Depends what they count an XP installation as - are we talking native XP (be it bare metal or within something like Virtualbox) or the XP mode offered to Win 7 Pro and up, since that comes with a full copy of XP.
How can you kill that which will not die? Windows XP is back (sorta... OK, not really)
Windows 10 adoption keeps rising and Windows 8 usage continues to fall, StatCounter confirmed in its latest monthly worldwide traffic sniff to discern who's using which desktop operating system. Collectively, Microsoft's OSes are used by 84.48 per cent of the market; OS X took 11.3 per cent; Linux 1.79 per cent; Chrome OS 0.46 …
COMMENTS
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 19:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Linux 1.79 per cent (was 1.55 in Jan)
Erm,what "security hole"? Given there are over 5 billion android devices, over 2 billion of them active, more than Windows, and yet nothing realworld, I really have no idea what you are on about..
Even the big noise like stagefright didn't ever amount to anything here in the real world..
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/15/google_stagefright_android_bug_zero_success/
Windows on the other hand...... That's a whole different story..
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 11:13 GMT phuzz
Re: Linux 1.79 per cent (was 1.55 in Jan)
Most Android devices are still using v3.18 of the Linux kernel (some are on 4.4), so an up to date desktop shouldn't have any of the same kernel flaws as your phone.
Instead it has new, and as yet undiscovered vulnerabilities ;)
Kernel bugs are only a small part the story on either though, user installed programs are generally a bigger risk on any platform.
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 07:42 GMT MyffyW
Re: Linux 1.79 per cent (was 1.55 in Jan)
Hardly, I'm sure plenty of penguinistas have an android phone or tablet (I certainly do).
But the only commonality between GNU/Linux and Android is the kernel.
Throw the tardy approach many manufacturers / carriers have to Android updates into the mix and you can see why there is a disconnect between attitudes to security in GNU/Linux and Android.
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 18:56 GMT bombastic bob
Re: Linux 1.79 per cent (was 1.55 in Jan)
"did you include android in that stat"
probably not, because it would be considered a "mobile" OS and this was about desktop computing [pretty sure]. It's also consistent with what I've seen in the past.
And... the article said "FreeBSD nabbed 0 per cent of that tracked desktop traffic".
I didn't now they were tracking FBSD. But a lot of people like to 'anonymize' their browser self-identification with plugins etc. to limit tracking. So while I don't bother doing that [probably means "they" can track me] I also don't web surf to a lot of things that many people do, and when I do it, I've got NoScript and cookie blockers and things of that nature running.
(and when I need script for something, like maybe a digikey order - their shopping cart hates NoScript for some reason and I doubt they'll fix it - I do it from a VM running Linux, hosted by a FreeBSD box)
So yeah FBSD is getting low numbers, but there might be a very good reason as to why. I also have to wonder if SIMILAR reasons exist for *INFLATING* Win-10-nic's numbers...
And Linux's numbers may be artificially low, too...
[glad to see they're rising, though]
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 06:16 GMT Flocke Kroes
Re: bob
Have you tried the EFF's panopticlick? Caring about privacy puts you in a minority and doing so effectively can make your browser close enough to unique that you can be tracked.
statcounter does not say which websites they monitor. If the did, a small number of penguins would do some ballot box stuffing. I assume the tracked websites show a blank page or a "we require javascript" page to anyone who does not click on at least a dozen adverts per day.
statcounter shows a clear prejudice against robots. Robots must make up a significant proportion of the internet by now. Can anyone who has failed a Turing test tell me ... are there adverts targeted to robots yet?
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 08:54 GMT DropBear
Re: bob
"your software isn’t checking for Do Not Track policies"
Not sure what that is supposed to mean, unless it's "you keep blocking even trackers that promise to honour DNT", in which case it's Perfectly Fine and Just The Way It Should Be. On an unrelated note, I just learned today that checking the DNT checkbox in Firefox ONLY APPLIES IT TO PRIVATE WINDOWS, and there's no setting to have it on at all times (unless you want to be in full "private browsing mode" all the time which ALSO means no history, no persistent cookies - ie. YOU can't "track" anything either) - WHAT THE F##K, you idiots?!?
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 03:43 GMT RudderLessIT
Symantics
"Windows 7 is still more popular than 10"
It's more popular... yes, but the context is (missing) important: Are people buying new machines with 10 and then laboriously removing & installing 7?
Or are people not wanting to spend the $ on upgrading.
Another relevant context is that a computer lives in an environment, that includes legacy tech that cannot be upgraded - this can be anything from SAP to a Zeiss microscope - so you can be a fan of Windows 10, and continue to support/implement 7.
