Happy First Birthday, Windows 7 (240,000,000!)

[bochica]

[citation][nom]dan117[/nom]piracy much?[/citation]

There are volume licenses and student licenses (most of which are free, like my two versions of 7 Pro (1x 32-bit/1x 64-bit).

 

[nottheking]

I'm similarly curious how Microsoft manages to claim a "return on investment" for upgrading from WinXP to Win7. $140/year is quite a bullish figure to claim for improved efficiency, especially given that I can't help but think that it's going to be LESS efficient at some things, due to added memory/CPU usage and general bloat. While not as bad as Vista, 7 still demonstrates "The Great Moore's Law Compensator."
[citation][nom]article[/nom]users and critics felt was the best version of Windows since XP.[/citation]
Given that the only other large-volume version that'd qualify was Vista, (Windows Server is something most don't see...) this isn't saying much. Quite the compliment for its birthday!

 

[teodoreh]

Can I install Windows 7 on my Amstrad CPC 6128? Don't get confused by the 128k, only 42k are really usable at once - enough memory for... for an empty .jpeg file? Damn, I really need an upgrade..

 

[eyemaster]

2 pc's at work and 1 at home. The average person that works has at least one pc at work or home. Not a far stretch to count 2 computer per working person. if 1/2 the people on this planet has a computer in their lives, that means that there's a minimum of 3 billion pc's in this world, then just add the servers and multiple pc's per people and you have 7 billion easy.

 

[gtvr]

1.2B PCs with win 7 HAS to be wrong. OK, so some of you geeks on Tom's have a few PCs. There's 1B in China that mostly don't have PCs or PCs with Win 7, probably the same in India and China. What % of Africa even has a computer? You can't extrapolate PCs/person out worldwide that way.

 

[joe nate]

[citation][nom]L0tus[/nom]That's odd. I certainly didn't receive my +$1000 cheque. Was there a coupon?[/citation]

If this isn't sarcasm, the money savings was based off energy savings over running computers with XP and vista, over the course of a year. This is because when windows 7 has a process it needs to run it the background, it will synchronize other processes it needs to run, delaying that process for running for say... 20 ms or however long it is in that scenario. The processor jumps upto higher power less often, instead of peaking whenever it needs to run a background process. This means that the processor can stay in it's low-power state longer - saving energy, but doing the exact same amount of work.

 

[Mikez]

The only think that I liked from Vista was the SideBar. I'm sad that they did not include that with Win7. 🙁

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]Mikez[/nom]The only think that I liked from Vista was the SideBar. I'm sad that they did not include that with Win7.[/citation]
It doesn't have the side bar but it has all the mini-applications the vista sidebar had.

 

[faraz1010]

Way 2 go win7..

 

[gogogadgetliver]

It's not just energy that contributes to the ROI. Windows 7 is far more manageable in a corporate environment than XP, crashes less often (lost productivity), outright fails and requires IT intervention less often, is more secure so IT depts aren't battling malware, etc etc. Depending on IT salary and other factors that $130 worth of ROI could materialize if you just avoid ONE "walk" for an IT guy.

 

[gogogadgetliver]

[citation][nom]Mikez[/nom]The only think that I liked from Vista was the SideBar. I'm sad that they did not include that with Win7.[/citation]

The gadgets are still there. General rule of thumb for "where did they put X" in Windows 7 .. hit start, type your question. Try "sidebar"

 

[gmarsack]

First copy of Window's I bought since XP. Well worth every penny too. M$ deserves a pat on the back for listening to user feedback after the crime that was Vista.

 

[drakefyre]

I love Windows 7. I've only had a couple problems, and shockingly enough, they fixed themselves after a few days.

 

[crazitrain02]

[citation][nom]floorpug[/nom]If win 7 has 1.2 billion copies on pcs worldwide, and a 17% share of all OSs, does that mean that there are 7,050,000,000 computers worldwide? WOW[/citation]
I've got 3 desktops, a laptop, a HTPC, a home server and over 100 servers that I'm responsible for at work, so that's a easily attainable number of computers.

 

[kelemvor4]

Hey did anyone notice Microsoft said they SOLD 240 million licenses but it's installed on over 1 billion PC's? Are they actually bragging about pirated copies or can they just not count?

 

[eddieroolz]

Happy birthday, Windows 7! Hopefully by this time next year I'll be running an alpha of Windows 8.

 

[jerreece]

Users are increasingly pleased with it too, with people right now four times more likely to recommend Windows 7 than they were a year ago.

Does this mean Windows 8 is going to suck? 🙁

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]kelemvor4[/nom]Hey did anyone notice Microsoft said they SOLD 240 million licenses but it's installed on over 1 billion PC's? Are they actually bragging about pirated copies or can they just not count?[/citation]
Have you ever heard of Volume License Keys?

 

[Darkv1]

240 million licenses is impressive...I have about 80 myself...MS TechNET FTW!

 

[gm0n3y]

Has inspired nearly 90 percent of companies to upgrade or start upgrading to the new OS

Not sure that I believe that statistic. If they define starting to upgrade meaning that new PC purchases will have Windows 7 then I can understand that, they're not exactly selling XP on PCs anymore. But I don't believe that 90% of companies are going to be upgrading their current machines to windows 7. The company I work for has about 100 machines and they are all running xp (not including our servers of course) except 2 new laptops that were bought recently with Windows 7.

 

[killerclick]

Hopefully this will KILL desktop linux

 

[randomizer]

This is why MS is running its "charity" service for NGOs in Russia. More market share to bolster numbers for its shareholders. Shareholders don't want another Vista sales flop and so MS will do everything they can to puff up the figures.

[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Hopefully this will KILL desktop linux[/citation]
You want to kill competition? Well that is MS' forte so you're putting your hope in the right place.

 

[kelemvor4]

[citation][nom]Vladislaus[/nom]Have you ever heard of Volume License Keys?[/citation]
Of course but my assumption is that a VLK for 100k machines would be counted as 100k licenses sold, not 1.

 

[dEAne]

Wish that figure is equal to people too. 1 PC to everyone.

 

[insightdriver]

I have 7 Ultimate, 64 bit and virtual XP SP3 with it. It is nice having virtual XP because I have an old Palm VX that has a lot of data on it. I have a serial to usb adapter for it. On XP, it worked fine. The software won't run on Windows 7. Using virtual XP, I am able to use the software for it and have been able to back up my data on my hard drive and on a thumb drive. For this, I am grateful.