14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 10 will be released next month, and now many of you are getting ready for the big launch that brings us a free version of the operating system for the first time in history.
Windows 10 will be free of charge for those running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 on their PCs, but Microsoft says that upgrading computers running the former is a priority.
The new operating system is designed to mix the familiarity of Windows 7 with modern features found in Windows 10, so for example, we get the Start menu back but with live tiles borrowed from the Windows 8 Start screen. There are plenty of new features, such as Cortana, Edge, a dark visual style, and a notification center, but in essence, Windows 10 is supposed to make the desktop usable once again for those with a mouse and keyboard.
And as a result, Windows 7 users have become Microsoft’s main target for Windows 10 for two different reasons.
The number of PCs running Windows 7
At this point, Windows 7 is the number one operating system on the desktop, and stats show that more than one in two PCs in the world are running this particular OS version.
If Microsoft’s previous figures pointing out that 1.5 billion PCs run Windows are still accurate, this means that more than 750 million of the computers out there are powered by Windows 7. With the software giant struggling to bring Windows 10 on 1 billion devices by 2017, upgrading Windows 7 PCs is clearly one of the key things the company has to do to achieve this goal.
Avoiding another Windows XP moment
If Microsoft actually manages to upgrade Windows 7 PCs to Windows 10, the company avoids getting through another Windows XP moment when support for its number one operating system comes to an end in January 2020.
Back in April 2014, Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows XP support, and at that point, nearly 30 percent of the world’s PCs were still running this OS version. Microsoft struggled to convince users to upgrade, but Windows XP’s market share declined only at a very slow pace, so it’s now powering some 13 percent of the computers across the world.
If Microsoft doesn’t end the Windows 7 growth many years before its EOS, the company might have to get through another Windows XP moment in 2020, so Windows 10 is pretty much the biggest opportunity to start the migration off Windows 7.
Windows 10 will see the light of day on July 29, so it remains to be seen how many users on Windows 7 actually agree to upgrade.