Windows 7 Share Grows At XP's Expense

CWmike writes "Microsoft's Windows ran to stay in place last month as Window 7's market share gains made up for the largest-ever declines in Windows XP and Vista, data released today by Web metrics firm Net Applications showed. By these numbers, Windows 7's gains were primarily at the expense of Windows XP. For each copy of Vista replaced by Windows 7 during November, more than six copies of XP were swapped out. Meanwhile, Apple's Mac OS X lost share during November... betcha Ballmer is having an extra giddy time with that news. Linux came up a winner last month, returning to the 1% share mark for the first time since July. Linux's all-time high in Net Applications' rankings was May 2009, when it nearly reached 1.2%."

Comments

Good news for Linux

[Meshach]

I wonder how many of those are people who bought Windows 7 and how many are just people who bought a computer that came with Windows 7?

Re:Good news for Linux

[PsychoSlashDot]

I suspect the days of people running out and buying Windows upgrades in droves are behind us. The excitement and wonder doesn't happen anymore because the OS we already have by and large does what we need an OS to do. What defines an OS is now mature, no longer making leaps and bounds of dramatic feature inclusions that matter to Joe Average. Even IT guys are unimpressed.

Second point: I had my first hands-on with Windows 7 today. I'm somewhat bewildered. In what way is this not Vista 1.1? Sure, okay, there are some cosmetic changes to the taskbar but really, I fail to find anything revolutionary. Certainly nothing that justifies the same folks who've said all along that Vista was "bad" to say that 7 is "awesome". Is a slight reduction in UAC prompts really enough?

Re:Good news for Linux

[BlackSnake112]

I know of 25 people who bought windows 7 to replace vista or XP. I still have bruises from the XP people. They were a bit annoyed that I had to back up and reinstall their apps. They thought it would upgrade them to 7. For some reason the vista people where happy to hear the word format. They even wanted to format the hard drive more then once to make sure vista was gone.

Re:Good news for Linux

[jasonwc]

Well, I personally upgraded all of my machines to Windows 7 x64. I was an XP holdout after hating Vista's slow performance (pre SP1). I began using Win 7 after the Beta was released and used it regularly from RC on. Now both of my systems are running Windows 7 x64 - one Professional and the other Home Professional. The Win 7 Professional x64 copy was obtained via the Yale MSDN Academic Alliance network, and the Home Premium copy was free with the purchase of a Vista laptop (that I immediately upgraded to Win 7 RC awaiting the retail release.)

As an MSDN user, I've actually been using the RTM since before the October, 22 launch. I've run into several kernel-level driver issues (BSOD when enabling jumbo frames on an Atheros PCI-E NIC fixed by reverting to the MS driver, Realtek audio driver refuses to release apps, preventing the system from shutting down, restarting, or going into standby - fixed by reverting to the MS driver or upgrading to the latest driver, and high kernel memory usage with an older Nvidia driver). Each bug was fixed by either using the recommended MS driver, installed by default during the install process, or by upgrading to the latest driver.

There are a number of features I like:
- Feels as fast as XP with better UI
- Meaningful 64 bit support (drivers for everything) compared to XP-64 and to a lesser extent, Vista 64 bit when it was released
- Optimized for Core i7 systems (Core parking improved, doesn't bounce processes from core to core like Vista, uses less power)
- Libraries are great (I have TV shows and Movies spread over many external TB drives which all show up in one library)
- System indexing with the ability to search the remote index on a shared computer instantly - first time a search over a SMB network has been usable
- File sharing performance greatly improved vs. XP

My favorite features at the moment are the improvements to networking. The Homegroup feature does make setting up a network easier. However, I like it due to the addition of remotely-accessible Libraries and instant searching of remote machines.

But the most significant networking improvement vis-a-v XP SP3 is the network throughput over SMB. SMB1 quite simply stinks. I would usually get 7-8 MB/sec transfer speeds in a 100 Mbit connection whereas I always got 11.5 MB/sec - fully saturing the line - with SMB2 in Win 7 - Win 7 transfers and Linux-Linux SFTP/SCP. You really need Vista/7 or Linux to take full advantage of Gigabit networking (OS X performance stinks based on some benchmarks I've seen). SMB2 can saturate a gigabit line at 115 MB/sec whereas at best you'll get around 40-50% usage in XP.

