Windows 7 Finally Tops Windows XP in the U.S.

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Status
Not open for further replies.
[citation][nom]dco[/nom]The report also stated that Windows 7 is the most used "desktop" operating system. If it took into account all other computing devices, XP still dominates by a massive margin.[/citation]
So you have Windows XP on your smartphone?
Or on the company server?
XP is pretty much only installed on desktops so STFU, its a 10 year old OS and it has had its day, if it was a car you would have scrapped it and got a new one years ago.
 
I'm amazed at all the XP love! I mean, do you people really still live in the stone age beck when nothing would network and you needed virus protection to stand even 5 feet away from an ethernet cable? And driver discs! Good lord I dont miss those! Every install of win7 so far has installed all of the nessessary drivers automatically for me so I dont have to install all the 3rd party junk allong with the functional driver that I need.
And to the "XP was meant to be responsive on a 300MHz computer" comment, you obviously have not run XPsp2. For fun I installed the win7RC2 on an old 800MHz P3 and (with the pretty Aero effects off) win7 was much more responsive than the XP that was on the machine. And even with all the pretty effects turned off it still looked cleaner and is easier to find things than in XP.
Lets sum up: Win7 is more secure, it networks much better (especially with wireless!), it has an excellent compatibility mode for old software, the OEM of win7 is cheaper, it runs faster (provided you know what you are doing, which most of you do), and the interface is cleaner and less obtrusive than XP.

On a side note: Why do they separate out XP, Vista, and win7 but then go and lump all of osX together as if they are all the same OS? Granted that OSX users tend to upgrade every year (and still claim that OSX is cheaper $50/yr than windows at $100 every 2-4 years lol). But I am sure there are a lot of old G4 and G5 systems still in the wild using very old versions of OSX
 
Just hang in there a little longer until 8 comes out!
When 8 comes out XP will most likely be forgotten, especially if 8 would be trimmed down a lot from 7, and run on ARM!
 
People still use that garbage XP OS? MS just needs to kill all support for it already, this is getting ridiculous. Reminds me when people were stubbornly holding on to Win98. Just let it go people, just let it go.
 
[citation][nom]moricon[/nom]how would you like to buy a new car all spiffy looking, and find out it has a 10 year old engine in it![/citation]
Or, get a new car, appearance as a 10 year old car but the engine inside being brand new, 😀
Just kidding.
 
[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]The big story here is that Linux only has 0.7% in the USAThat is staggeringly awful for an OS that claims to be able to do so much and is free.If that percentage was applied to any other statistic anywhere it would have to come close to extinction or being an endangered species.[/citation]

And yet, it lives a healthy existence. Microsoft spent millions of dollars trying to extinguish Linux, Ballmer called it a 'cancer', but there it is, dominating the Internet and just about every electronic device out there.
 
[citation][nom]ProDigit10[/nom]Just hang in there a little longer until 8 comes out!When 8 comes out XP will most likely be forgotten, especially if 8 would be trimmed down a lot from 7, and run on ARM![/citation]

Doesn't look that way matter of fact MS wants to more stuff to Windows 8 like the addition of the ribbon menu bar, you know the same ribbon menu bar that were found out to be counter productive on Office 2007 with many home and business users?
 
I think the OSX numbers are inflated, That seems WAY too high. I've seen a couple of other reports reflecting the same Windows numbers but significantly lower OSX numbers - like in the 5 to 7% range. I also think the Linux numbers are wrong, too. They should be higher as well, considering the number of dual and multi boot machines, such as my own.
 
The biggest downside to Vista was simply OEMS pushing all there old hardware with it(ohh and certain video drivers crashing it all the time for well over 1.5 years). Sure it ran like *** on computers with almost no memory(hell my XP systems had more ram then those OEM vista systems). Do not get me wrong, I run xp, 7 and vista daily. I have no intentions to change the old XP systems to 7(they will run til they drop with XP) or the Vista systems to 7(who ever has used both will know they are almost the same damn thing. Vista is a bit more memory intensive).
 
according to one old report circa 2003 "as of March 2003, Windows XP had 33.41 percent global market share" March 2003 is about 18 months after XP was launched.
 
I doubt the dominance of Windows XP to be ended in near future in India and China. People still haven't upgraded their hardware and Windows 7 won't run smoothly on P4 computers.
 
[citation][nom]aww[/nom]And yet, it lives a healthy existence. Microsoft spent millions of dollars trying to extinguish Linux, Ballmer called it a 'cancer', but there it is, dominating the Internet and just about every electronic device out there.[/citation]
Before quaffing the victory of Linux, apart from Unix which runs servers, Linux itself is basically dead.

Even if you count mobile devices, Android now has approx 100 million users but it is not the same as Linux, you can't just drop Android onto a desktop PC and start using it.

