The Register is reporting that the market share for the elderly OS's are on the increase.
Whatever Microsoft is doing to get punters adopting Windows 8.x isn't working, at least if the latest figures from Netmarketshare showing its older operating systems growing faster than its latest progeny are any guide.
We've now tracked Netmarketshare's data for nine months and as the table shows, Windows 7 has enjoyed steady growth over that period. Windows XP has also had its moments, as it did between May and June 2014 when it accounted for 0.06 per cent more of the operating systems Netmarketshare detected with its methodology of digging through web server logs.
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Windows 7, XP and Even Vista Gain Market Share
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by ScriptCat on Thursday July 03 2014, @07:17PM
The secret formula is to take a system everyone has learned to use since childhood and whimsically rearrange all the controls, change how everything is done, have and exception for every rule in the system operation, require all new hardware and throw out support for your existing code base.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:32PM
They've been doing that since the beginning of Windows.
Every single release has a re-arranged Control Panel. I've wondered if they're being paid off by a cabal of tech support workers who hope to keep the tech support business alive by confusing users.
Where are the internet settings?
Under Network! No wait, under Internet Options! No, wait, under Network Connections!
How about uninstalling a program?
Easy, it's under Add/Remove Programs. For a decade. Then, for fun, it's Programs and Features.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @08:20AM
Well, Add/Remove programs never did add any new programs.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Jaruzel on Friday July 04 2014, @01:01PM
It does if you are installing apps on a Terminal Services enabled server. You are asked to do it via Add/Remove Programs so that a 'wrapper' can monitor an install and re-shuffle bits accordingly to make the new app work for multiple users. Also, under Add/Remove programs you can add new features which can also include new application not in the default install of the OS.
But yeah, Programs and Features is totally less intuitive. They royally screwed up the Control Panel from Vista onwards.
-Jar
This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Thursday July 03 2014, @07:31PM
Seriously? Basically every problem with vista is fixed except for the mediocre IO scheduler. Why is it not surprising that Vista II (Windows 7) is gaining market share? They're basically the same thing except for that one is faster on spinning rust.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Thursday July 03 2014, @07:42PM
Agreed, at least as far as Win7 is concerned.
Win7 is quite possibly the best desktop system Microsoft has ever produced. (Which, of course is not saying all that much).
While unnecessarily complex, occasionally obfuscated, it is far more secure than most of their offerings, and is robust as hell.
Windows 8.x makes no sense what so ever unless you have a touch screen. Even there, its an annoyance.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Archon V2.0 on Thursday July 03 2014, @09:51PM
> Windows 8.x makes no sense what so ever unless you have a touch screen. Even there, its an annoyance.
You say that like you don't like having gorilla arms.
(Score: 1) by jbruchon on Friday July 04 2014, @11:22AM
My favorite thing about Windows 7 is I can still change the UI behavior to NOT use the GPU and CPU for pretty colors and largely return the appearance to that of Windows 9x if I want to. I actually LIKE the two-pane Start menu design and the [winkey]+[arrow] split-screening (and the drag-to-edge equivalents) are perhaps the most useful features ever added to the usability side of an operating system.
Windows 8's "flat" appearance infuriates me to no end, especially with the near-invisible scroll bars it forces upon us. The "flat and oversimplified" trend in UI design desperately needs to stop. When they did it to iOS 7, I literally could not find the Settings icon because it didn't look like a gear anymore. It looks like some crappy attempt at concentric circles with lines through them, or perhaps someone abusing a spirograph.
I'm just here to listen to the latest song about butts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @07:44PM
To paraphrase Steve Ballmer: drivers, drivers, drives!
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday July 03 2014, @08:08PM
That dude definitely snorted/smoked some coke before he did that developers speech. He was already sweating when he came out on stage, a sign of coke use. Doesn't mean he was on coke, but I'll be damned if he wasn't.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Friday July 04 2014, @10:35AM
You are the first one that's ever given him any kind of benefit of the doubt in this regard. Almost everyone who that topic has sneaked into discussion with has said to me that he had to be high off his mind on something. This puts you somewhere between decent human being and microsoft apologist. It's definitely one of those. I'm sure of it.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @07:48PM
A change of 0.06% (not 6% in case you thought it was a typo like I first did) is meaningless. There is absolutely no way that such a small difference is outside the margin of error.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by stormwyrm on Thursday July 03 2014, @08:05PM
But what that actually shows is despite all Microsoft's efforts XP still stubbornly refuses to lose market share. A net gain of 0.06%, though indeed at the noise level, might even actually translate to a gain of installed systems in absolute terms.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Thursday July 03 2014, @08:12PM
But still a positive change nonetheless. If these are actually new copies of Windows XP, then I'm quite surprised that Microsoft hasn't stopped allowing new activations yet.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @08:22PM
> But still a positive change nonetheless.
