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Windows 8.1 Passes Windows Vista In Market Share
An anonymous reader writes "With the release of Windows 8.1 to the world in October, January was the third full month of availability for Microsoft's latest operating system version, which was just enough time for it to pass Windows Vista in market share. While Windows 8.1 is certainly growing steadily and eating into Windows 8s share, the duo only managed to end 2013 with 10 percent market share, barely impacting Windows 7."
Wake me when it passes XP
Will it pass XP too?
Not having Steve Ballmer to kick around anymore. Nadella's take over will probably be announced this week or next.
In all fairness I would bunch 8.0 and 8.1 together. Together they sum up to 10.58%.
Because nobody in their right mind would want Windows 8/8.1 to begin with... But many are forced to have it when buying a new PC in store.
Thankfully, HP decided to bring back Windows 7 PCs, so that will help... Increasing windows 7 shares
I think it's really interesting to compare various sources that attempt to measure these OS/browser market shares, because they're obviously measuring different subsets of the population.
Steam, for example, puts Windows 8/8.1 at a bit over 20%.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
W3Schools put it around 8%.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp
In short, marketshare varies wildly depending on who you ask and none of these do a good job of actually measuring the entire market.
You are SO politically incorrect. You're not supposed to notice that the retarded kid is retarded, and you should NEVER notice crippled kids! You must be some kind of bigot - my progressive friends say so.
Oh - wait. I don't have an progressive friends. Forget I said anything.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The only percentage regarding Windows that I care about is what percentage of a reasonably priced SSD it will take up. Now, I realize that metric is subjective ("reasonable" being relative), but honestly, that's the worst part of the Windows tax: on a 240GB SSD, the footprint is something like 10%. Am I the only one who feels that's absurd?
Slashdot, news for fucking bastards, stuff thats fucked up the ass.
That was the original slogan but then marketing had to get involved....pfffttt marketing.
it's probably surpassing Microsoft Bob, too.
captcha: blowjob. Seriously? wtf!
Windows Vista is not that bad. It just needed a couple years of bug fixes. Microsoft did the smart thing by release a new version of windows with cosmetic changes, and a new name, once the bug fixes were in place.
I think Microsoft is using Windows 8 to force the Windows Phone UI down everyone's throat. Eventually, they will give up.
At some point a Microsoft update bricked my wife's laptop (HP Pavillion). Don't know how updating files could mess up the partition table but it did. We'd had enough of 8 so I used a spare license for 7 to upgrade it to 7 Pro. It's still Windoze but at least it's stable and doesn't have the sucky "Metro" (or whatever Microsoft is calling it now) UI.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I have no love for Win 8's UI. But Classic Shell to the rescue. My current system has the best of both worlds. Win 7 UI, Win 8 OS under the hood (which does have some nice improvements).
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Aren't windows 8 and 8.1 the same thing?
did you forget to take your meds?
You're gonna get used to Beta and you're gonna like it, bitch. You know how we here running Slashdot view your whiny kind? We view you as that stubborn old asshole who can't switch to Mac because you cannot comprehend a "close" button on the left side instead of the right side to which you are accustomed. Stop whining. In time the random redirects will gradually become less random and in favor of Beta, because baby has to be eased into even the most minute and insignificant of changes, lest he throw a fit but come crawling right back to get his News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters.
Watch, you'll see. And where else would you go? Reddit, that homosexual playground of militant butch-dykes and other Obama lovers? IRC, where people are orders of magnitude more intelligent and informed than you are, where you would be kicked in an instant after the first few sentences you post? Being reduced to an unnoticeable afterthought in the comment sections of Wired, ZDnet, or ArsTechnica? Without us you'd be reduced to shitposting and low karma on some arcane StackExchange website.
Shhhh, it's gonna be allright. It hurts at first, like those big scary shots mama told the doctor to give you, but you'll become better and stronger through your inevitable embrace of Beta. Trust us.
