back to article Windows 7 passes XP, Mac OS X passes Vista

Two aging Windows operating systems slipped a ranking each in the market share race this August, with Windows 7 overtaking Windows XP as the world's most popular desktop operating system, and Apple's OS X overtaking the late, lamented Windows Vista. This news comes to us from Net Applications' monthly Net Market Share survey, …

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  1. nuked
    Facepalm

    What amazes me...

    ... is that 0.03% of sys admins are stark raving lunatics.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: What amazes me...

      I don't remember NT being too terrible (I'm a dev not a sysadmin); what was so bad? Our software ran for weeks of uptime easily which back then seemed pretty good!

      1. El Andy

        Re: What amazes me...

        Back in the day, NT4 was pretty good and certainly the most stable version of Windows at the time. But that day was a long, long time ago. It doesn't have any plug-and-play hardware support, security updates didn't apply in a terribly reliable fashion so you'd rarely find a box more patched than the last Service Pack (or excitingly, half "service packed" because someone had installed a printer or looked at a control panel or something else which had conveniently replaced half the patched files with vulnerable originals). And if you go back and actually try to configure the darn thing, it's horrible compared to a modern OS. I guess back in the day we didn't know better!

      2. Mage Silver badge
        Alert

        Re: What amazes me...

        NT?

        Which one

        3.1, 3,5, 3.51, 4.0, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 6.0, 6.1 or win 7 which is really approx 6.2

        I suspect they mean 4.0, but it should say so

        So even though you get Win7 pretty much automatically if you don't buy an overpriced Mac, it's only 0.3% ahead of the 11 year old OS?

        written on

        Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]

        (C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

      3. bazza Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: What amazes me...

        @JDX,

        "Our software ran for weeks of uptime easily which back then seemed pretty good!"

        Not bad, but the Sun/Solaris servers/workstations I was using back then had up times measured in years... Admittedly we did have some NT servers too that pretty much just sat there doing their job with not much trouble. Still are for all I know.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What amazes me...

          @bazza: Your sun Solaris servers weren't that reliable in the mid 90s, probably aren't that reliable now, even mainframe or tandem doesn't have an uptime measured in years. NT however cost less than a tenth the amount of sparc/solaris, even on top of the range proliant hardware.

          1. JimC

            Re: What amazes me...

            Back in Netware 3.x/4.x days an average uptime of approaching a year wasn't that unusual across our server estate. Nowadays patching schedules make that more or less impossible. I can't remember off hand what the longest uptime I recorded was, but I think I have screen shots of something over 1,000 days.

            But that was in the days when an OS only had to do a few things well, instead of a lot of things badly.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What amazes me...

      What amazes me is that anyone still uses Windoze!

      1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

        Re: What amazes me...

        What amazes me is that anyone still thinks "Windoze" is witty.

        At least you didn't call it "Window$" I suppo$e.

        1. Ross K Silver badge
          FAIL

          Re: What amazes me...

          Windoze, for all its' faults, has greater market penetration than LinSux.

          Microsloth Winblows was another "hilarious" one.

          Yes folks, this is what nerds spent their time doing before the graphical web browser was invented...

          Quote from the Jargon File:

          "A thirty-two bit extension and graphical shell to a sixteen-bit patch to an eight-bit operating system originally coded for a four-bit microprocessor which was written by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition."

      2. Dave 15

        Re: What amazes me...

        Perhaps suggest an alternative?

        The alternatives that I see out there are so damned awful they make even the crap from Microsoft seem appealing.

        Linux is unusable - even if you are a computer bod you actually want to use your computer to achieve something, this just isn't possible with an OS so full of holes, problems and with a 'community' intent on making sure you learn the ins and outs of every processor instruction possible before you surf el-reg.

        Mac does at least have the advantage of working. It is somewhat expensive and harder to write applications for so has less available for those who are slightly more adventurous than just doing their blogs.

        1. Chemist

          Re: What amazes me...