I don't think you understand what "in the noise" means.
(Score: 4, Informative) by umafuckitt on Thursday July 03 2014, @08:09PM
"Windows XP has also had its moments, as it did between May and June 2014 when it accounted for 0.06 per cent more of the operating systems Netmarketshare detected with its methodology of digging through web server logs."
That negligible "increase" is noise. The trend is downwards. Learn to read a graph.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:57PM
At his FOSS advocacy blog, MrPogson likes to say that webstats are junk for actual numbers but are useful for *trends*.
ISTM that if you can't trust one, how can the other not be junk?
...certainly in the short term.
When I see a curve that looks like a bow saw blade, [span-trade.co.uk] I think **low sample rate**.
As has been said multiple times here, when the "change" is smaller than the margin of error, what you have is crap.
There's a set of webstats that has higher gross numbers, [wikimedia.org] but even that is of questionable utility.
They do NOT record IP address, but rather page hits.
People have noted that with pages being less likely to be cached on e.g. handheld thingies, pages will have to be loaded again with e.g. use of the Back button.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @08:15PM
Netcraft confirms it.
(Score: 2) by Ken_g6 on Thursday July 03 2014, @08:47PM
I just bought a Sandy Bridge laptop with Windows 7. It's not significantly slower than a new Haswell would be. If it weren't a laptop, or if it's plugged in all the time, its higher power use wouldn't matter either.
Computer advances, in general, are slowing, and the old stuff often works just as well as or better than the new stuff.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by doublerot13 on Thursday July 03 2014, @09:21PM
the contemporary 'put everything in a browser' mindset. The OS simply doesn't matter as much anymore.
For the first time in a long time, I can imagine a world without Microsoft hegemony.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @09:47PM
Windows 8 had already failed, so the more amusing stat for me is the Firefox market share. They lost another 1.27 percentage points this month:
http://netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=1&qpcustomb=0&qpsp=162&qpnp=24&qptimeframe=M [netmarketshare.com]
They were cruising along around 20% up until May 2013, but then they decided to start destroying the user interface. Since then Firefox has been in steady decline and have lost nearly a quarter of their users.
At what point do they admit they got it wrong? Knowing the typical UI designer, I suspect they'll stand by their "we're right and the users are wrong" stance until they've lost every last user.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @10:22PM
i agree with this but only to a very slight degree. the new UI of firefox is very similar to chrome's - but not quite as frustrating. hence, i still use firefox. on the other side of the coin, now that i'm over my 'disorientation' period, the new firefox UI really isn't bad.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by monster on Friday July 04 2014, @09:12AM
If I wanted Chrome UI so much, I would have installed Chrome. (Thoughts of a typical user)
Copying good ideas is neat. Destroying your product's essence while doing so not so much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:42PM
I'm shocked that IE still has such a presence. I thought it was dead, long ago. More amazing still is the fact that IEs majority share remains true even when all platforms (eg destkops and phones) are counted (ref [arstechnica.com]).
(Score: 1) by ah.clem on Friday July 04 2014, @12:28AM
Just last month I purchased a Cabon X1 for about 2K and had to pay $50 to "downgrade" to Win7SP1. Still better than the machine I returned with Win8.1. Fortunately, the Gen 2 X1 uses most of the Gen 1 hardware so drivers weren't an issue, but the HDMI port seems dead. Tha's OK though, I got a DisplayPort to HDMI from my Gen 1 Carbon that works. I can't see moving away from 7 for many years.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gman003 on Friday July 04 2014, @12:44AM
Here, let me save you $50 next time:
http://classicshell.net/ [classicshell.net]
Set the start menu back to W7 style (or XP style, or W98 style, each with a fair amount of customizability). Skin it however you want - you want an Aero-skinned W98 menu? I'm pretty sure they have that. Disable hot corners, set it to boot into desktop mode (kind of irrelevant since 8.1 but still there), and set the Windows key to open the menu instead of start screen, and you'll basically never notice Metro even exists. Hell, even if you somehow managed to find a Metro app worth using, you can make an "Apps" submenu, like the Programs submenu, that lists them out the same way so you never have to see the start screen.
It is very clear to me that there are at least two teams working on Windows - the core team and the UI team. The core team did a smash-up job with W8 - the UI team failed horribly, but they were nice enough to contain their failures to an easily-isolated section. Cut it off and you get a better OS than W7.
(Score: 1) by ah.clem on Friday July 04 2014, @02:00AM
http://classicshell.net/ [classicshell.net]
Thanks for the tip, but I did that on the windows 8.1 box and it was still crap. I sent it back and got the downgrade and life is good again (as much as it can be in windows, but I have a lot of specialized software for Windows, v-synths, DAW, audio massagers, sample libraries, etc.).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @03:25AM
Renoise ableton and asio4all were my reasons to reinstall windows 7 as well.
-basecase