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 16:11 GMT Boothy
Re: Symantics
Also a lot of corporate machines around still with Win 7 desktop on.
Gone (for the most part) is the automatic replace/refresh after ~3 years, to a replace/refresh when it breaks.
If your 3+ year old laptop still works, good chance it's still on Win 7.
I also guess a lot of people who'd like an updated corp laptop, are holding out on a refresh, as they don't want to loose their Win 7, and end up being put on 8 or 10!
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 15:47 GMT 45RPM
It seems like a rather anachronistic way of measuring Operating System market share - especially now that most internet use is on mobile devices (tablets and smartphones). I'll bet if the analysis included the likes of Android and iOS you'd see that Android has by far the largest market share. I'd further guess that Windows and iOS have roughly the same share of the market.
So, do you have these (I suspect more representative) figures el Reg?
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 15:51 GMT G2
april 2019 and the pink elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.
XP won't die until april 2019 when POSREADY support ends.
at work we're still using XP on 80% of the systems because the beancounters see there is still a way to get updates for it, even without support, and won't accept to scrap it out of the asset inventory while it can still be updated.
Microsoft needs to put their boot down HARD on the OS detection and trash this frankenstein zombie OS, even if they have to sneak in every update a FORCED bluescreen when the POSREADY registry patch is detected on a regular XP OS. THAT will light the proper fire under the beancounters' asses.
(selected a fire icon to match)
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 16:06 GMT jtaylor
Re: april 2019 and the pink elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.
It sounds like your company lacks a desktop roadmap and that management doesn't consider desktop support to be a priority.
I understand why you would want to outsource those decisions. Maybe there's a less drastic way to do so.
Edit to add: Assets depreciate on a schedule. When the value of an asset reaches zero, it is written off (it may still be used, but it has no book value). If those Windows XP licenses aren't fully depreciated by now, I wonder about the accounting practices.
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 16:16 GMT G2
Re: april 2019 and the pink elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.
in my case "management" = central government + prime minister above them. They don't move their political asses unless there's a proper fire under them.
edit: oh, and accounting practices say that we are forbidden to trash ANY licenses... but they don't think of licenses in terms of software, more like IP rights.
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 19:10 GMT bombastic bob
Re: april 2019 and the pink elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.
"Assets depreciate on a schedule"
this is useful when you want to spread the cost over several years. I see no value in it, though [as I don't spend that much on such things] and just expense things like computer hardware, software, OSs ,whatever (then, they have NO book value and I just use them). Actually it turns out that annual MSDN renewal at $900/year has been the most expensive of all of it... then again the business consists of "just me" and so depreciation is probably not necessary anyway.
I've never sold a computer. They always run until they break, or are so obsolete (like a 486) that I couldn't pay someone to take them.
[I'm also considering ABANDONING the MSDN subscription, even though I've had it since the 90's. Keeping up with what MS is doing is nothing less than frustration and disappointment. Might as well save the $ and flush them completely...]
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 19:00 GMT G2
Re: april 2019 and the pink elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.
you're thinking POS ATMs or such... i'm talking about regular XP desktop with POS patches - different sides of the same fish. They even have Office 2003 installed and some of them even have Firefox + LibreOffice and are used for internet access.
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 19:04 GMT bombastic bob
Re: april 2019 and the pink elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.
"Microsoft needs to put their boot down HARD on the OS detection"
I was interested in what you had to say until you said THAT.
Micro-shaft has ALREADY done the "boot down HARD" thing. Remember GWX? Also remember how much it PISSED! EVERYONE! OFF! when they kept JAMMING! IT!
UP! OUR!DOWN! OUR! THROATS!!So putting on their JACK BOOTS and GRINDING THE XP _CUSTOMERS_ INTO THE GROUND is only going to create even MORE anger, hopefully to the point of REBELLION (i.e. "Let's do Linux!" or BSD).
Anyway, icon obvious.
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 06:09 GMT G2
Re: april 2019 and the pink elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.
well, ok... a bluescreen might be too much, but a mandatory nag message at every logon that covers half the screen and you have to wait at least 30 seconds for it to disappear would still be useful to make the beancounters see the light and dump XP/Office 2003.
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 15:59 GMT detritus
On the subject - can anyone here point me in the direction of a trustworthy source for XP SPs 1 & 2 (32-bit)?
I've recently installed XP (on an air-gapped machine!) as a machine controller, but some of my more contemporary software refuses to install without SP2...