          "Linux is unusable - even if you are a computer bod you actually want to use your computer to achieve something, this just isn't possible with an OS so full of holes, problems.."

          I don't recognise any of this !

          It's certainly totally usable for me and mine, we don't use anything else. It was usable ( in fact essential) for the major pharmaceutical company I worked for and that was 8-9 years ago.

          This is the usual ignorance or FUD

    3. GitMeMyShootinIrons

      Re: What amazes me...

      Three words....

      Incompatible Legacy Applications.

  2. pPPPP

    " world's most popular desktop operating system"

    Not sure I'd use the term "popular". Most common, perhaps. I have it on my laptop because I need it for work applications. I have it on my home PC (or one of them at least) because I need it to play games. It's far from popular with me. XP wasn't great but at least you could strip out the bloatware. With Windows 7 you get a ton of shit you don't want or need.

    If they'd just fixed XP then it would have been fine. Not great, but fine.

    And why the hell does backspace do what the same as alt-left in explorer windows, yet do the same as every other version of Windows in file dialogues? (apart from Vista, which doesn't count). That and all the other stupid bugs and annoyances.

    At least I'm pretty confident I'll never have to use Windows 8. I only went to Windows 7 to get a 64-bit Windows OS with decent driver support.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Are there people around who really don't know all the meanings of popular?

    2. Peter Johnstone

      I agree with the sentiment that common != popular.

      However the comment about Windows 7 coming with a ton of shit that you don't want or need I'm not so sure about. If you've bought windows pre installed on a computer that you've bought then there may well be a ton of 'scrapeware' on it, but that's nothing to do with Windows. I've found windows 98, XP and 7 to be as you describe, OK but not great. I didn't dislike ME and Vista as much as some people, but for me they struggled performance wise.

      I too am confident that I'll never need to use Windows 8, because I've jumped ship to Mac OS - here come the down votes, but I have to say I haven't been this happy with an OS since my Amiga days.

      1. pPPPP

        Yep, I did mean popular and common aren't the same thing. It's common for people to breathe in and out, and one could describe it as a popular activity, but I expect that if we weren't compelled into doing it it wouldn't be as popular as it is.

        It's about choice, in other words. Many people have no choice but to use Windows, and often particular versions of Windows.

        I wasn't talking about the laptop manufacturers' crapware (first thing I ever do to a new computer is trash it and install from scratch). More about Windows itself, although to its credit Windows 7 does let you uninstall things like Media Player and IE. I don't have the slightest problem with these programs, other than the fact that they're installed by default, and you get no choice. If you could select the packages you want to install, or choose which window manager you want, without having to install those you don't, then that would be fine. It's all those extra files you neither want nor need. When I installed XP it was a few hundred MB. 7 is tens of gigabytes. Why can't they give you a basic install and let you add things as you need them?

        MS can do it when they want to. Security Essentials is an excellent piece of software which isn't forced on you, and does what it's supposed to in a pretty efficient manner.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          The flip side is for many people...

          ...why do I have to install everything one at a time, can't they just load everything and I'll remove what I don't want.

          See works both ways.

          1. KroSha

            Re: The flip side is for many people...

            What'd be nicer would be an option in the installer that lets you make choices. OSX has a limited one, where you can choose not to install some language packs, or printer drivers that you'll never need. I'd like to see more choice, so you can really tailor the install to your needs.

            With post-install slimming, my core OS was under 3GB, rather than the 7GB for a basic one. And that could have gone lower.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Ugh

          "I agree with the sentiment that common != popular."

          "Yep, I did mean popular and common aren't the same thing."

          Well you're wrong, you idiots. That is precisely one of the meanings of the word 'popular', which is presumably the point that the other anon at 20:05 was making. Well done for letting it fly over your brainless heads and embarrassing yourselves further though.