-- Samzenpus
Don't feel like spending anymore on MS products like $99-$200 for windows 8.1(nice performance but too little to late) single license when I have windows 7 that runs perfectly fine and as well as linux on other machines. Metro vs old start menu? Metro, you can pin and rearrange as many applications or other objects as you want, unlike with the old windows 7 start menu where adding applications to the favorites is limited. The majority of metro apps are junk. Sorry this isn't the 1990's or early 2000's anymore where MS gets to charge users hundreds of dollars for windows and office suits.
If they get rid of Gates, I hope these MS idiots bring down the prices so individual builders like myself can afford more than 1 license for windows or office. This is why linux is becoming attractive it does not burn through your wallet.
Honestly, if you ignore the Metro interface, Windows 7 and 8 are the same thing. Except 8 performs better. Get rid of the tablet interface and everyone would want to move to 8.
You're being too kind on the Slashdot beta by just calling it "annoying". It's much, much worse than that. It's pure and total shit.
Every single aspect of it is flawed in one way or another. It wastes space. The font sizing is disproportionate. The text color and background color do not contrast enough. The layout is confusing. The story images are way too big and pointless. The discussion threads are far more difficult to read. It's harder to post comments. It feels a lot slower than the existing site.
The Slashdot beta is a failed software project in every single sense. The only sensible thing for Slashdot to do is cancel the project, throw away the code, apologize profusely to us for subjecting us to it randomly for at least a month now, and then never again do something as utterly stupid.
Of course, I don't think that'll happen. I suspect we'll see the beta site replace the existing site at some point soon, and it'll be a Digg v4-style disaster. The few remaining valuable users will flee, and Slashdot will wither more than it already has these past few years. It will be forever remembered as yet another casualty of a hipster-inspired "Web 2.0" design shitfest gone wrong, up there with Digg, GNOME 3 and Windows 8.
Windows 8 SP1 passes Windows Vista in market share.
Kicks in the ass are more popular than punches in the face.
I bought a laptop, only to find that my development tools (FPGA's) were stable under windows 7, but were buggy under windows 8. I went through all the hassle or removing windows 8 to install windows 7 (you have to dig somewhere in windows 8 to "unlock the bios", reformat the drive for a different file type, etc) , only to find out that I couldn't get all the windows 7 drivers. Even basic stuff like the ethernet did not work. I had not experienced to what extent a new PC was non functional after installing the OS. I had to restore it back to windows 8, and buy a different laptop with windows 7 installed.
As a long term windows user, I've needed to dual boot Linux for my recent development work (running linux on an embedded target), and have been impressed by the experience. You get a working word-processor, a spreadsheet, and power-point that can open up microsoft stuff...One of my biggest hassles developing on windows is dealing with USB drivers and JTAG tools..The experience is much easier in linux, where it's easier to undo if you get yourself into trouble with the wrong driver.
It's getting to the point where many of us will need to become refugees due to the piece-of-shit Slashdot Beta site being forced on us randomly. But where will we flee?
Reddit is, as you satirically point out, one of the most intolerant, inhospitable web sites around. It's infested with the craziest of left-wingers, and I say this as somebody who leans toward the left.
Digg is totally dead these days, not that it was particularly good when it did have users.
Hacker News suffers from the same type of totalitarianism and group-think that reddit suffers from. Either you toe the line, suck up to pg, or you're "hellbanned".
Phoronix, maybe? LOL, of course not, what the fuck was I thinking?!
Lobsters? Jesus Christ, they don't even allow people to sign up! This invite-only bullshit reeks of hipsterism. They want the site to remain semi-"obscure" so that the limp-dicked hipsters who are there can feel like they have mighty cocks. I suppose a one-inch cock does look comparatively big when the next biggest cock is a mere 1.5 inches in length.
Kuro5hin was always just a weird, weird place, infested with weird, weird people.
