14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft continues efforts to kill Windows XP, but recent statistics indicate that the soon-to-be 12-year-old operating system remains a tough nut to crack.
First of all, Net Applications data. According to a new round of figures provided by market researcher Net Applications, Windows XP is at this time the second most popular operating system in the whole world, with a share of 38.31 percent in April 2012.
Windows 7 obviously tops the rankings with 44.72 percent, but ironically, Windows XP is barely losing users, despite all of Microsoft’s efforts to move its customers to a newer platform such as Windows 8.
A quick look on Windows XP’s market share shows that it only lost approximately 1 percent of its users since January when it was installed on 39.51 percent of computers worldwide. Figures dropped to 38.99 percent in February, while the slow decline continued to 38.73 percent in March.
As far as Steam users are concerned, Windows XP still remains a good gaming platform, even though some of the titles that could be released in the coming months and years might not support this operating system anymore.
At this point, 8.25 percent of Steam users are still running Windows XP 32-bit, while 0.38 percent of them have decided to deploy the 64-bit flavor of the operating system.
Of course, these can’t be good news for Microsoft, especially because the tech giant struggles to boost the uptake of its latest offering in the market.
Windows 8 still trails behind most of its predecessors, with Net Applications data pointing to a 3.82 percent market share in April 2013.
On the good side, more gamers have started to make the switch to Windows 8, as Steam statistics indicate that 10.86 percent of Valve’s users already deployed the 64-bit version of Microsoft’s flagship operating system.