The limitation for me has been my hard drive speed. I've been able to transfer 10 GB movies at 95 MB/sec avg speeds from my laptop to Core i7 desktop using eSATA attached storage on the laptop. I got the identical speed transferring from the same hard drive attached via eSATA on the desktop to the internal SATA drive. RAM --> RAM transfers in jperf sustain 118 MB/sec (99.9% utilization), and I can do about 115 MB/sec if I have a large file in RAM and copy it over the network.

Overally, I'm quite pleased with Windows 7 and glad I upgraded.

Well..

[El Lobo]

I can only speak for the university I work for. We have upgraded 8000 machines from XP to 7 after passing over Vista all these years. And boy are we glad we did.

Yes, 7 is ***cheap*** for education.

Re:Well..

[El Lobo]

Not true. With 7 we deploy patches, programs, policies, you name it via our Active directory with one click. We Linux is not so easy, and believe it or not, time IS money.

Re:Well..

[El Lobo]

They are giving a tool. They run and use the programs they want witht "their" OS. That is education for you. What we cannot allow if the maintenance nightmare that woulb be having 345527 distros in evrey machine. THAT is a nightmire. A REAL one.

And what we got with 7? Are YOU kidding or are you just one of those fanboys that don't ever botter to see beyond the pretty interface of a OS?:

Much better Active directory integration

Accessibility improvements. Microsoft has revamped the accessibility features in Windows 7 with improved speech recognition and a new Magnifier utility with full-screen and lens-mode views.

Action Center. While previous versions of Windows included a feature called Windows Security Center that monitored the various security features of the system, Windows 7 takes this functionality to the next level with Action Center. In addition to monitoring security, Action Center also monitors the OS's maintenance features and consolidates alerts from numerous Windows features into a single interface.

Aero Peek. This replacement for Show Desktop in Windows 7 lets you "peek" behind all of the open windows on your desktop and easily view and Windows Gadgets or files on your desktop. You can also peek into the contents of specific open windows.

Aero Snaps. By dragging open windows in certain ways, you can "snap" them to the edges of the screen, maximize, or minimize. This obviates the need to click tiny onscreen elements, making these features more accessible to users.

Backup and Restore. Windows Vista's stellar backup and restore features have been streamlined and simplified in Windows 7. Like its predecessor, Windows 7 supports both data backup and image-based system backup, but now the UIs are more segregated.

Bitlocker To Go. The full-drive encryption feature that first debuted in Windows Vista has been updated in Windows 7 to support removable USB storage devices like flash memory drives and portable hard drives.

Blu-Ray support. Windows 7 natively supports Blu-Ray optical discs and enables you to write to Blu-Ray recordable media.

Device Stage. This Longhorn-style user experience will be made available for multi-function devices such as smart phones, multifunction printers, portable media players, and the like. Through this UI, you'll be able to access the features that are unique to each device. Each Device Stage page can be extensively customized by the device maker.

Devices and Printers. This activity center provides a central location for interacting with any hardware devices--digital cameras, mice, displays, keyboards, and the like--that may be attached to your PC.

DirectAccess. This feature is aimed at business users who need to securely access corporate network resources while away from the office. Essentially a simple replacement for VPN connections, DirectAccess requires Windows Server 2008 R2 on the server-side.

DirectX 11. Windows 7 includes the latest version of the DirectX multimedia libraries.

Display improvements. Windows 7 includes numerous improvements related to computer displays, including integrated display color calibration, improved high DPI support, ClearType, and improved support for external displays. A new Windows Key + P keyboard shortcut helps you easily switch between connected displays.

HomeGroup. Microsoft has consolidated the most common network-based sharing tasks into a single simple interface called HomeGroup. Computers in a HomeGroup can easily share documents, digital media files, and printers over a home network.

Internet Explorer. Windows 7 ships with the latest version of Microsoft's Web browser, Internet Explorer 8.

Libraries. In Windows 7, Microsoft has realized a long-term goal to replace the static special shell folders from previous Windows versions and replace them with virtualized shell locations that aggregate content from a variety of physical locations. Libraries are implemented as virtual folders and the views

Re:Well..

[El Lobo]

You don't understand the power of Active directory policies/software pushing/network structure id you **think** that a repository can do the same. But hey, the happiness of the ignorance is a good thing.

Re:Well..