It'll be a sad day when the Slashdot Beta site replaces this bastardized version of the classic site. All traces of what made Slashdot a decent site will be lost at that point, and it's not like there's even a good alternative these days.
In case of win8, they probably just torrented 7 to install on it.
Honestly, if you ignore the Metro interface, Windows 7 and 8 are the same thing.
If you ignore the Metro interface, and the desktop, and the apps, Windows 7 and 8 are the same thing.
I've seen a ton of people complaining about the new Office interface, for example, because it's apparently all been 'flattened' to look as crap as Windows 8 does.
I note with amusement that the market share of Windows 8.x is about the same as the Macintosh, and unlike the Apple OS, rising steadily. Where are the posts calling OSX irrelevant on the desktop? *snicker*
Aren't windows 8 and 8.1 the same thing?
yes. Both evil. Eeeevil.
MermaidManEvil.jpg
... here's why.
Two weeks ago after I upgraded to 8.1 I found that I could not copy multi-GB files to a flash drive. The copy would start the copy process but very soon afterward it the transfer rate would get slower and slower and eventually hit 0 and stay there. Eventually, the OS would stop it with some stupid error. Rebooting in safe mode and trying again allows the copy to be completed but you'd never know it because the graphical display showing the copy STILL shows it stalling although the LED on the flash drive continues to indicate that it's being written to. Eventually, the graphical display will catch up with what is being copied and it appears that half a gigabyte was copied to the drive in a couple seconds.
How in the name of hell did 8.1 ever get passed QA with such an obvious bug? Has Windows gotten so huge and clunky and full of bloat that even the code for a simple file copy is riddled with bugs?
Suffice it to say, I don't use that machine very often except when I have to use Windows.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
...in 12 processes and services.
Windows 8 out of the box over 200!
No wonder XP is on the rise!
Aren't windows 8 and 8.1 the same thing?
Right. Windows 8 is for people who haven't yet figured out the cabalistic hand gestures necessary to invoke Windows Marketplace and do the free upgrade. It's really the same OS.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Please check that your memory is not corrupt. You might have a real hardware problem. I've had a number of cases where I had bad ram, e.g. doing a memcheck at boot failed. It's amazing that the OS could run at all in these cases, but it did. Installing new applications and moving big files were problematic, but everything else worked . -Joe
...8 performs better.
I have found this to be true on several PCs. Particularly video. In my experience (and it pains me to say this), it's just so silky smooth compared to 7. The way they tried to cobble together the ModernUI and desktop was a HUGE fail though. Ever try to copy and paste the username and password for a VPN connection? I haven't tried with 8.1 but in 8, it couldn't be done. You could paste the username, but when you tried to copy the password, the stupid thing would slide off the screen. Bring it up again and the username field would be blank. NERD RAGE!
Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
no wonder they get kicked some much.
3 legged one eyed pole dancers?
intelligent gerbils?
US presidents capable of calculating the square root of 4?
US government staff able to locate Austria on a map?
Please check that your memory is not corrupt. You might have a real hardware problem. I've had a number of cases where I had bad ram, e.g. doing a memcheck at boot failed. It's amazing that the OS could run at all in these cases, but it did. Installing new applications and moving big files were problematic, but everything else worked .
I'll check the memory but I doubt that's the problem. The laptop is a year old and only rarely gets used. It's asleep most of the time.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
If you ignore the Metro interface, and the desktop, and the apps, Windows 7 and 8 are the same thing.
The apps only run on the Metro side, so I consider the "apps" and Metro one and the same. Easily ignorable. There are no "killer apps" that are only available through Microsoft's stupid store (except the 8.1 updater, which doesn't require a Microsoft Store account to download).
The Desktop is pretty close except the lack of a Start menu. Add Classic Shell and it's back to business as usual if you don't want to just pin all your programs to the Taskbar like I do. I have Classic Shell installed but don't really need it generally.
I've seen a ton of people complaining about the new Office interface, for example, because it's apparently all been 'flattened' to look as crap as Windows 8 does.
