Windows Media Center Launched by 6% of Windows 7 Users Globally in July

Windows Media Center will be offered to Windows 8 users, Microsoft stressed, while revealing that usage of this traditional Windows component is not exactly through the roof.

According to Steven Sinofsky, the President of the Windows and Windows Live Division, only a fraction of all Windows 7 users fired up Media Center this July.

The statistics shared by the Windows boss reveal that even less Windows 7 customers actually used Media Center.

Windows Media Center is a default component designed to provide media management and play-back functionality to users with Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise SKUs.

“Our opt-in usage telemetry shows that in July, Windows Media Center was launched by 6% of Windows 7 users globally with the heaviest usage in Russia, Mexico, and Brazil (frequency and time),” Sinofsky said.

“However, most people are just looking around; only one quarter (25% of 6%) of these people used it for more than 10 minutes per session (individual averages), and in 59% of Media Center sessions (by these 6% of users) we see almost no activity (less than a minute or two of usage).”

Despite eventually making it into Windows 8, Windows Media Center won’t be provided in the first pre-release Build of the operating system, which will be offered to testers soon.

Sinofsky underlined that the low usage of the component in Windows 7 had nothing to do with the decision.

“TV was the most common scenario we observed, and not surprisingly, traditional media (DVD and CD) are less common (and declining over time) than streaming and file-based content,” the Windows boss added.

“By comparison, Media Player (66% of Windows users in July) and IE (88%) are popular rendering engines for all types of media content, including an increased volume of "premium" and streaming content. This is another place we’re reminded of the tremendous diversity of Windows activity.”