Windows XP though 14 year old operating system has more users in comparison to Windows 8 or 8.1.
It is almost a year now that Microsoft has ended its support to the Windows XP users, in other words users have stopped getting any updates including any Security Essentials for their computer from Microsoft. The main aim of Microsoft in removing the technical support was to push its consumers form XP to the newer 8 and 8.1 software. However, it seems Microsoft XP and Windows 7 still captures the retail market and have more global users.
Microsoft itself has now given up on Windows 8 and 8.1 and is pushing out its latest OS, Windows 10 which hopes will rework the magic of Windows XP.
Lets see the numbers as per NetMarketShare: The reports indicate that last year Windows 8 and 8.1 combined showed 11.3%, Windows 7 showed 48.8% whereas market share of Windows XP showed 27.5%. Now lets check the market shares this year: Windows 8 and 8.1 combined has increased to 14%, Windows 7 to 58% and Windows XP to 16.9%. Its definitely interesting to see that Windows 8 and 8.1 combined has an increase of 2.7% over last year however it is still less as compared to the 14 year old Windows XP which showed a market share of 16.9% this year.
And Windows 7 is still at a much higher position in the graph at 58%. Hence it is surprising to see that an operating system which has not received any technical support for last one year is still having a higher market share! The overall graph also reflected that only in the month of Novemeber 2014 the market share of XP dipped and that was the month when the market share for Windows 8 / 8.1 combined did increase by approximate 3.5%.
On the other hand the combined market share of Windows 8/8.1 installs is flat for the past three months and the reason could be that some users have chosen to use the Windows 10 Technical Preview form which is available free of charge. Though Windows 10 would still take some time to be released it seems Windows XP is at present dominating the market as it seems users rather prefer the old version and pay Microsoft for extended support rather than opting for the newer infrastructure.
Microsoft has already released the Windows 10 Technical Preview version for download and is already releasing builds after builds for user testing before its final release in summer.
Think it has more to do with people not willing to spend the money for a new/newer computer when their current one “works just fine for what they do”. I’m in that boat, using an 10 yer old Dell tower with XP as my daily use machine. I have no need for a 8 core rig with a huge amount of RAM (over 9000!). The day she goes up in smoke will be the day I consider getting a new one, but I’ll probably just built it & run Linux O:-)