You can run older non-flattened and even non-ribbon interface versions of Microsoft Office on Windows 8 fine.
Windows 8.1 features an update that allows bypassing the metro screen (the bit everyone complains about). In simple terms, It's the "fixed" version of Windows 8.
Here was your chance to buy and upgrade to Windows 8.1...!
Gambas is like visual basic .net but open source...!
If Windows 8 had the Aero interface of 7, then 8 would be better than 7, due to its kernel, which is even closer to microkernel than ever was.
What I can't get over is how Office 2013 was released with the ribbon tab names in all CAPS. It looks like crap.
Why is Windows like Star Trek people only seem to like alternate versions?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
I just got rid of the Metro interface. I bought and installed an OEM version of Windows 7. Microsoft has gone to the "Star Trek movie" release model... every other release sucks. Windows ME begat Windows XP, Vista begat Windows 7, and Windows 8 will begat the future relevancy of Microsoft.
I do not like 8.1. Probably they are trying to innovate but the result is a confusing jerky interface.
Can't mod him offtopic, after all we're talking things that are dead and buried...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nope. THAT would actually be funny.
This is just pathetic. It's like the retard laughing over the cripple.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I had progressive friends.
Then I noticed that they're just retards.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Windows 8 is shit. End of discussion.
After all, having blasted hours playing solitaire on XP daily, I had no trouble accepting Windows 8 interface. I hope Windows 9 will look more like mindsweeper (typo intended).
Yeah, second that. I've been in IT for years and have built systems from the ground up (including routers), but today I much prefer to buy systems pre-built including OS with drivers all set to go. When one isn't paying a premium but looking for low cost (that runs common Windows software) that does the job, it is *very* hard to find a Windows system that is not running Windows 8.x. For the last few home system purchases I've been involved with I've gone for purchasing refurbished systems as they are easier to get loaded with Windows 7 for a decent price.
There are actually people running Vista!?!?!?
"it works on AMD and Nvidia cards, it works on any OS since it's handled by the drivers"
Where do you get that crazy claim?
Mantle currently only works with AMD GCN (Graphics Core Next) cards, those are the 7000 and later series. And even then the older 7xxx's don't even get the full benefits at the moment (work in progress apparently). What makes you think Mantle will ever work with Nvidia (or Intel for that matter) GPU's when they don't even work with most of AMD's cards? The vague claims in the AMD presentation slides from two months ago?
And what's even more bold is your claim that it works "on any OS". Where do you get that? Who is working on OSX or Linux support, where's the news of an ETA, state of progress etc? And then there is the whole issue that game engines need to support this and currently we only have the Frostbite 3 engine that does that. And are games built on Frostbite 3 going to be interested in porting to non-Windows OS's ?
This whole Mantle is a long shot, designed to tide AMD over by reducing CPU-load on games until AMD can come up with a decent CPU architecture again. It is probably going to from "too niche" to "already obsolete" over the course of the next 3 years and become another Glide. It is not going to kill Windows.
Only OpenGL, with its proper OPENness from the get go, meaning support on all GPU's on all OS's since its inception has a chance of ever unseating DirectX.
https://dalgamotor.wordpress.com/ - Elektronik beyinlere ozgurluk asisi (Turkish)
Joe Stalin passes Hitler in popularity.
Hey, can I also ignore the API, and put Linux on the list too?
Rethinking email
If they'll fix their accessability bug that blocks me I'd only then agree with it.
I have to agree. Windows 8 introduced a lot of questionable UI changes, but I can live with them because Win8 is stable and responsive, and those are the properties that matter the most to me. After all these years I'm used to vendors making stupid changes to their UIs; it's just an unfortunate fact of life and complaining about it pretty obviously doesn't stop vendors from doing it. So I have decided: a UI doesn't have to be *good*, as long as it is *predictable*.
That said, if I had to *support users* on Windows 8, I'd hate it with a passion. Most users don't adapt readily to UI changes.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There is still no start menu though.