          1. pPPPP

            Re: Ugh

            Er, no. You're wrong and you've backed this up yourself by saying "one of the meanings", not "the one and only undisputed meaning". I picked up on one of those meanings you mentioned and elaborated on it in my response. This may or may not have been how the author had intended (I suspect not). You may not have discovered this in your years of trolling, but some words have more than one meaning. They're called homonyms.

            Whether you agree with my sentiment is entirely up to you. I'm not a huge fan of certain aspects of Windows 7, as I explained. Others clearly love every thing about it and I wouldn't dispute that someone has a different opinion on what personally appeals to them. That would be daft. They're welcome to downvote. That's what it's for. Disagreement is the essence of debate.

            You, however, have managed to embarrass yourself by accusing others of having done so, and you have managed to back this up and make a fool of yourself with the only sentence in your anonymous comment which wasn't a personal insult for something you clearly know very little about.

            Perhaps you'd like to find a dictionary definition which backs you up. I can certainly find plenty which don't. Or maybe you should just crawl back under your bridge.

            Then again, I doubt anyone's still reading these comments still as the article's getting on.

            You're still a knob. Downvote that :-)

            1. chr0m4t1c

              Re: Ugh

              Yeah, Cheryl Cole is popular, but she's not....

              Hang on, I need to re-think this argument.

    3. CmdrX3

      I know this may be hard for you to accept...

      ... But there are many people who actually DO like Windows 7, myself included. Maybe that is why even Windows 7 retail sales were hugely successful.

  3. andreas koch

    The XP demise slowly becomes inevitable,

    mainly, I think, due to its memory limits.

    While we here are all aware that our favourite windows also had a 64-bit version, Joe Public mainly replaces it with Windows 7 for the reason of having more than 3.5GB of RAM in their box. Gamers also miss the latest DirectX.

    Other than that, it would probably still be the most used OS worldwide; actually, I believe it probably is. A lot of companies who deal with confidential data and don't let their employees tweet every bowel movement would not show up on web statistics and probably have sysadmins that by for the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." rule.

    XP will be with us for quite a while yet.

    Has anyone got an idea how the share of Linux changed? Did MacOS carve anything out of that as well?

    A comparison to last years data would have been nice...

    1. Gordan

      Re: The XP demise slowly becomes inevitable,

      There is, of course XP x64 edition, whcih is fully 64-bit and based on the Windows Server 2003 kernel. Best (well, least bad) windows to date.

      1. pPPPP

        Re: The XP demise slowly becomes inevitable,

        It's a pain getting drivers for a lot of devices though, particularly at the consumer end of the market.

        1. Gordan

          Re: The XP demise slowly becomes inevitable,

          Not really. I've never had any issues with driver availability for XP x64. I don't tend to buy unbranded garbage-grade hardware often, so this may have helped, but I don't think that is the sole reason. Every time I've heard somebody complain about the lack of a driver for XP x64, a quick search turned up the required driver, so this opinion seems to be largely based on FUD rather than fact.

          1. pPPPP

            Re: The XP demise slowly becomes inevitable,

            "Every time I've heard somebody complain about the lack of a driver for XP x64, a quick search turned up the required driver, so this opinion seems to be largely based on FUD rather than fact."

            That's true for most things but it's more difficult for less common hardware. Things like old keyboards or other audio hardware are often troublesome. I use my PC as a DAW and tried XP64 a while back but couldn't get drivers for everything I needed. 64-bit Windows 7 drivers were available so I made the switch.

      2. TeeCee Gold badge

        Re: The XP demise slowly becomes inevitable,

        If you want 64-bit, you are far better off with 7.

        Better driver availability and infinitely better at running older applications than 64-bit XP for a start.

        64-bit 7 is the best windows to date by far IMHO. Better than both flavours of XP in all regards.

        1. Gordan

          Re: The XP demise slowly becomes inevitable,

          I've never found any compatibility issues with old 32-bit applications on XP x64. All of my old games (gems like Total Annihilation, original Command and Conquer, etc.) work just fine.

