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Vista Share Drops for the First Time In Two Years
adeelarshad82 writes "Windows Vista lost market share last month for the first time in almost two years, a sign that users are already abandoning the oft-ridiculed operating system in favor of the new Windows 7. According to Web metrics firm Net Applications, Vista dropped 0.2 percentage points during September to end the month at an 18.6% slice of the operating system pie. Windows 7, meanwhile, gained 0.3 percentage points, its biggest one-month gain since Microsoft began handing out the new OS to the public in January 2009. Windows 7 powered an estimated 1.5% of all computers that connected to the Internet last month, also a record."
you just wait for june next year when all the RC versions expire...
yeah I can use it just fine but it eats up a lot of screen real estate and it isn't better
I've used every windows systems in one form or another since 1987 and have generally found the criticisms of /.er types way overstated. The "awful unstable new versions" of Windows were usually better, more stable, easier to use than the previous one.
The are a total of three exceptions to that: Windows 2.0, Windows Me and Windows Vista. Windows 2.0 was a first release (Windows 1.0 doesn't really count). Windows Me was the last iteration of a dead end branch put out by the marketing department. Windows Vista on the other hand was driven by the tech types and was supposed to be better. The only noticeable difference in the user experience are useless changes for change's sake, and idiotic Allow/deny dialogues.
From my own stats, I'd have to agree with Win7's market share; I get about 1-1.5% too.
My web domain.
What will be most interesting is whether people will be willing to make the jump from XP to Win7. XP has held pretty steady since November last year at ~70% market share. Vista never even got to 20%.
Considering that Vista's share is less than 1/3 of XP's share (72% vs 19%), Microsoft will be more worried about getting people to move from XP to Win7. The 19% who have Vista really won't (can't, to be more precise) stay with Vista for too long. They will definitely "upgrade" (let's hope it's really an upgrade, not a regression).
Microsoft surely doesn't want XP's ghost to haunt them like IE6's ghost has.
Obviously, our AC friend here is actually a paid advertiser working for microsoft. Microsoft knows that if they troll Slashdot enough with reverse-astroturfers, they will induce other posters to reply in defense of the corporation and thus boost sales.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
Add to that list: Windows 200 and Windows XP.
Windows 200 had major problems with hardware drivers. Printing was a real pain, and running both AutoCAD and office on the same machine was almost impossible. Running Autodesk Inventor was near to impossible because it was so slow you could draw the screen by pencil faster.
Windows XP's "Genuine" disadvantage was the main reason I switched to Linux. I do value my privacy.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Yes. Good job Microsoft. You have successfully beta tested a version of Windows and actually made money from it too by selling it to your customers. You got all the negative feedback that you need to improve it, so now you get to charge all them poor saps all over again with Windows 7! I despise this company, but I gotta admit. They are business geniuses.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
The new taskbar alone is a step forward. The old model with the labels just doesn't scale to more than a few windows. Now I just hope the *nix desktop environments follow suit. This was in NeXTSTEP in the 1988, for Pete's sake!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Vista's been decent for the last couple of years. They released some patches soon after its release that really sped it up. Trotting out FUD like that contained in your post doesn't help anyone.
The new taskbar alone is a step forward. The old model with the labels just doesn't scale to more than a few windows. Now I just hope the *nix desktop environments follow suit. This was in NeXTSTEP in the 1988, for Pete's sake!
Since we, users of Unix desktops, have been using virtual desktops for ages, we don't need to cram tens of windows on each desktop. So an un-crowded list works fine. If we want a full list, we can display all of our windows or all of our desktops via some of the newfangled desktop effects, or just a list of all of the opened windows sorted by desktop, as all the window managers have been able to do since pretty much forever.
Traditional Windows users don't like virtual desktops. I never understood why. Couldn't do without them myself.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
a prime reason FOR those issues in usability is because lots of users don't know how to actually use them properly
Just a minor nitpick, but if the user can't figure out how to use it properly, that is a usability problem.
Sorry dude. That never works as an excuse when some Linux interface baffles the average user, so I don't see why it should let Microsoft off the hook here.
Besides which, these same people knew how to use XP just fine by and large, so you're not talking about naive users baffled by computers in general. The complainers, on the whole tended to be seasoned Windows users who didn't get on with the new O/S. That's got to be a black mark, however you look at it.
