Windows Desktop Market Share Drops Below 90% (venturebeat.com)

An anonymous reader quotes VentureBeat's new article about desktop operating systems: Windows 7 is still the king, but it no longer holds the majority. Nine months after Windows 10's release, Windows 7 has finally fallen below 50 percent market share and Windows XP has dropped into single digits. While this is good news for Microsoft, April was actually a poor month for Windows overall, which for the first time owned less than 90 percent of the market, according to the latest figures from Net Applications.

Comments

Yeey, less than 90% to go

[NotInHere]

linux on the desktop is imminent

Re:Yeey, less than 90% to go

[drinkypoo]

If you are more or less happy with XP you will be ecstatic with Windows 7. But what do you do after Windows 7? Linux, obviously.

Re:Yeey, less than 90% to go

[suupaabaka]

A few months ago, I was doing some work on the PC when my sister-in-law was visiting, and she happened to walk past and glance at my screen. Noticing it looked quite different to what she was used to, she asked me about it and I gave her a quick run-down of the OS (Linux Mint). When she went home, she asked me to help her install it over the phone, and now she uses it as her daily OS. Her partner's starting to show interest too, apparently.

I'm hoping Linux snowballs. Free software (and I mean both definitions of free) can really only be beaten by quality, and I think Linux is rapidly bridging that quality gap.

Re:Yeey, less than 90% to go

[NotInHere]

I've installed Linux on my sister's aging laptop, as a replacement for the XP she had before. I'd warned her multiple times that XP was going EOL and that she should jump to an alternative, and after some time of nagging she agreed that I can put Ubuntu on her Laptop. Unfortunately the WiFi driver didn't work and the new shiny (and expensive!) printer she bought a few weeks earlier didn't have any Linux driver support at all, so she wasn't very happy with it.

Recently she bought herself a new laptop, she didn't want me to replace the pre-installed Windows.

Re: Yeey, less than 90% to go

[AK Marc]

There was a start menu, it was just called "metro". If you don't like it, don't use it. The "start" menu in Windows was nothing other than a collection of shortcuts. If you didn't like it, you could create a start folder with the same functionality. Again, this is coming down to Wingows hater hating Windows for the customization required to get the UI you want. Isn't that the standard complaint against Linux? So if you don't want to do the work to make Windows work the way you want, but you are willing to do that for Linux, it's not the OS that's the issue. It's the user.

The only thing you couldn't get in shortcuts is the "run" box, and that requires keystrokes anyway, so just close your eyes, hit the windows key, and type what you want. You don't have to "see" metro, even if you have to use it to run a command. With "pin to taskbar" in Win10, you put your start menu on the taskbar. It's impossible to avoid Metro in 10, but you don't have to spend more than 2-10 seconds there to get anything done. type it out, and it's faster than finding it in a list. The only time it's "intrusive" is when you are on a tablet with touch, but no keyboard, in which case, it's easier to use than the start menu.

Re:Yeey, less than 90% to go

[Anon-Admin]

Ok, I gave a Fedora CD to the windows guy at work that manages the desktops. He is always saying how easy it is to install Windows. He grabbed an engineering workstations with a 6 core processor, 128g of ram, and high end graphics card. Put the CD in, it asked him 4 or 5 questions and installed. The whole process took less than 20 min and everything worked including the 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse Pro.

He was in shock and said "That would have taken me 4 or 5 hours with windows!"

He then grabbed one of the older Dell laptops they give out to the office staff and put it in there. It installed in 20 min and recognized everything including the WiFi card. He admitted that he grabbed that laptop because it is a pain to get windows to work on it and was amazed that linux just installed, came up and worked as expected.

So, He was not a Linux Zealot, he was the windows desktop guy. I did nothing but watch, and he did everything.

Linux has come a ling ways in the last 10 years, I have been surprised as just how easy it is to install. You no longer have to be a computer wiz to install it.

Re:Yeey, less than 90% to go

[chipschap]

I do find oddball problems in Linux, but I've been able to solve nearly all of them. One was with a so-called "WinPrinter" that relied on stuff within Windows to initialize it --- but I did find a Linux substitute and got it to work.

I had one problem with a USB wifi adapter. It was really odd in that it had worked for the longest time but then a kernel update killed it. I could have regressed my kernel to get it to work again (or done some patching) but I hardly ever used it and just let it go.

Yes, I admit using these devices would have been easier on Windows. But I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 99+% of everything I've tried works with Linux without extra hassle.

