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Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 Pass 10% Market Share, Windows XP Falls Below 30%

Posted by samzenpus on from the looking-at-the-numbers dept.

An anonymous reader writes "With the release of Windows 8.1 to the world in October, Microsoft ended 2013 with two full months of availability for its latest operating system version. While Windows 8.1 is certainly growing quickly and eating into Windows 8s share, the duo has only now been able to pass 10 percent market share, while Windows 7 seems to be plowing forward unaffected. The latest market share data from Net Applications shows that Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 made steady progression in December 2013, gaining a combined 1.19 percentage points (from 9.30 percent to 10.49 percent). More specifically, Windows 8 gained 0.23 percentage points (from 6.66 percent to 6.89 percent), while Windows 8.1 jumped 0.96 percentage points (from 2.64 percent to 3.60 percent)."

3 of 470 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It doesn't matter by RDW · · Score: 5, Informative

    Classic Shell fixes most of the issues in Windows 8.x. The Windows 8.1 update doesn't really fix anything.

  2. Re:Windows XP still at 28.98% by nojayuk · · Score: 4, Informative

    XP has a number of limitations that Win7 and Win8 supercede -- nearly all XP installs still running are the 32-bit version with a 4GB limit on RAM and a 2TB limit for disk volumes, and as far as I know XP doesn't support TRIM for SSDs. It also limits out at DX9, important for gamers and there are probably other limitations due to its age and end-of-support status.

    I'm OK with Win8, I run it exclusively in desktop mode where it presents a look and feel similar to Win7. I pinned my most used programs on the taskbar so I don't need to invoke the start menu very often. I have Vistart installed as a shell replacement but I could work without it if I had to. The upgrade to 8.1 on my main machine went OK apart from the very large download (3 GB plus) needed to make it happen but I was satisfied with the original OS release (I still have it on another desktop which is waiting for a replacement motherboard).

  3. 8 is the one to skip by JeffOwl · · Score: 4, Informative

    Everyone who has paid attention to Windows the last couple of decades knows, Windows 8 is the one you skip. Just like Vista, just like Millennium Edition before that. Sure they threw a in a minor wrinkle in with 8.1, but that was just a distraction to make you think they are doing something, not a major version roll. 98(SE) decent, ME suck, XP decent, Vista suck, 7 good, 8 suck. Next time around they'll keep the back end improvements and fix all the crap they screwed up in the front end.