Windows 10: Windows 10 versus Windows 7: Whose numbers do you trust?

Brink · Jan 24, 2017

Are users really in love with Windows 7? Or are they clinging to old habits as Windows 10 rolls out? Three popular data sources offer very different answers. Regardless of which one you choose, take that data with a heaping helping of salt.

Long-term shifts in the installed base for Windows PCs are nothing new. For decades, businesses have been dealing with the logistics and the costs of migrating from one Windows version to another.
As my colleague Steve Ranger noted earlier this week, the shift to Windows 10 is following that familiar pattern, with the current corporate standard OS, Windows 7, hanging on tenaciously.

I've been following the same transition, and my view of how it's playing out differs a bit from Steve's. Part of the difference of opinion is just a matter of interpretation, of course, but a larger part comes from the data itself.
His analysis was based on numbers from Net Applications (aka NetMarketShare). I find that data source extremely problematic.

I first wrote about the problems with this data three years ago (see Net Market Share vs. StatCounter: Whose online measurements can you trust?). A fresh look at current data reveals that those problems still exist.

For this post, I've assembled the latest usage figures from NetMarketShare and from two other highly regarded sources that release similar data. The first is StatCounter Global Stats. The second is the US government's Digital Analytics program, which I've written about previously (November 2015, February 2016, and June 2016).

The following series of tables offer a summary of Windows usage worldwide over the second half of 2016. (Note that for the sake of apples-to-apples comparisons, I have normalized the StatCounter numbers so that they represent the same population of Windows PCs as the other two data sources.)

Three data sources, three very different views of the Windows installed base.

A few obvious conclusions leap off the chart.

First, Windows 7 and Windows 10 completely dominate PC usage, accounting collectively for 72.7 percent to 88.9 percent of visits from the installed base. That's a pretty wide range, though, which I'll get into in a moment.
Second, about half of the installed base continues to use Windows 7, with all three data sources pegging the number within a couple points of 50 percent.

Windows 8.x usage is steadily shrinking, and all three sources agree that only the most determined of dead-enders (roughly 1 percent) still use Windows Vista, whose end-of-support date is less than 90 days away.

Finally, Windows 10 usage has increased since the one-year free upgrade offer ended in July 2016. Converted to an annualized rate, Windows 10 usage grew by somewhere between 8 percent and 12.5 percent per year. Again, that's a pretty big spread.

Where the three sources diverge most dramatically is in their measurement of how many people are still using Windows XP, which has been unsupported for nearly three years. NetMarket Share says a staggering 9.1 percent of its visitors use XP, while DAP shows XP usage down near Vista levels, under 2 percent.

So, who do you believe? Start by looking carefully at where the data comes from...
Click to expand...

Read more: http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows...-do-you-trust/

EdTittel · Jan 24, 2017

Ed Bott is the greatest: he has such a down-to-earth, well-informed outlook on most things Windows.
--Ed--

:)

Mark09(2) · Jan 24, 2017

My computer performance be slower or faster with Windows 10 Professional Installed versus Windows 7 Professional??

My computer performance be slower or faster with Windows 10 Professional Installed versus Windows 7 Professional?? Please advise.

TSRSwamy · Jan 24, 2017

Unable to install Windows 10, error code 800700D

I have windows 7 Home. While trying to upgrade to Windows 10 I got an error message whose code is 800700D. What do I do?

hTconeM9user · Jan 26, 2017

Ed Bott is the greatest: he has such a down-to-earth, well-informed outlook on most things Windows.
--Ed--
Click to expand...

I always read anything Ed Bolt posts as he seems to always be well informed
Started following him when XP first came out

Trust_No1 · Jan 26, 2017

Ed Bott is the greatest: he has such a down-to-earth, well-informed outlook on most things Windows.
--Ed--
Click to expand...

I always read anything Ed Bolt posts as he seems to always be well informed
Started following him when XP first came out
Click to expand...

I find Ed Bott to be a Windows 10 zealot. I don't trust much of what he says, in all of his reviews, he has absolutely no negative comments about Windows 10, I often times wonder if he is on the Microsoft payroll. Even blatant problems there have been with Windows 10, he tends to gloss over with a positive spin. No product is perfect, but Ed Bott's reviews of Windows 10 make it sound as if it were the OS of the Gods.

alphanumeric · Jan 26, 2017

I'm pretty sure I've seen some negative comments by him concerning Windows 10. I'm not going looking for them though. Believe or don't believe me.

Phone Man · Jan 27, 2017

I did my own survey and Windows 10 usage is 100%.

I looked at my 3 systems and they all use Windows 10.

Jim *Party

alphanumeric · Jan 27, 2017

100% more or less here too. I have a few devices I'd like to run it on but the IoT version just doesn't do it for me. Everything here that can run the desktop version is running it though.

brummyfan · Jan 27, 2017

I did my own survey and Windows 10 usage is 100%.

I looked at my 3 systems and they all use Windows 10.

Jim *Party
Click to expand...

*Roflmao2*Roflmao2

hTconeM9user · Jan 27, 2017

I'm pretty sure I've seen some negative comments by him concerning Windows 10. I'm not going looking for them though. Believe or don't believe me.
Click to expand...

You are right he has not always given good reviews,
Vista for one he gave a very bad write up on and also he did not care much for windows 8

RoasterMen · Apr 4, 2018

Windows 10 is good at killing my drive. Always sitting at 100%. Had to turn many services off for that.

Windows 10: Windows 10 versus Windows 7: Whose numbers do you trust?

Windows 10 versus Windows 7: Whose numbers do you trust?

Windows 10 versus Windows 7: Whose numbers do you trust?

Windows 10 versus Windows 7: Whose numbers do you trust?

Windows 10 versus Windows 7: Whose numbers do you trust?

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