Above, someone commented that Linux was never intended to be mainstream. I interpreted that as a criticism, but actually it isn't. Linux has a certain audience. I don't see anything wrong with that. But my wife uses Linux and if she can, anyone can ... with the caveat that someone else (me, in her case) sets it up and supports it.

Re: Yeey, less than 90% to go

[oddware]

The problem is you pay for software that you then have modify/hack to get it right, and then fight the OS just to stop it from spying on your.....getting your monies worth for sure /s

Re: Yeey, less than 90% to go

[Hylandr]

Take a look at what Amazon is doing with AWS as an example and you will see there's real truth in that statement.

Back in 95 / 97 Windows was trying to claim that NT was 'The backbone of the Internet' when the Internet had been around some 30 years prior to Windows ever getting a TCP/IP stack.

Just because your view of the Internet has been through a windows machine with the popularity of the world wide web, doesn't mean all these Internet services are provided by Windows machines, which very bluntly, suck terribly at serving web pages much less anything else.

I have been testing Korora Linux as an alternative to Windows 10. Whether it's evil or not I have absolutely no trust in Microsoft whatsoever. It is what it is.

Re:Yeey, less than 90% to go

[myowntrueself]

linux on the desktop is imminent

I've been with Linux since 1992. No kidding.

What do I use on my desktop at home and work? Windows 10.

Linux is great for servers, especially with virtualization; each VM does one thing and does it well. Theres very little complexity to deal with. The desktop is a whole different thing. There is massive complexity and variation.

Way more software gets installed on the desktop than on a server. Way more hardware gets connected to a desktop. The interactions are incredibly complex.

I had Debian 8 with a USB camera. The camera keeps disappearing. It doesn't with Windows.
I had Ubuntu 16 with VMWare workstation. One reboot, no kernel upgrade, VMWare refuses to start. Never had this problem with Windows.

Problems like this are resolvable, you CAN use Linux on the desktop. But the amount of work you have to put in to troubleshoot things like this overwhelms the experience. I don't have time for this at home nor at work. I stick with what works without me having to do a bunch of extra hours.

The value that gets added by a proprietary OS is immense, make no mistake. And the likes of Ubuntu and Fedora really aren't in the same category as Windows or OSX

Re: Yeey, less than 90% to go

[Tough Love]

It is market leader in the server world, having a market share of 100% in supercomputers,

100%??? I call bullshit. it has 100% of the top 10 and the vast majority of the top 500 but Linux most definitely does NOT have 100% marketshare in supercomputers.

OP pretty much got it right, it's actually 99%. Check for yourself.

Re:Yeey, less than 90% to go

[Anonymous Coward]

On Windows 7, if I plug in a USB stick, keyboard or mouse, I see a popup saying "installing driver"... And I go "WTF are you doing, that thing is class compliant, use the built in driver you moronic operating system".

If I plug the same thing in a Linux machine, it will use the USB class driver.

Or did you mean "the only drivers that need to be installed manually".

Re: Yeey, less than 90% to go

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there isn't an operating system that has ever existed that I was completely content with out of the box. I've customised Windows, DOS, BSD, Linux, BeOS and OS/2. The fact that Windows 8.x allowed software to override the start screen and that many pieces of software were available to do just that on day one of Windows 8 meant that it was never a problem.

With Windows 7 I remember having to install some third party software just to get proper multi-display support for the taskbar and a third party copy handler to be able to pause file operations. In addition, like all versions of Windows, I had to install antivirus, a good browser and many other programs to make it work the way I want. The question here is why do the shortcoming in Windows 7 get handwaved but all of a sudden installing a start menu replacement in Windows 8 is such a big deal?

The UI in Windows 10 is least reason it's garbage. It's spyware, adware and malware junk that is 100% controlled by Microsoft and will most likely be going progressively more crippleware/adware....unless you pay a recurring subscription fee of course.

Re: Yeey, less than 90% to go

[oddware]

Not sure where you pulled that number from, oh wait, yeah i do.

Install distro from pen drive - 15 Mins.......
update && upgrade (Only reboot once :P) - 10 Mins (Depends on internet connection, also my ISP has a repos which is free data) ......
launch "additional drivers", select graphics drivers (proprietary nvidia for me) - 10 Mins (Depends on internet connection) ......
Any further software that needs to be installed will be the same with any other OS.

Already has tons of software installed, ready to go.
Any other software can be installed using command line (my favorite) or using one of the various included "app stores" (Ubuntu Software Center for example)
Very rarely do you need to spend more than an hour to get a modern distro up and running.