          I dislike Windows 7 UI that it inherited from Vista. Even if I switch it into "classic" mode, the menu-bars still disappear until you hit the Alt key, and there are all sorts of things that are unnecessarily complicated (and this is coming from someone who uses Linux most of the time and only boots into Linux once a week or so for gaming purposes).

          Vista and 7 also have a bizzare network issue that renders them unable to connect to the external network if the router does NAT-ing for the Windows machine and external access over the same physical port. XP, Android and Linux have no such issue. It's an obscure issue, granted, but it's often the best you can do with some ADSL/Ethernet/WiFi routers (e.g. Thompson SpeedTouch series) that can't be OpenWRT-ed.

    2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: The XP demise slowly becomes inevitable,

      XP's memory limits are less of an issue than you might think. It is fairly easy (and for corporates with enterprisey licences, quite legal) to bung XP in a VM and have it running blisteringly fast on machines with many gigs of RAM and a clutch of SATA SSDs. (You may also find that backups and root-kits are easier to deal with once you do.) Such a machine might run almost any OS on the host and which of the two actually showed up in an OS usage survey would depend on the survey's methodology.

      So, yes, XP will be with us for quite a while yet, even if pollsters can't see it.

  4. Wibble
    Headmaster

    Mac OS9 --> OSX

    Apple's jump from OS9 to OSX was a complete change of operating system, as big a jump as Windows was to NT.

    On the other hand, Microsoft's upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 is incremental as far as the desktop is concerned. However they are releasing a completely new OS in the form of Windows RT which runs on a totally different platform, ARM, which they've never supported before, i.e. it's not an upgrade, it's something new.

    1. Giles Jones Gold badge

      Re: Mac OS9 --> OSX

      I don't think the move to ARM is that big a deal. There's almost nothing in the Windows code that is Intel specific. NT used to be available (briefly) for PowerPC and DEC processors.

      1. Gordan

        Re: Mac OS9 --> OSX

        And MIPS, too, back in the NT4 days.

      2. MacroRodent

        Re: Mac OS9 --> OSX

        "There's almost nothing in the Windows code that is Intel specific. NT used to be available (briefly) for PowerPC and DEC processors."

        Windows code may not be Intel-specific, but the applications people already have are. That is the reason the PowerPC and MIPS ports of NT never took off.

        1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

          Re: Mac OS9 --> OSX @MacroRodent

          Microsoft bought (or at least licensed) Insignia Solutions' SoftPC to allow non-native code execution. The original plan was for NT on platforms other than 386/486 systems to use this technology to run binaries on other platforms. The facility was called Windows-on-Windows.

          This capability disappeared without a trace when MS pulled support from these other platforms.

    2. Tom 35

      Re: Mac OS9 --> OSX

      I would say that Windows 7 is more of an incremental release, I sometimes call it Vista that works.

      Windows 8 adds the not-Metro interface to try and cross promote their tablet things, and don't include anyway to turn it off. That is a much bigger change then Vista -> Win7.

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: Windows 8 ... is a much bigger change then Vista -> Win7.

        I've put Class Shell on my Win8 test box and I'm hardly aware of Metro. As a result, I regard Win8 as a very minor revision of 7. (The biggest change is that most of the .NET bloat is gone, but it will be re-installed as soon as you wave a .NET app at the system, so the improvement here is only temporary.) The big change was between Vista and 7 because that's when they halved the footprint and doubled the performance.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Mac OS9 --> OSX

        "I would say that Windows 7 is more of an incremental release, I sometimes call it Vista that works.

        Windows 8 adds the not-Metro interface to try and cross promote their tablet things, and don't include anyway to turn it off. That is a much bigger change then Vista -> Win7."

        They're both incremental updates, Vista > Windows 7 was spit and polish and some minor UI changes, Windows 7 > Windows 8 is WIndows 7 with a Start Screen that normal (i.e. non nerd) users won't care about or notice after a few days usage.

