Windows 7: Over 175 Million Licenses Served

[Conner Macleod]

"Yes, the great sales of Windows 7 helps drive the revenue, so it should be no surprise that Microsoft have* moved 175 million copies of the OS."

*Has, not have.

On topic, 175 million is pretty impressive, I figure that's mostly due to good word of mouth from those early adapters of the new OS. I've used Windows 7 at work and it's a great OS, way better than Vista. Kudos to Microsoft for actually doing something right when it comes to a new OS, and it even worked relatively bug free from the release date.

 

[grieve]

[citation][nom]cjl[/nom]I have to agree with you - I ran Vista Ultimate starting from about a month or two after release, and I never had any significant problems with it, and I actually preferred it over XP. 7 is better still, of course, but I never understood all of the complaints about Vista.[/citation]
I had serious issues trying to install it on a machine with more then 1 stick of ram but MS resolved that issue with a patch early on. Other then that, yah i liked it more then XP as well. Still win7 is beauty, i have found some small domain permission issues but it is solid for sure.

 

[sliem]

I love my win7.

 

[Camikazi]

[citation][nom]grieve[/nom]I know i will get heavy thumbs down for this...I dual boot XP and Vista Ultimate for years and frankly unlike the majority i found Vista to be great, I never had any issues except installation ram troubles pre SP1... Vista wasn't near as bead as everyone made it out to be.That being said i would never install Vista on one of our work machines and i am already pushing out Win7.[/citation]
Only problems I had with Vista was bad video drivers crashing me in games, once ATI got it's stuff together and put out a working stable drivers Vista ran very well. I liked it actually, most people didn't cause of the 3rd party drivers that were nowhere near ready or stable causing a lot of crashing that was blamed on Vista.

 

[HavoCnMe]

Yeah for Windows 7.

 

[snotling]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]This isn't like juggling 2 girlfriends, are you seriously arguing over which of the 2 of you is the most annoying troll? If you want it that bad then I recant, Wotan31 can be the 2nd worst troll if it's that important to you... jeez[/citation]
I care mostly about the consistency of your comments, If I am to consider them interesting or not in the future will be because they made sense. If every new thing that come out of you states that it is the worst... Troll, OS or piece of hardware... then you obviously do not spend as much time thinking about what you have to say, but rather spend it saying pretty much anything mindlessly.

That Linux enthusiasts think that Windows 7 is a piece of shit is nothing new. On the other hand canonical has been rolling out updates like there is no tomorrow lately so not everything is white as snow in the Linux universe either. Reminds me of no smart-phone being perfect... Sales numbers tell one thing about the market that cannot be directly translated to quality, just market acceptance.

Vista had its flaws, Win 7 has some too and so does Linux distros. If we are to determine which major piece of turd is the smelliest here and now, I want my vote to be cast towards Windows ME, there were some close seconds, from Adobe and RIM that I will not enumerate.

The iPad sold like Crazy, Believe me nobody thinks this thing is totally useless more than I do but I guess that if you're a technophobic baby-boomer with too much money, you should go get one fast.

to stay on topic I will finish my comment by stating that 16% market penetration in less than one year is huge for pretty much any product so Microsoft obvioulsy got it right this time and people finally begin to accept the fact that Windows XP can't last forever.

 

[jesman1985]

We are talking about operating systems dude, not your 10 mb media players. With every new OS come some new hardware and software standards to which public has to adapt. The longer an OS lasts, the better it is because it shows its stability. BTW, who would like to spend like $400 every 2 years for a new OS. Ghosh, count me out!

stability?? hows that stability when you dont have a choice in your OS in the first place.. its funny how many ppl gave me a thumbs down when i currently use windows7... and i love it.. that just goes to show you that the majority of ppl are not looking at what im saying, but just looking at the fact that im not kissing windows 7's ass.. and as far as it costing you money that you dont want to spend.. thats called options or a decision you would have to make for your self.. if you dont want a new OS fine.. dont buy it.. but that doesnt mean the option shouldnt be there.. stability nothing.. you wouldnt recognize stability if theres nothing else to compare it to..