...the trouble is, I have other [more critical] software that refuses to work under SP3, which is comparatively easy to come by.
Yaay?
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 16:01 GMT wolfetone
Why don't you just install Linux on the machine, and have two VM instances of XP? One with SP2 and the other with SP3?
As for trustworthy sources, it might be worth trying to find a "friend" who has access to Volume Licensing. I notice that they have XP versions with and without the service packs.
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 12:24 GMT wolfetone
I did help.
"I've recently installed XP (on an air-gapped machine!) as a machine controller, but some of my more contemporary software refuses to install without SP2..."
There's the first problem.
"...the trouble is, I have other [more critical] software that refuses to work under SP3, which is comparatively easy to come by."
There's the second.
Suggesting they get Linux and builds two VM's, one with SP2 and SP3 was to help them balance the issues they have with software refusing to work on SP3 or SP2. Never at any point did I say fuck XP and get Linux period. Plus, I did suggest they might take advantage of someone with volume licensing so they could obtain the service packs.
It turns out, however, the OP's use case meant this wouldn't work due to the users involed (which they didn't mention in the original post).
But because there are a group of dinosaurs who still see Linux as a cancer they get all offended when Linux is mentioned. Some are more polite than others about it however.
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 13:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
I use Linux every day, and at no point did I suggest it was a cancer or anything similar which is more than can be said about SOME of the Linux community's attitude towards Windows.
In the past when I've asked questions about running Windows on Linux in a VM I have been derided by said community. As I've always maintained in posts on here, every O\S has its place and I would NEVER slag one O\S off over another.
That said, when someone asks a direct question as was done on here, Ill happily answer - not offer alternatives unless someone asks for them.
"Some are more polite than others about it however"
Polite ????????? - weren't you the one who called me a prick first !!!
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 16:14 GMT Steve Kerr
The 64bit versions were because XP64 was actually Windows Server 2003 with all the servery bits removed. I spent days going round and round in circles trying to get updated service packs and it kept taking me to the Windows 2003 server page before I then discovered what it really was.
I had it (still got the install disk somewhere) because having a 64bit machine meant I should have a 64bit OS, silly me.
Who knew the traumas that would cause over the years as various bits of software said I wasn't running Windwos when I went to install them. Still, on a positive note, viruses didn't work either :)
It was stable though, I give it that.
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 17:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: How can a free operating system...
A good question and I think win X will grow its 'share' since most people can't buy a new computer without it.
Your average computer user only uses the OS that is on the computer when they bought it (or had it foisted on them). The question then becomes what exactly do these stats show or is it just buttering up MS?
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 18:08 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: FreeBSD
I use it as a desktop. I was wondering how the stats are collected. Will having NoScript/UBlock/Ghostery etc affect whether a PC is counted or not? Generally I only unblock the bare essentials to get a site to work or move on somewhere else. Maybe Statcounter doesn't see me. I'd bet that as a proportion of users per OS, *nix users are far more likely to block scripts and cookies.
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 16:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
> Isnt OS X technically a BSD?
OSX kernel is Darwin based on Mach.
They have parts of FreeBSD kernel mixed in, some FreeBSD user land mixed up with a lot of Linux user land. Lots of it aging out now that they have no strong Unix type leads inhouse.
So, basicly a big mutt that is helped considerably by their mobile footprint.
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Friday 4th August 2017 05:29 GMT Tim99
@AC - They have parts of FreeBSD kernel mixed in, some FreeBSD user land mixed up with a lot of Linux user land. Lots of it aging out now that they have no strong Unix type leads inhouse.
Really? Citation please. Most Linux stuff that is out there for MacOS needs MacPorts, Homebrew, Fink, etc., to be installed. I don't know very many Mac punters who would install them.
I
likeliked Linux (Well I did, until Poettering and the RedHat vandals were allowed to screw it over) and have used UNIX based OSs extensively since the early 1980s. If you exclude small amounts of code from things like SELinux via TrustedBSD/SEDarwin, I can't think of too much that came from Linux vs. NeXTSTEP / OPENSTEP.MacOS is a UNIX Certified Product (unlike the myriad of Linux dists) so that, at least, is a box than can be ticked by the corporate types - I think Apple will spend the necessary money on talent to keep that.
For people who care about this, and have good eyesight/access to an A3 printer Éric Lévénez has a good UNIX timeline here that shows how complex and inter-related the history of UNIX and Linux is.
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 16:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Statcounter?
That's been blocked in my firewall for ... oh, at least 10 years.
It was blocked at my last employer's firewall.
