Windows 7 tops 20% market share

I'm amazed that so many computers are still running Windows XP. I'm guessing many of these are businesses that cannot easily justify upgrading due to potential difficulties with migrating software to newer systems.

By skarlock on 4 Jan 2011

... No excuse

.. Skarlock, do you mean, "Lazy I.T.?"

There's no excuse, especially with the XP Mode that's out there. The improved Group policies alone should have I.T staff jumping to update. Then again, a whole heap of hardware might be out of date, but isn't that what 3 year refreshes are for?

By rhythm on 4 Jan 2011

I do indeed, but was being more polite ;)

By skarlock on 4 Jan 2011

XP Mode...

Isn't a panacea for all ills. I have a Siemens ISDN PABX at home and they haven't updated the software since 2001, even though the product is still on sale!

The software doesn't even officially support XP (although it does work), but the drivers refuse to install in XP mode. Therefore I keep an old laptop around, just for programming the device.

The other problem is corporate intranets that are designed to work on IE6 (or earlier!) and won't work with other browsers or newer versions of IE. That leaves companies with little option, at present, other than investing millions in updating their internal infrastructure.

A redisign, using modern tools and lessons learnt over the last few years would lead to much better productivity, but it is an initial cost, that many companies aren't prepared to invest, especially in the current economic climate.

That said, we only have one XP laptop left here - and that is for programming scanners, which use Windows Embedded, which won't work with Vista or 7... The rest of our users are either on Windows Terminal Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 or SUSE Enterprise Linux.

By big_D on 4 Jan 2011

"I'm amazed that so many computers are still running Windows XP."

Why? Seven will not run 16bit installer programmes. Full Stop and End of Story if you want or need to use those.

By ANTIcarr0t on 4 Jan 2011

@skarlock: "I'm amazed that so many computers are still running Windows XP."

At the end of 2009, our small business completed a 10 PC upgrade with all computers downgraded from Vista to XP Pro. All run fine and suit our needs. We have no need to upgrade hardware or OS until 2012-2013. I'm sure other small businesses are in the same boat.

By JohnWaller on 4 Jan 2011

@skarlock: "I'm amazed that so many computers are still running Windows XP."

At the end of 2009, our small business completed a 10 PC upgrade with all computers downgraded from Vista to XP Pro. All run fine and suit our needs. We have no need to upgrade hardware or OS until 2012-2013. I'm sure other small businesses are in the same boat.

By JohnWaller on 4 Jan 2011

We are starting to introduce Win 7 at work. Any new machines we get will have it installed. We have only a couple of programs which would need to run in XP Mode but by the time we upgrade we would have replaced them. The only thing about XP Mode is that it can take some time to boot up and log in when you click on the start menu item. Don't forget that it needs to be a machine on your domain in its own right with it's own AV installed.

By james016 on 4 Jan 2011

There is no substance in these % statistics
unless it is accompanied by actual figures, so they
are meaningless.

Why change an operating system that already
meets the needs of a business or individual to
appease MS..... anyway Win7 will be superceded
given rumblings of Win8 on the horizon!

MS will have to wait awhile for me and my associates:-)
Regards,
XP!

By Jazzgal on 4 Jan 2011

XP is still King

and will no doubt stay there for at least another year or two. The IT depts haven't gotten lazy - and its not all to do with money or being cash strapped after such an awful financial crisis. But sometimes the issues are as simple as compatibility - other tailor systems need to be upgraded - knock on effect across a huge company using many different systems - because for whatever reason they need things that way or things run smoothly that way - they have probably also experienced numerous bug fixes, patches, sps and updates before and really don't want to calculate the entire cost to do the job - if it works then why bother causing new problems?

By nicomo on 4 Jan 2011

saying that - I also use Win 7 Starter on a netbook - dual-booted with a linux variant, a laptop running win 7 Ultimate dual-booted with Fedora 14 and an XP box for running off old and new stuff :)

By nicomo on 4 Jan 2011

Why should I change

@skarlock: "I'm amazed that so many computers are still running Windows XP."

I am sitting here using an XP machine which has been personalised to enable me to easily undertake my business tasks. There is an awful lot of software that I have installed and tailored for my use.

Why would I want to upgrade to W7? It would require a lot of work and at the end what benefit would I have apart from different graphics and the pleasure of finding where Microsoft has hidden various parameters this time.

My only problem is that newer programs always consume more resources than there predecessors so eventually I will need new faster hardware. Until then surely if it isn’t broke then don’t upgrade.

By grahammills1945 on 6 Jan 2011

jazzgal you are spot on

These stats are total fantasy they are presumptions that’s all. As a retired e-statistician there is no way on earth that Macs have any where near 2% never mind 5.02% of a WORLD market and when you add the reality factor of how many pirated versions of win OS are in use. Then MS is well into the 95%+ bracket.
To make statements like this with no substance are of no value at all to be perfectly honest I sympathise with you as this is an extremely difficult subject to “guess” accurately. [Unless you are listening to the Americans…they know all…you know?]

By cliveyapp on 6 Jan 2011

Windows 7 is a successful scam to sell the same OS again

Windows 7 is just like Vista. Tons of features removed and broken. Poor usability. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_remo
ved_in_Windows_7 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_remo
ved_in_Windows_Vista. Unnecessary GUI changes. It would be much more intelligent (and probably much harder to do) innovation to improve Windows without changing the GUI. But changing the cosmetics has mainly one purpose: to conceal, that nothing really new happened.

By tuxplorer on 14 Jan 2011