    3. Captain Scarlet
      Linux

      Re: Mac OS9 --> OSX

      Havent tried OSX OS9 scared me off Mac products (Well that and the price tag the fanboys etc...).

  5. Paratrooping Parrot
    Happy

    I remember four years ago, I saw Barclays had Windows 2000 machines in their branches. I only have Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit because it was installed on my laptop. It allowed me to get 8 Gigabytes of RAM. :D

  6. Big-nosed Pengie
    FAIL

    Net Applications?

    Seriously - people still take any notice of what the MS shill's figures say?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Net Applications?

      in case you've forgotten, your handle is 'big nosed pengie' it hardly points to an unbiased viewpoint.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Net Applications?

      Ahhhwadda matter, Linux STILL at only 1.2%, Oh boo hoo.

      Still at this current rate, should be at Windows level of desktop usage in about ooo several decades or so...

      1. RegGuy1 Silver badge
        Linux

        Re: Net Applications?

        Like I care. As long as my laptop is 100% Linux I have no concern at what the rest of the world does.

        Not having a bash shell would drive me nuts. What's that? You say others don't care about bash? As I said, like I care.

        1. Dave 15

          Re: Net Applications?

          bash? You for real, dos shells were better and the batch file far superior to .sh

          But then, I don't care what you have on your machine any more than you need to worry about what is on mine :)

          1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

            Re: Net Applications? @Dave 15

            What are you comparing to what?

            PowerShell might have some advantages, but I can't imaging that you really mean that Command or CMD is better than bash or ksh (or even csh if you are really talking about batch files).

            For goodness sake, even the OS/2 shell was better than the standard Windows command processors.

  7. Khaptain Silver badge
    Holmes

    The reading of the comments !!!!

    <------- Sherlock, whispered to me that there is as much information, or lack of, behind the comments as there is within the figures.

  8. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. Tank boy
    Happy

    Windows 98

    I know the one person still running it; My stepfather. It's like a computer museum at his compound in Arizona.

    1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Windows 98

      At work, we run an instance of wine with the win98 configuration (it's not emulation) simply because some PLC software we still occasionally have to use never got developed any further.

      1. James 47

        Re: Windows 98

        Have you ever tried to run it under the Windows Compatibility feature? I've had apps that were written for Win95 work on Win 7. It's pretty impressive from MS, to be fair.

    2. Richard Boyce
      Unhappy

      re: Windows 98

      Given the lack of security patches, my guess is that there is more than one person running your stepfather's machine.

    3. Steven Roper

      Re: Windows 98

      My friend also runs Windows 98 on his internet/email machine at home. He maintains it does everything he wants. What's interesting is, as somebody mentioned above about there being no security patches for it - well, according to my friend, there's none needed.

      My friend hasn't had malware on that machine in years, and he's been to some damned dodgy sites on it. Most, if not all, malware these days relies on the NT kernel (i.e. Win NT, 2K, XP, Vista and 7) to do its evil business.

      Which Windows 98 does not have.

      Which means modern malware won't work on it. And so few people still use it that it's not worth the effort of the malware crooks to support it. My friend maintains that running Windows 98, a long-obsolete system almost no-one uses any more, has become more secure than running an NT-based machine with an antivirus. He has an old antivirus anyway, just in case there's a bit of Nimda or Melissa still floating around, but I haven't seen that machine catch anything since Geocities was big business!

      Of course, there's still the many other security holes that might allow an attacker to get remote control of his machine, but they'd have to be running some pretty antiquated shit themselves to do it!

      1. Dave 15

        Re: Windows 98

        Bet win98 is also a damned site faster....

        Perhaps I should 'down grade' my machine an benefit from the improved virus protection (no one can be bothered) and the superior speed (would be interesting to see just how fast it romps along on a modern machine with all its ram and processor speed.... could be pretty impressive. I remember booting up my old 286 - complete with turbo button, typing win at the command prompt, getting windows 3 and then word up before my pentium xxxxxxx thingy running the then latest version of windows was fit to do anything).