There are useful stats and crap. Guess which one I think this is in.
Besides, no one uses Apple Computers any more now do they? Showing > 10% can't be true. Shouldn't that be < 1% :wink:
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 05:38 GMT allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
I have some legacy engineering software that I use maybe once or twice a year that runs in a DOS box under Win98 on a 20 year old Tosiba Satellite laptop that still has a centronics port for the dongle.
It just works and just isn't worth the effort to change anything. The software will probably reach EOL next year due to upcoming changes in codes/regulations; I'll buy a current software package and put that on my regular desktop box. At that point I will have gotten 20 years of use out of the old setup - not a bad milage, I'd say.
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 08:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Who still uses win2k and win98?
And for what purpose?"
We still use DOS, Win 3.1, Win 95, 98, 2000, NT4, XP
The pcs running them are attached to large laboratory instruments which more modern software isn't made for any more. Its either keep this old kit running or spend sometimes up to £500k on new instruments.
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 09:13 GMT DropBear
I'm quite curious how exactly "gaming" is supposed to work on win98, considering unless you still have some ancient hardware your current graphics card won't have drivers for it (mine doesn't even have drivers for XP!), and not having manufacturer drivers is not an annoyance but a _showstopper_ - even opening / dragging a window will make you want to claw out your eyes with the default windows driver, even on blazing-fast hardware...
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 10:43 GMT davidp231
How gaming is to work...
By building an appropriate rig of course, using the necessary kit to run the games you intend to play. For example:
Top end Pentium II (or III) or AMD equivalent
64MB RAM (since Win9x doesn't play very well with more than that)
Decent AGP Graphics card (easy enough to source drivers, and you may even have an old driver CD (remember those?) with appropriate drivers on
PCI Soundcard
80GB IDE HDD (should be more than enough, and FAT32 will be happy with it without faffing about.
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 23:20 GMT WolfFan
Some of us still run Win98 in a VM to play The Greatest Game Ever(tm): http://www.mobygames.com/game/harpoon-classic-97
I just love playing Red and sending a regiment or two of Backfires to crush the Imperialist warmongers, with a few Oscars and Victors to clean up afterwards. The Red Banner Northern Fleet owns the Atlantic! Well, owned the Atlantic. That cheap bastard Yeltsin cut off the money supply and Northern Fleet hasn't been the same since. Pony-boy Putin talks a good game, but it seems he only likes big ships (can you say 'size queen'? Knew you could) and the money's still not there. Bah. Humbug.
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 17:38 GMT mgbrown
I wonder how the total size of the market has changed?
These stats are always given as a % of some unknown total. So Android has a bigger percentage and Windows a smaller percentage, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there are less Windows users. It may just mean that the market grew and most the new users chose Android.
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 09:21 GMT DropBear
Same here. The hardware is too old for W7 (heck, it's really too old even for XP) but hey Facebook works, Youtube works, photos are backed up, and at this point any attempt to "relocate" to another machine would do more damage than anything out there possibly could, even if expenses wouldn't be an issue (they are)...
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Tuesday 1st August 2017 18:48 GMT Andy Non
The OS that won't die
I've still got an XP desktop computer that I use occasionally with some old software. The computer just refuses to die and faithfully boots up every time it's needed. It hasn't seen the internet for donkey's years as that would almost certainly be the death of it (It last saw the Internet via it's internal 56k dial-up modem). At least it does have a couple of those new fangled things called USB ports. I wonder how many more of these ancient XP computers are still in use and not included in the stats?
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Wednesday 2nd August 2017 08:05 GMT Mike 137
"Windows 10 continues to win converts"
Only in the sense that the Vikings 'converted' people - "convert or die now".
Win 10 is now pretty much all you can get on new equipment, so it's not actually a case of 'conversion' but compulsion.
Everything from MS after Win 7 has been crap if you're trying to do real work on your computer. They seem to view the market as exclusively made up of media consumers, but some of us have to create the media in the first place, and for that we need simple, intuitive, configurable and customisable tools with presentation that complies with the well established principles of good human-machine interface design so we can get on with the job rather than fighting with the tools. Instead we get the opposite in every material respect. The rot started with the Ribbon and fixed colour scheme options in Office - suddenly, your familiar and preferred system presentation was ignored by Office because nanny knew better, and "where the hell is that menu item?" - and it's gone on from there.
Shortly we will be sold nothing but dumb terminals controlled entirely from Redmond, and every day they will look and work differently than the day before because some juvenile smartass in the US has had a 'bright idea'. And let's not even start talking about software quality...