Re:Yeey, less than 90% to go

[KGIII]

Yeah, I did that. In fact, I kept Linux installed on a second partition for a dozen+ years. When asked (and you did not) I recommend against that dual boot thing. I dare say that, with more than a dozen years and as prolific as I write, I've examined this a lot. It is my experience that most people who do the dual booting thing do not actually convert and remain with Linux for any significant length of time. Which is okay, I'm not one to tell someone what OS to use. On the other hand, if you're interested in converting to the dark side, I've noticed most people do better at it when they go all gung-ho.

To give a bit of history... I came from Unix (more or less). Linux came out and I dicked around with it but I didn't really play with Linux until 1998 or so? It was about the time where I was comfortable with Windows at home and on some of the machines at the office. Everything else was usually from Sun. :) SunOS and Solaris were good to me and the hardware was fantastic but I'm trying to not digress too much.

Still, I liked the idea of Linux. I kept it installed on nearly every computer that I owned that had space. I preferred to put it on a second drive so often would buy (and still do) larger laptops for the express purpose of having a second drive bay. Yet, I didn't boot into it except to update it and try new things in it. Once in a while, I'd use if exclusively for a few months. Sometimes? I'd only use it for a day. Maybe even less - just long enough to break something and not feel like fixing it. Stuff like that.

During this time, with Linux installed on a 2nd drive or partition, I actually was awarded the MS MVP for more than a half-dozen years and in a variety of categories. I still had, even then, every intention to move to Linux. No... I didn't... I'd find something that looked interesting and I'd boot up a second machine or reboot the one I was on and boot to Linux. I'd get frustrated or bored and I'd just go back to Windows on the next boot. More often than not, I'd have broken something (which is actually how I learn) and then I'd just do a re-install or try a new distro and repeat the process - over a period of months, then years, then over a decade.

Then, in a fit of frustration, I realized what I had to do. How many files do you have stored that are cryptically named "setup.exe" or "install.zip?" How many copies of CCleaner.exe do you have? Do you even know what they are any more?

I was frustrated because I'm aging and, I swear, I can feel my brain plasticize. I wasn't learning anything new with Windows. Yes, it feels nice to have been recognized as an MVP and all that but that's not nearly as rewarding as it is to actually figure out something new and to learn something different. It's not as rewarding to know a bunch about the registry. What is rewarding is to figure out learning the ins-and-outs of something new. What is rewarding is finding new ways to approach problems and new ways to solve them. I was not learning anything new about Windows.

So, I guess you can say that I've used Linux for years but I've been a Linux user for only... Hmm... Just a couple or years now. I use Linux exclusively and I've gotta be going on a couple of years at it now. I do have a Windows phone, I guess that's not Linux but Android's not very much like a desktop Linux either. (I'm eagerly awaiting some reports on the new Ubuntu phone. I did pre-order a tablet. I should check on that.) I have pretty much used Linux exclusively on my home servers for much longer than that - but not on the desktop. It's not like I was a n00b coming into it or anything - but, still, there is much to learn even now.

Just delete everything. Save any personal documents. Wipe your drives. Burn all your Windows installs to the ground. Delete all those installers that you'll never need again. Then, no matter what, don't look back. Don't even install Windows in a VM. Screw it... Unless you have a compelling need, don't do it. That is, if you want to actually switch and stay switched. I h

So what's replacing it?

[negRo_slim]

And why is Windows 3.11 seeing such an uptick in use?

Re:So what's replacing it?

[ogdenk]

Windows 3.x didn't have a start menu. If you're too young to remember, don't talk out of your ass.

the invasive spying of windows 10

[FudRucker]

is when microsoft really shot themselves in the foot, people are generally low info and naive but with windows 10 microsoft really let the joe & jane sixpack what blatant spies and abusers of personal info microsoft is, i can see microsoft's user base continuing to erode until they are down below 30% of the internet population

I think the Mac is replacing it in many cases ....

[King_TJ]

The stats on hardware sales for the last couple years kept indicating slumps in most Windows PC maker's sales, with Apple the only hardware manufacturer still reporting good sales figures.

At some point, if more people keep buying new Macs instead of new Windows machines, we should see the OS usage stats changing for Windows too.

I don't doubt a number of people also went to Linux when they got frustrated with things about Windows 10. But statistically, I doubt it made the dent that OS X did. (One of my friends just dumped Win 10 in favor of the latest Ubuntu, but he's already angry with some issues he ran into with it. So not sure he'll keep it....)