[Nerdfest]

That sounds disturbingly like "If you only knew the power of the Dark Side".

Re:Well..

[barzok]

Who said anything about the updates being automatic and direct from Microsoft?

You disable workstations & servers on your network from pinging Microsoft Update directly, instead checking a local WSUS server or getting a push via Active Directory. When patches are released by MS, you check them out in a test lab, and if everything passes, you deploy them to your network via AD or WSUS.

When you have it all set up properly, it really is pretty impressive how well you can manage systems w/ AD and other tools MS provides with very little administrative overhead.

Re:Well..

[Zenzilla]

Active directory is not only used to authenticate users, where it's value is derived from is the ability to organized your entire computer network into organizational units and apply custom policies to each of those OUs. Think of this as having a *nix repository for every OU and in this repo there is a custom script to modify /etc to apply the correct policy to all your machines. Now add the ability to do all this with a couple mouse clicks. This is active directory.

Re:Well..

[barzok]

Average people don't even realize that AD exists on their corporate PCs, nor that it's how corporate IT manages thousands of systems with only a handful of admins.

To be expected?

[Monkeedude1212]

I mean, the headline makes it sound like Microsoft isn't do so well, but the full summary suggests that Apple is the one lowering its Market share to Linux.

I mean, Considering PC's have the most market share, anyone who doesn't use Windows is essentially using whatever their alternative is (OSX/Linux) to get AWAY from Windows (Especially Vista, that pushed a few people I know towards a Macbook).

So, was Windows 7 expected to Rip all thsoe Happy Mac customers back to Windows? Or was it majestically expected to make Linux users go insane?

Windows Users use Windows, and Windows 7 will only grow from the market share of other Windows operating systems. It'll be a long while before Mac and Linux users go back to Windows, and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse will be just as stumped as I will be.

Re:Linux 20% market share

[mr_matticus]

How?

The NetApp data:
Windows: 92.52%
Mac OS X: 5.12%
Linux (all flavors): 1.00%
Other (including iPhone, Symbian, Java ME): 1.36%

That's 7.48% "non-MS share" on these numbers (and really only non-Windows--it's not apparent whether they count Windows Mobile as "Windows" or as "Other"). Linux, therefore has 13.37% of the "non-MS market". For comparison of the other ones broken out entirely, Apple has 73.26% of that market (Mac+iPhone). Java ME has 6.1%. Symbian has 2.5%

Re:Linux 20% market share

[mr_matticus]

There are no error bars. This is a straight dump from their collected information on web traffic.

Anyone who mistakes this information for a statistical evaluation of actual market share by physical units or even actual market share by "web presence" is misusing the data.

They may well try to make a fairly representative sampling based on diversifying websites they collect data from, but day-to-day, let alone month-to-month, variation makes this data at best a rough approximation of the actual market. But they're not claiming that this data is a reflective snapshot of any actual market--they leave that to lazy journalists. Instead, what their statistics track are trends over time using a consistent methodology. It's a clue about the state of the actual market, but nothing more. Only lazy journalists would take a single month's reported numbers and make a claim about actual market share.

Their numbers are accurate to several decimal places--they have an exact count of the "survey respondents"--the over 100 million reporting machines each month. Where there is insufficient data is making a projection from that sample to the actual market (but again, the data can't realistically be used for that). Linux's NetApp share has bounced up and down a distance of 0.1% since the middle of the year. This probably has nothing to do with Linux's actual market share changing and more to do with variations in browsing habits and which sites are recorded.

Trend is viewable on Steam Hardware Survery

[Suiggy]

PC gamers are abandoning XP and Vista and moving towards Windows 7. For the first time ever since Valve began publishing their hardware survey back in 2003, Windows XP usage among Steam users has finally dipped below the 50% mark, and is losing ground relatively fast. Steam Hardware Survey

Re:Linux 20% market share

[selven]

Linux, therefore has 13.37% of the "non-MS market".

If that isn't proof Linux is awesome then I don't know what is.

Re:Yet another story stating the obvious

[Runaway1956]

"Vista runs on anything 7 runs on"

Not so. I have installed 7 on the very same hardware that Vista barfed on. I've never seen the BOSD on 7 that Vista threw up frequently. More, 7 runs beautifully in a VM, while Vista is something of a dog. As I said, 7 runs decently on a 1 ghz machine with one gig of RAM. Vista will not.