 

[chickenhoagie]

[citation][nom]wotan31[/nom]The BSOD is about the only stable feature in the Windows OS. Guess that's why they put the 'save' button in such a prominent place in all the Office apps... save your work often, before the random BSOD comes again![/citation]
maybe if you knew how to use a damn computer right, or build a damn computer right, you wouldn't have those problems.


Boy, you gotta love the people that put the blame of their own mistakes on everyone else.

Well, i guess windows has to be doing something right if they've sold more OS'es than every other company has combined. even bigger plus considering that windows actually costs money vs. free linux and OS X.

call it what you want, but you sir are not the smartest person in the IT industry obviously. and this is coming from a 17 year old teenager.

 

[jimmysmitty]

[citation][nom]vaskodogama[/nom]Windows7 deserves this, it's a great OS anyway! but IE8? nooo![/citation]

I agree. But IE8 isn't that bad. But in reality I am awaiting IE9. All the features sound great and will be in FF 4 too.....

Love my Windows 7.

[citation][nom]cjl[/nom]I have to agree with you - I ran Vista Ultimate starting from about a month or two after release, and I never had any significant problems with it, and I actually preferred it over XP. 7 is better still, of course, but I never understood all of the complaints about Vista.[/citation]

Double that. Never had problems with Vista. Went 6 months AV free as well no problems.

The complaints mainly stem from people being easily led sheep. They see the Mac commercial and believe. They hear someone say bad things and they listen. I had plenty of people who never once touched Vista trash talk it.

 

[randomizer]

As to you and your comment about Linux, I suggest you dedicate a computer to Linux and use it for awhile to get used to it...you will notice it will take some time if you are not familiar with it...

Oh I am somewhat familiar with it. I've dual-booted several versions of most major distros at some point, but I usually wipe it and try another one the next day. I'm the epitome of a distro hopper; I can't even stick with a distro long enough to learn it

You should move to a remote wooden shack with no running water or electricity, your top secret data will be well protected.

Yea boi.

That Linux enthusiasts think that Windows 7 is a piece of *** is nothing new. On the other hand canonical has been rolling out updates like there is no tomorrow lately so not everything is white as snow in the Linux universe either.

Linux is not Ubuntu. Ubuntu is, right now, a runaway political locomotive without working brakes. It has no concrete vision other than what Herr Kommandant Shuttleworth says. The developers are trying to do everything under the sun to add fancy features but never get around to making them work properly. There is also hardware which works on one version but then fails after an upgrade. Is it unreasonable to expect that hardware which worked previously and for which drivers still exist should work on a new version of an operating system? If Ubuntu works for you (that's a generic "you") then it's great, but it doesn't work for everyone, just like Windows doesn't.

Dell just pulled Ubuntu from its stores (although I think you can still request it over the phone). I can't imagine what support must be like. After all, the Dell tech support people probably aren't qualified to do anything but read the entry on "how to turn off UAC" over the phone.

It's a real shame that Ubuntu and Linux are used as synonyms. Canonical had something good going with Dell that they needed to capitalise on, but they ruined it in order to stick to deadlines.

 

[cletus_slackjawd]

Just bought Windows Vista Ultimate full on craigslist. Sealed and everything. I bought Windows Vista Basic full Retail on craiglist too a few months back. Slowly upgrading all my XP machines. Nothing really wrong Vista. I would have liked to get 7 but I'm not paying US $60.00 more than Vista for it. I wish they'd re-release the family pack.

 

[matt87_50]

sigh... you had to go and ruin it all by bragging about IE8...

 

[scatrdfew]

XP is tired, I don't care how great people think it is, it's time to say "goodbye XP"! Vista was not that bad, just poor execution on MS' part. I didn't have any complaints about Vista, my PCs could handle it. Windows 7 is a beauty and I still love to tinker with my Linux (Fedora and Ubuntu) boxes. Someday I'll get a Mac to round out my collection.

