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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
Well, that was the most funny bit in the article: XP is on the rise.
Windows XP meanwhile managed to regain some share after falling below the 30 percent mark at the end of 2013, increasing 0.25 percentage points (from 28.98 percent to 29.23 percent).
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 have to dig somewhere in windows 8 to "unlock the bios", reformat the drive for a different file type, etc)
That's not Microsoft's doing, the hardware vendor shipped the computer with Secure Boot enabled, which Windows 8 supports, but 7 does not. You can't blame them for enabling a new feature. If it's hard to go back, the hardware vendor wrote the user interface, not Microsoft, so put the blame where it belongs.
... 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.
Once again, the hardware vendor was the one that decided not to distribute Windows 7 drivers. I've found many cases where the driver actually works with Windows 7, but the installer is specifically coded to refuse to run on 7. It's more of the hardware vendor trying to reduce its expenses by not training tech support staff on more than one operating system than an actual flaw with Windows.
You're leaving out the fact that the start screen is full screen. This has been discussed many, many times.
This isn't a case of people just not wanting change - it's a case of trying to force a square peg (tablet/phone UI) in a round hole (desktop environment).