Windows is dead to me and has been for many years. OS X, too. I dislike the "openness" that modern iterations of OSes have pushed. I plan on sticking with commerical-free Linux distros that are not following the crowd of what's popular now. I don't want or need any social/shopping/you-name-it integration in my OS. I need the ability to get online and add what I want to my system, thank you. I so dislike the notion that software vendors think we are all social people who cannot wait to use these sheeple tools. Debian or Slackware respect this outlook. Ubuntu went off the hook when it included a shopping lens. Really? Make money another way. I feel the same way about online ads. Bad business model. Sell something or offer something for a fee, don't track me. Several years ago I started using some pretty draconian tactics to never see ads, ban trackers, web beacons, etc. I haven't seen an ad for years. And before the flamers flame, I pay for the Internet services I use. I pay for my email service and others.
> You can run older non-flattened and even non-ribbon interface versions of Microsoft Office on Windows 8 fine.
He's right. As an experiment I ran Office 2000 on Win8, worked fine.
I disagree, though, that the Desktop is "pretty close except for the lack of a Start menu". It wasn't just that. Common things were in a different place, weren't grouped together properly and/or needed a memorized cabalistic gesture to make available. As many have said, Win8 lacks greatly in "conveyance". It's not apparent what are clickable objects and what are unclickable labels. These issues did not all go away with 8.1, nor does Classic Shell fix anything except the addition of a walking menu (which must be configured by the user).
But you can slog through all of this and maybe get work done, but why would you? We're told repeatedly that Windows 8 is better internally than 7, faster stronger better etc etc. And I'm sure that's true -- but the differences to the user, if any, are subtle, and aren't really enough motivation to deal with all the other issues. Especially for users without sysadmin experience.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
> That said, if I had to *support users* on Windows 8, I'd hate it with a passion. Most users don't adapt readily to UI changes.
Which is why in it's current form Win8 is pretty much dead to the enterprise.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Problem is, that 8.1 is being marketed as a new OS. It's not a service pack. Technically it may be even less than a service pack in changes.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
I disagree, though, that the Desktop is "pretty close except for the lack of a Start menu". It wasn't just that. Common things were in a different place, weren't grouped together properly and/or needed a memorized cabalistic gesture to make available. As many have said, Win8 lacks greatly in "conveyance". It's not apparent what are clickable objects and what are unclickable labels. These issues did not all go away with 8.1, nor does Classic Shell fix anything except the addition of a walking menu (which must be configured by the user).
Classic Shell has pre-configured setups where you can simply select if you want a Luna (XP) type Start menu, a Vista-theme one, or a Windows 7 inspired menu. The user doesn't have to build their own Start menu item-for-item (in fact, that option is hidden in the "show all settings" mode). Classic Shell's installer also has the option of installing additional items that make changes to Windows Explorer and IE, so it's more than just a Start menu.
Is this better than Windows 7? No, obviously not.
But there's not reason to act like one must find those vendors still offering Windows 7 PCs, or that getting a Windows 8 machine is dooming a user to Microsoft-account enabled, Metro crApp usability nightmare. Having the PC boot to Desktop and just pinning all your most used programs for the taskbar really is a fine solution when you stop and think about what Joe Sixpack actually uses his computer for nowadays:
1. Web Browser -- wow, we just covered 80% of his uses right here - Facebook, Email, Netflix, Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, Pogo, etc, etc, etc
2. Email Client -- for if he still uses his ISP account or has a work email address.
3. Office (maybe, for work)
That's it! We're looking at maybe a half-dozen programs to pin at the most (if we pin the Office apps individually). Even a laptop with a 1366x768 screen will give you enough Taskbar for that. We already have Windows Explorer down there for accessing files. We can still add a video player or a digital camera app, but we're pretty much done. Besides teaching he user how to shut off the computer from the Charms menu, what do we need a Start menu for?