 

[tester24]

Nothing against Microsoft but if they pull a Nintendo with saying that they have the fastest growing and most popular game *cough* Wii sports then that's pretty lame. Anytime you bundle anything it doesn't count. Now give me how many times IE8 was downloaded off their site or by Updates yeah then we can talk.

 

[snotling]

@randomizer:

Linux is not Ubuntu. Ubuntu is, right now, a runaway political locomotive without working brakes.

totally agreed, Its just that the person I was referring to mentioned he was an Ubuntu user.

 

[randomizer]

totally agreed, Its just that the person I was referring to mentioned he was an Ubuntu user.

Understood. I just throw up a little every time I see "X is bad about Linux" and then "Ubuntu" mentioned in the next sentence as evidence

 

[bloodymaze]

Just switched to Win7 a few days ago... to be honest this OS has much improved speed from XP Pro 64bit --> Also I can notice the drivers work much better as well (Speaking from playing music) -- I might just be imagining it but the new drivers for my sound seem to be better and have better quality? Lol So gonna get flamed, but startup is a dream too

 

[dEAne]

Will wait what Apple say for this.

 

[zachary k]

my school districts is putting them in the new computers going to the elementary schools, which was a shock to me. sure it is unfair that the little preschools get the cool, new computers, but if it went the other way around, they would be trashed by the time they get to the elementary schools.

 

[back_by_demand]

You do realise that you can install any other internet browser on Win 7 if you want.

As far as Vista being a slow pile of poop,when XP first came out it was running on what kind of hardware? It wasn't snappy, it wasn't fast and everyone complained that it was slower than Windows 98 and used twice as much RAM - but hardware caught up. You had Windows XP machines pushed out of the factory that in relative terms were 50 times more powerful. So when Vista was released people had got used to a certain level of snappiness, roll forward to Win 7 and the hardware hasn't improved as drastically but the speed and stability have gone through the roof.

Is it the best? Well some would say no because the one that brought Windows to the masses was Win 95, the one that cemented into the business world was Win 2000 and the one that unifed them all was Win XP. Win 7 does have more and better than XP but it also has such entrenched support that it is difficult to cannibalise it's own market.

As far as Linux goes, well I wholeheartedly welcome other free OS's to the fold. They have plenty to offer but if they are to become popular and dominant they need to surgically remove the jerks that think they can rule the world as the unfinished product they are.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/23/rising_cost_of_scaling/
This is a perfect example, but it also shows the problem with Linux for the end user.

Facebook uses a ton of open-source software. While ostensibly free, to make projects like Linux work for its purposes, Facebook heavily customizes them. While the company may not buy as much software, it ends up writing or customizing quite a bit of code.

So the same applies to the user. There just aren't any programs out there written for Linux. Using WINE you can get them to run, but at what performance? Games can install, but without DX they are running slow as hell. Linux may well have a case to complain at Windows but people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Clean up your own failing first and that ivory tower will look a lot less hypocritical.

 

[agawtrip]

is 2GB of RAM enough for 3d gaming (graw 2,d&d online,resident evil 5) in windows 7??
it's the only question hindering me to switch. i cant find a clear answer to this.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

windows 7 is great..especially for gamers

 

[mikewong]

I've been using WinXP for many years. It's a great OS, never had any problem, unless it's a hardware problem.
Now that I've tried Win7, it's even better. A worth buying OS.

 

[danny69t]

[citation][nom]wotan31[/nom]The BSOD is about the only stable feature in the Windows OS. Guess that's why they put the 'save' button in such a prominent place in all the Office apps... save your work often, before the random BSOD comes again![/citation]

Dude!
Ever think you have hardware problems? maybe that's why you get so many BSODs

my 2 cents

 

[eddieroolz]

Doesn't surprise me. A fine, well-polished software all around.