is a lot less interested in their feedback on how ‘happy’ they are. They serve a purpose – beta testers and a good source for information gathering. As MS says itself, they want to know what a user does on their W10 PC, so they can provide a better user experience. It would be suicide to survey this lot.

MS is all about services now, so if you are not buying services, you are not doing business with MS. Windows is now considered a service. Is the user ‘happy’ with that is the question.

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Done a couple of new/fresh W8.1 installs last month from W10, I notice netmarketshare has shown this..cough
Victor Meldrew has a famous catchphrase that fits the outcome of these graphs in my mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Meldrew

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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Cybertooth

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Situation will change dramatically after January 2020.

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The only information we will have will be anecdotal, since clearly the published data is unreliable.

CT

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Notwithstanding the accuracy of any published usage statistic I always come back to the same question…what difference does it make?

Windows 7 (SP1) reaches EOL in about 1 year.  Perhaps I’m just being cynical, but considering Microsoft’s past behavior and its current business plans and PR image I believe it will continue to relentlessly push the entire user base to Windows 10.  Its hard to imagine it extending unpaid support for Win7.

Some may point to isolated patches for specific security issues such as those we saw issued for XP or Office 2007 after EOL but in my book those don’t count for much.  Those products are still EOL and are not supported for other issues, security or non-security.

For Windows 7 users that don’t live in an offline or air-gapped world the painful truth is that change is inevitable and coming soon.  They just need to decide if they will remain with Windows or move to another OS.

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UKBrianC, AlexEiffel

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Getting Windows 7 to work properly on newer hardware, may be, in some cases not doable. As my older Windows 7 begins to fail, I will go with a new Windows 10 machine. Not because I want to. As more 7 machines are replaced with newer 10 machines, the gap between the two OS’s has no choice but to close. So I would not say that Windows 10 is becoming more popular, but that older machines are simply wearing out. Most people, myself included, would stay with Windows 7 as long as possible.

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Kranium, AlexEiffel

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My job has probably about 1500 users, company-wide. They decided to switch from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

I do some part time work at a small credit union. 15 computers. My boss there wanted all computers upgraded to Windows 10. Just about all are new purchases, although a couple are upgrades to W10 on the same computers. My boss is a very knowledgeable IT guy.

This is my real world experience. It is not what I would have chosen to do, had I had any decision in the matter.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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b

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