Unfortunately, Apple seem to be its own worst enemy right now, since it's more interested in converting people to iOS on iPads than convincing them to get new Mac desktops or laptops. I guess anything's possible, but I truly think the idea that tablets will replace PCs for people is a big mistake. Think of corporate America, where people spend most of the day using a computer from a desk. Why compromise with some sort of tablet in that scenario? People want multiple, large monitors for better productivity and less eye-strain. That, in turn, requires more powerful graphics cards to push all of the pixels needed to run at those screen resolutions at a good speed. That winds up the weak spot for a tablet form-factor machine. Fast graphics cards require lots of power and give off lots of heat. They don't cram well into flat tablets.

Re:Why would anyone want Linux on the desktop?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Can anyone tell me why Linux is a good choice on the desktop? I doubt it.

I can tell you why. For me Linux Mint has been a perfect alternative to Windows.

It's free, it installed easily, everything just works, and I like not having to reboot after updating the system. All of the applications I need are available and Wine runs the few niche Windows apps I still use. I'm sure I'll find replacements for those when I get around to it but so far there's been no need.

I'm still searching for some good malware but so far I've had no luck in that department.

Re:meh

[vux984]

The flat-out refusal to have kernel level generic usb3 driver means that all hypervisors running on Win7 must either have their own full USB3 implementation or be limited to USB2. This is just an attempt to get people to upgrade from Win7

The number of people looking at Windows 7 USB3 support as a hypervisor host is only slightly more people than "just you".

Here's a real problem with the linux desktop

[Okian Warrior]

Its been well over a decade since those were real problems. That said, I would give you more credibility if you hadn't posted as AC. And FWIW, I've been using Linux as an everyday desktop since 1997. Yes, it actually was a bit harder back then, you had to do some reading and understanding. Nowdays, stick the disc in and reboot.

The OP was about the start menu, so here's a real goddamned problem with linux.

I'm using Linux Mint, which comes with cinnamon.

You can configure the start menu, but it's clunky. To move things around you have to laboriously click on an application, click "copy", go to the destination, and click "paste". One at a time, because doesn't support multiple selections.

Then you have to go *back* to the original location, where you now have *two* copies of the application icon, and make one of them invisible. Not delete it - that will also delete the one you just put in the new location.

About 90 minutes later (*) I had the start menu categories organized in a good way, and made the things I didn't need invisible. Some things you can't make invisible ("universal access"), but I can live with the extra clutter.

The menu system editor lets you make sub-menus. I like to have a small number of choices in each menu (so that I don't have to scan long lists to find the thing I want), so I thought I would group the wine applications (there are 3 of them) into a sub-menu named wine, so that it would only take up 1 line in the menu.

...which doesn't work. All sub-menu items are promoted to the upper-level menu, so this means I can only have a *maximum* of 11 items in any menu before I have to use the slider bar and scan down long lists of items.

A quick google shows that this feature, of not having sub-menus, is by design, it's not going to be fixed, and the system was designed in such a way that the underlying structure format has to be rewritten to support it.

So there's this feature of the menu editor for putting things in sub-menus, but it has no effect?

Gah!

This is reminiscent of the Firefox changes, where people keep saying "Oh, this is much better! DO IT OUR WAY!"

Compare to the WinXP version of menu organizing: the start menu is a directory (on the disk), and sub-menus are sub-directories. Applications are files (links to the executable), which can be moved around trivially en-masse using cut and paste.

I keep hearing linux evangelists saying "everything is a file", but not in this case. Everything is hidden, broken, designed to be used one-and-only way, and obscure.

(I'm aware of the "alacarte" application, which makes it *slightly* easier to manipulate menus, but the end result is the same. It also borked the menu system, so I had to purge and reinstall cinnamon.)

(*) After finding this out, I originally thought I'd edit the config files manually and move things around using the editor. Editing is easy, but finding out which files to edit is highly non-trivial. I found three (yes, three) separate places that *seemed* to list the top-level categories of my start menu, but test edits (change "graphics" to "grophics" and check for changes) had no effect. Also, there are a bewildering number of possible files to edit, in several locations. Some are in $HOME/.config, some are $HOME/.local, and some are in /etc/xdg.

Microsoft doesn't care about windows as much

[phantomfive]

Windows isn't a major segment of Microsoft's revenue anymore. Because of that, they have gotten complacent, and don't really care much anymore. Remember how things went with IE when that happened? Expect roughly the same for Windows.