It wouldn't be so bad, but (in technical terms, at least), user interfaces are what Microsoft do well. I don't have a good word to say about MS on the whole, but aside from two or three glaring exceptions, they do seem to have a knack for making things accessible to the less technical end of the user spectrum. So when someone tells me that if they couldn't even get that part right, I have to wonder what horrors lurk elsewhere.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
I will probably be modded into obscurity for this, but hell, I have karma to burn.
I would venture that many of the Vista Haters have never really spent any time with the OS. A poster above commented that the initial release was flawed, primarily due to crappy driver support (and I was burned on the nVidia chips in my laptop), but by the time that the first SP came out, it was solid, reliable and, dare I say it, almost a pleasure to use.
My new job demanded that I go back to XP, and it reminded me of how much I prefer Vista over XP.
The true test will be how long will it take for major corporate IT uptake in Win7. Perhaps the learning curve of watching Vista and the polish that Win7 has added will begin migration plans. I sure hope so, 'cuz I can't stand XP.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
So, XP fell 0.2%, win7 rose 0.3%, but OS X rose 0.25%. Considering that the source for their data, hitslink, doesn't even have OS 10.6 up on their survey yet, I'd say the interpretation that Windows 7 is the one eating Vista's market share is unfounded, it's much more likely that it's a combination of losses to apple and win7.
Moreover, if you look at other stats like statcounter, the monthly data shows no decrease in Windows Vista adoption rate (i.e., still increasing usage share), but still shows OS X increasing its market share.
Basically, there's just as much evidence that it's snow leopard that's eating Vista's lunch as it is win7. Win7 installs could easily be coming from people who skipped vista.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Maybe this is nitpicking but both of his points are valid.
Windows 2000 had an awful process scheduler, which I'm guessing caused the problems GP referring to. By the way never attempt to run vmware-server on Windows 2000 box. Also Windows 2000 didn't have plug-and-play whereas Windows 98 did.
XP was okay until Microsoft silently added genuine advantage in it, incidentally that was one of the big reasons for me switching to Linux. Now it's been 3+ years using Debian. I'd rather live with flunky wireless card than a computer that holds me in contempt.
Lots of people gave Vista a bad rep because -- get this -- they didn't know how to use their damned computers!
I'm sure that must be it. I've only personally owned computers since 1982, taught myself assembler to write faster games on a C=64, hacked hardware on an Amiga, switched to Linux in '98 or so, got a Slashdot login some time the same week, picked up FreeBSD a few months later, snagged a degree in CompSci, built the home server sitting next to me from Newegg parts, and turned an HP Mini into a Hackintosh last month. That must be why my wife's dual-core laptop with 2GB of RAM and Vista ran like crap from the day we bought it, even after I stripped out the OEM junk and have almost nothing running at startup: because I'm a technophobic newbie who doesn't know how to use my damned computers.
Yeah.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Counter-opinion: the new taskbar is a HUGE step BACKWARDS. You can no longer have "quick launch" buttons, you can only "pin" items to the taskbar (and they're HUGE), and then they slide around like crazy depending on the order in which you launch things. You can drag them around after launching, but why is it a "feature" that I can drag something back into position that shouldn't have moved in the first place? After using 7 for a few days I was thanking God that I was only testing and didn't have to use this giant steaming pile of crap.
I started using both Windows and Mac OS heavily in 1995 and I preferred Windows for a long time because it was more responsive, multitasked better (than classic Mac OS), and ran on cheaper hardware. Windows 2000 was my favorite OS - it ran my few favorite games just fine, was totally stable, I could strip out the few effects I didn't want (fading menus, etc.) and it ran like a champ for YEARS on a 1 GHz Pentium III. I never liked XP (used it at work for years) as much as I like W2K and my experiences with Vista were very much like the stereotypical complaints. Windows 7 is slightly better than Vista in some ways but worse in others, like the taskbar and the fact that you can't use the 'classic' themes. Luckily for me, Mac OS X came out right around when Windows XP did, and it's been getting better and better and better (mostly) over the years while Windows has been getting worse and worse and worse. Mac OS X is the only OS I use for personal reasons and I'm lucky enough to be able to use it at work.
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