Windows XP officially took its last gasp back in April, but that didn’t mean it stopped being used. Yet November marked an interesting development: there are finally more machines using Windows 8.1 than Windows XP.
[related title=”FAREWELL WINDOWS XP” tag=”windowsxpends” items=”3″]
StatCounter’s analysis of web traffic suggests that Windows 8.1 is now the second most popular operating system globally, with 10.95 per cent market share — just ahead of Windows XP on 10.69 per cent. Windows 7 remains dominant, with 50.3 per cent.
As the Register points out, Windows 8.1 may have received a boost from PC specials during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday period, especially as new systems can’t be sold with anything other than Windows 8.1. On these numbers, Windows 8.1 is unlikely to get anywhere near Windows 7 usage before Windows 10 appears next year.
StatCounter [via The Register]
Comments
5 responses to “Windows 8.1 Is Finally Bigger Than Windows XP”
My company uses XP through a virtualised service…we’ll be moving to 8.1 shortly (as part of our ‘rapidly keep up with the past’ program). We’ve also recently moved our office tools to MS Office 2010…only 4 years late! Still, for a large organisation migration of software is a nightmare and an expensive one, too, with the ‘bang of buck’ question unanswered. Particularlyas we only scratch the surface of MS office tools capabilities.
But part of the reluctance to ‘upgrade’ as MS likes to call it, is the huge productivity hit that occurs as people get used to the new interface/s and the training cost to bring them to the level of productivity that they had on the old version: it adds up to huge cost for no long run benefit, just keep running in the upgrade hamster wheel. No wonder firms get cynical.
Just thinking about the OS, would be much better if the shell and the kernel were separated as in Linux, so if Win 8.1 could look just like XP does….no training hit for users, as it would still look familiar, but still fun for the guys in the IT engineroom.
You can install your own Windows shells if you really want to.
seems like you need to flip that back onto your staff and get them to acknowledge that IT and Computers is an ever-changing tool where the staff themselves need to take on the responsibility of learning what to do and how. Sure the Business should provide training but the navigation of an OS is not training you should need to provide. Not sure why you would move to 8.1, why not W7. The Leap from XP to W7 is marginal at best from my experience.
Support – windows 7 end of support is 2020 and 8.1 2023. So going to 8.1 now gives you 3 extra years of support before you have to migrate again.
Why not just get your IT to install Classic Shell, so they don’t have to worry about interface issues as it looks exactly like windows 7
I heard that Windows 8 had some hiccups. But Windows 8.1 covered that. Also with the latest updates, its working more faster. You can also look at this article of the performance comparison between the new Windows 10 and 8.1 and 7. http://www.pallareviews.com/3545/windows-10-benchmarks-performance/