Even if you could drop it onto a PC, there are 1.9 billion PCs in the world and this massively dwarfs the Android number, if Google wants to be taken seriously it needs to expand from the mobile segment which by comparison is a niche market and get Chrome OS actually working, but even then I cannot see Big Business adopting Chrome OS as it would lead to the whole IT Support and Services industry having to restructure itself to look after a non-Wintel environment and that level of change is just not going to happen.

Microsoft has got too much invested in big business IT services for it to fail and the money it makes from the mobile sector will only increase over time.

My prediction is that by 2015 Android use will start to decrease as Windows 8 for tablets and PCs and Windows Phone 8 for mobiles leads to total integration and dominance.
 



you missed the point that I made.

Windows 7 is not locked down but my question was hypothetical. If Windows 7 did not allow you to run any additional software other than what Can one the retail DVD, would you still want to use Windows 7 as your main operating system?

The purpose of that question was to get readers to understand that the purpose of the operating system Isn't the operating system itself.

While users can get a new computer that comes with Windows 7 and not mind having it installed, but for the average user, there is nothing offered in Windows 7 that will make them want to upgrade.

Suppose you were an average user, who mainly uses their computer to type documents, running browser like firefox or chrome, listen to a little bit of music, and other basic stuff like she never photos with family and friends. With Windows XP, all of this can be done while consuming fewer resources.


For what most people do on their computers, windows XP meets all of their needs, it allows them to run the programs that they want to run, and there are very few programs that require windows 7 to run.

I dualboot both windows 7 and Windows xp. I use windows xp as my main OS since it boots faster, after tweaking, it only uses 40MB of RAM st startup, it is more responsive than windows 7, (eg if I open a menu or folder or setting, it will open much more quickly on windows xp)

For benchmarks that are compatible with both OS, windows xp benchmarks higher (not surprising because it uses fewer resources, leaving more resources for the software you want to run)

In a ideal world, new OS releases would require less resources as time goes by, not more.

Look at many professional programs such as maya, if you were to benchmark maya 8, with maya 2011, on a old single core P4 machine, you will see that maya 2011 renders faster, starts off using fewer resources, then allows for certain parts of it to eat up as much memory as is available, (basically shifting the use of resources so that more is available where it counts such as the render engine)

The only companies that get away with making software slower are ones that make software targeted at consumers who don't know any better.


While the difference in application performance is generally only slightly lower to a point that it is not noticeable in most cases, it is still undesirable to have any slowdown.


Toms hardware needs to do another benchmark rundown, and compare the performance of windows XP, Windows XP x64, Windows vista x86 and x64, and Windows 7 x86 and x64, in order to compare the performance of these OS after 18+ months of updates, has Microsoft made it slower or faster, compared to the last set of benchmarks.

=--==-

" You can count pre-installed, how would you like to buy a new car all spiffy looking, and find out it has a 10 year old engine in it! "
to answer your reply: You seem to have missed the point again. Preinstalled should not be counted because the users generally don't have a say in the os that comes with the computer. while some companies may sell a computer where you can customize which operating system comes preinstalled, for a vast majority of computers sold, they generally just come with the latest version of Windows, and you can then choose to replace it if you don't want it.

Just because a lot of computers have windows 7 does not mean that it is wanted by those people, (most computer users don't even know which version their computer is running, and they really just don't care, as long as it runs their favorite programs)

Saying something is better or desirable simply because a lot of people have it, is not a valid argument. A lot of people have the common cold, I guess they must really like it and want it. A lot of people have cancer, nearly 20 million people a year get some form of cancer. Based on your reasoning, we can conclude that people find having cancer more desirable than playing world of warcraft

But if you take the same info, and get rid of preinstalls or installs that the user has no say in. Compare the number pf people who voluntarily get cancer, and the number of people who voluntarily play world of warcraft, then the the result changes quite significantly. Now more people prefer playing world of warcraft, to having cancer

Most people who get a wow effect from windows 7, do so because of the eye candy and not the function of the OS.

When at the college and I was running ubuntu off of one of my flash drive, and I was testing some of those visual addons because I was bored, a student basically said, wow what OS is that.

Microsoft basically likes wowing novice users with eye candy.
If windows 7 looked exactly like windows xp, but with only the under the hood changes, it would only get negative reactions from users novice users because not only will it look the same but it will be noticeably slower

For the true demand or popularity of an OS to be considered, one must compare how many retail (non preinstalled) copies are in use, that way you are only getting the value of how many users voluntarily chose to use the operating system.


I run both and have both tweaked to be as fast as possible. I have a pretty decent gaming PC, while windows 7 benchmarks slightly lower, it is not enough for me to tell any difference between games on windows 7 and windows XP, the difference in application performance between windows 7 and windows xp just too small to tell the difference.

But when you dual boot both os and frequently use both, you will notice little things like a menu that will come up instantly in windows xp, will now have a noticeable delay in windows 7 because it needs to load more data from the hard drive to give you the same menu.