        1. Wize

          Re: Windows 98

          Some of this you just cant emulate. We have a few custom network cards (not your usual ethernet) needed to talk to the ageing PLC network. With an emulator you can't get on that network as they only made these things with ISA bus cards.

          Ideal solution would be to get the system upgraded. But as long as it still works, they don't want to touch it.

          Trouble is, the thing will fall over with no available replacement parts, then they will want their upgrade in the next 3 day.

          Customers? Pah.

  10. RonWheeler

    Percentages - who cares?

    Who gives a wotsit. Is the OS you have the best one for the job?. Tech sites are obsessed by this bizarre numbers game. There are fewer SDS drills than cheapo hammer drills in the country - doesn't mean they're less good for the job.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Percentages - who cares?

      Hmm, considering voting you up for the analogy but down for "...less good..."; Point well made verses pedantry, I'll think about it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Percentages - who cares?

      The people who use operating systems that fall low on the list, apparently, and who display bitterness at the unfairness and stupidity of others.

    3. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Percentages - who cares?

      By your own logic, the verdict of the market is that some flavour of Windows is the best OS for the job in 90% of cases. I'd say that counts as "news" for a tech site.

      1. KroSha

        @Ken, Re: Percentages - who cares?

        By your own logic, the verdict of the accountancy dept is that some flavour of Windows is the most cost effective OS for the job in 90% of cases. I'd say that counts as "news" for a tech site.

        FTFY

  11. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    Who's the sad sack still stuck on Windows ME? I still remember when my Dad got that. I spent a lot of my visits home fixing that machine. I still can't decide whether I hated Win95 more... But that's probably because I fixed it more often. I only knew one person with ME.

    1. KroSha
      Thumb Up

      I also danced a little dance when my parents replaced the ME box with Win7.

  12. Glyph

    browsing machine

    These stats are based on browsing statistics. That makes me wonder how much browsing is done from mobile devices now. To have these numbers it would seem they must also have iOS and android numbers.

  13. Peter Snow
    Megaphone

    You don't know what you're missing!

    98.9% of computer users don't know what they're missing!

    A Linux user.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You don't know what you're missing!

      Oh, trust me... I know

      Thanks anyways

      A Windows user.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    A tad obvious, still...

    For the obvious part; it should be obvious. XP isn't being sold, Win7 on the other hand still is so it was only a matter of time before one would overtake the other.

    Still, I think its well deserved and to me (for whatever that's worth) it shows that the market isn't stupid. When I bought my current desktop PC it came with Vista (Home-Premium) pre-installed. At first I used this for a games machine, after I got my PS3 I used it for dedicated 'Windows stuff'. Even later I actually started using it for my common desktop and for my hobby (synthesizer / DAW usage & synthesis study in general).

    Fun part is that only /after/ I upgraded to Windows 7 professional I finally realized the major differences between Vista & 7. No kidding; on some aspects (multimedia for example) these are huge.

    Quick example: I have my DAW ('sound software') setup to generate some percussion using samples, a bass line using a (software) synthesizer and some lead sounds using a so called "VST" (software synthesizer but this time a plugin, so 3rd party stuff). I also applied some sound effects to all three tracks. On tops all tracks some together on the 'master' where I applied a 'Compressor' sound effect to keep the overall volume a bit in check (meaning: making sure that I don't have too big extremes in volume).

    Vista CPU load, with all my hardware attached (controllers, keyboard, USB soundcard): 70 - 90%.

    Win7 CPU load (same as above): 10 - 20%.

    When I was still using Vista I didn't consider upgrading, but after I had I was actually glad I did.

  15. MacroRodent
    Linux

    Linux' showing

    The one percent of Linux is actually amazingly good for an OS that is almost never pre-installed and so requires some positive action for the users to start using.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Re: Linux' showing

      I agree >1% is a bewilderingly massive amount of people who have installed another operating system, or rather gone out of their way to NOT use Windows! Especially considering so many businesses have locked themselves into the proprietary Microsoft systems. It is getting much easier to break away from the lock-in now.