With a SSD, windows xp boots significantly faster than windows 7, but in normal desktop use, you cant tell a difference in responsiveness between windows XP and windows 7 , (I have tried and could not tell a difference, but with my 1TB 7200RPM WD black, I can tell the difference in responsiveness)

I would have kept the ssd but 64GB is not enough space and I really want to wait until they come down in price and increase the write cycles and ultimately get rid of the need for something like trim.

While trim helps maintain the speed, there is still a slowdown, I want a ssd that will behave like a hard drive in when I overwrite data, it should be just as fast as when I am writing to a blank sector.
 
[citation][nom]razor512[/nom]For the true demand or popularity of an OS to be considered, one must compare how many retail (non preinstalled) copies are in use, that way you are only getting the value of how many users voluntarily chose to use the operating system.
[/citation]
I chose Windows for the sole reason it runs the games I play but since you compared XP to Win7 I see only 2 compelling reasons for enthusiasts to upgrade:

1. The latest DirectX version. Microsoft decided their latest DX will not run on older Windows and that's it. A gamer would obviously desire the latest DX for thinking games look better and faster and newer games won't run on outdated DX.

2. RAM limits. Back when PCs with 3GB+ RAM got popular users complained not all RAM was avaiable. Microsoft blamed 32-bit RAM mapping limits and then users paid to switch to 64-bit OS. Perhaps 1% of the users knew Microsoft was responsible for that limit and all processors since Pentium Pro were able to deal with >4GB physical RAM.
 
[citation][nom]nukemaster[/nom]The biggest downside to Vista was simply OEMS pushing all there old hardware with it(ohh and certain video drivers crashing it all the time for well over 1.5 years). Sure it ran like *** on computers with almost no memory(hell my XP systems had more ram then those OEM vista systems). Do not get me wrong, I run xp, 7 and vista daily. I have no intentions to change the old XP systems to 7(they will run til they drop with XP) or the Vista systems to 7(who ever has used both will know they are almost the same damn thing. Vista is a bit more memory intensive).[/citation]
Microsoft is also the one to blame because they set the minimum requirements for a vista ready machine too low.
 
Windows 7 is actually a fantastic OS. It's beautiful, reponsive, has 90% of the drivers you need without even loading a disk and has DX11 is ebough of a reason to get it. I don't care if XP can run all of my programs the exact same as 7 can, Microsoft has started to cut back on updates and now XP is going to start experiencing security holes. Besides people NEED to move on- it has been 10 years that's ancient in technology years. Get something fresh. I have used Windows 7 since two weeks after it came out and when I go back to XP I scratch my head and ask myself "why are people still using this?". Windows XP will never go away by the way Microsoft because 1) some people just can't move on and 2) pirating in China is a huge problem and the Chinese don't care if you have a new flashy OS.
 
[citation][nom]Stryter[/nom]lol, poor OS X still sits below Vista.[/citation]
I have used Windows since the beginning and have Win 7 64 on my Gaming Rig. My main computer is my 13" Macbook pro and in my after using OS X for years too I have to say OS X is much better than Windows of any flavor. Ubuntu is actually easier to use than Win 7. Not impressed with MS and their NSA co-authored OS's.
 
[citation][nom]Vladislaus[/nom]Microsoft is also the one to blame because they set the minimum requirements for a vista ready machine too low.[/citation]

digit summing world 10 = 1+0 = 1
like 111 = 1+1+1 = 3, but me thinks it's 7 in BCD ;-)
 
[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]So you have Windows XP on your smartphone?Or on the company server?XP is pretty much only installed on desktops so STFU, its a 10 year old OS and it has had its day, if it was a car you would have scrapped it and got a new one years ago.[/citation]

Defensive much?

In any case, I disagree. XP still enjoys a sizeable presence in the corporate environment. If I was to use my company as an example, 90% of our end-user machines (including laptops) have XP, and we've got Citrix for the ones that don't to get over any incompatability issues. Not only are people getting a familiar environment to work in, but they've also got an operating system that is supported until 2014 so it's not as if we have to rush and deploy a different OS across the board. Regardless of how archaic it might be, if something serves its purpose then why spend the money? In any case, you know how long it takes businesses to migrate to a new OS.

The car analogy works quite well here. A lot of people have upgraded, but most of these weren't early adopters, and in any case, a lot of people are happy with what they have. There's always the group who simply cannot afford to buy a new car as well.
 
new processor get stronger and stronger every day.. i believe this should affect the choice of os used. win7 performance is now like xp, powered by new dual or quadcore that is cheaper now. so, no more big deal to having win7 on their machine today.
 
[citation][nom]moricon[/nom]...Windows 7 is simply the very best OS Microsoft has released, second only to Windows 95 which was a Gamechanger![/citation]
I think you need to look up the definition of 'very best' - if it's second to something then obviously it isn't the very best 😛

 
Status
Not open for further replies.