  16. shaolin cookie
    Meh

    "seven years worth of operating systems"

    If you sum those up, 10.[6-8] comes up to 6.24%, which would be more than Vista. So it's really only 3 years, no?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Statistics and Lies

    These figures do need to be taken with a hefty pinch of salt.

    Many of the more enlightened web users who frequent the tech forums block all manner of hit counters and ad sites. How many Reg Readers use Firefox with NoScript and Adblock-Plus. come on hands up....

    I block all these sites. The onlt time I ever see any adverts is on my totally locked down (can't even adjust the screen resolution) windows 7 laptop. Thankfully they installed VMWare so all my browsing is done via a VM (Linux) that is totally under my control

    anon just because I don't want to give our corporate IT droids any ideas about locknig the laptops down even further.

  18. Eponymous Cowherd
    Joke

    Windows 7 passes XP

    OSX passes Vista

    Windows 8 passes water.......?

  19. jai
    Linux

    1.1%

    Year of the Linux!! woohoo get in!!!

  20. This post has been deleted by its author

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Where is Haiku on that list?

    - lonely Haiku user.

  22. CmdrX3

    Only if you combine them all

    So really you need to combine EVERY SINGLE version of OSX to surpass what is one of Microsoft's least popular OS's. However as Apple insist each new version is a new OS then it must be treated in the same way as Windows different versions, and in that case it's still firmly planted in fourth place.

  23. Troy Wilson
    Happy

    Mac OS-X passes Vista

    Windows 3.11 passes Windows Vista

  24. Thorfkin

    Vista

    I've always wondered what it is that turns previously intelligent individuals into raving copy-bots once they're employed in the field of IT journalism. If only I had a dollar for every incidence of some oblivious journalist claiming Windows Vista is a disaster I could buy Kim .com's house. At this point, Windows Vista is actually better than Windows 7. On a clean install, Vista with service pack 2 is faster and takes a lot less interface customization to make it work well than Windows 7 does. I've got both Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows Vista Ultimate here in my house and I keep Vista on my personal machine because I actually like it. If you genuinely do prefer Windows 7's interface then power to you. I personally hate it. Please stop repeating that baseless claim that 7 is better than Vista. They're virtually identical under the hood with 7 having slightly poorer Superfetch optimization. Microsoft tried to shorten the boot up time with Windows 7, by reducing the effectiveness of the Superfetch service, in response to user complaints over Vista's perceived boot time.

  25. SkyFlyer

    Torvalds famously described as "a piece of crap."

    Look whose laughing now, that piece of crap is now much more "popular" that Linux. I would suggest that most people who are using OSX are doing so by choice, ie. they chose to use it by paying with their own money for a Mac, as opposed to many of the XP/7 clan who use it because a)It was pre-installed or b)My work uses it or c)Everything else must suck, or the Linux ABM'ers.

  26. HairyFool
    Terminator

    Methedology?

    The article admits there are gaps in the statistics due to the metoedology of basing it in the OS of systems accessing the internet but what about those that do not use the web at all.

    From those that sit on a desk in a small non internet based business used only for WP to those companies who restrict which employees have access to the internet as a timewaster there is going to be a considerable count worldwide. As these are probably going to be predominantly older OS's I think that XP has a long way to go before it loses its crown especially as the differential is so small.

    Add to that all those systems using one of the flavours of Windows as Embedded controlling various dedicated machines and systems which are not in the market of regular upgrades because they are designed to be a particular job.

    Win8 is a major change to the OS is used day to day even if you think that change is acceptable. I am still getting used to it but such annoying things keep coming up from how to get the Run box to shutting down. The music tile opening XBox Live, why? I have 18000 tracks so why is the 1st thing I am going to do is buy more? Most of the "apps" I use promptly drop back to the desktop so I might as well stay there

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