14 DAY TRIAL // Windows XP was officially retired in April this year, but even though Microsoft no longer wants to keep machines running it updated, that doesn’t necessarily mean that users are all ready to jump ship and switch to a newer Windows version just because Redmond says so.
In fact, millions of computers across the globe are still powered by Windows XP as we speak, and as things stand right now, the 13-year-old operating system might stay around for a while.
Today we’re looking at the statistics provided by two major web analytics firms, namely StatCounter and Net Applications, but also at figures provided by Valve’s very own Steam gaming platform, to see whether Windows XP is still alive or not.
Net Applications, on the other hand, puts Windows XP at 25.31 percent, while Windows 7 is said to be powering 50.55 percent of the desktop computers worldwide.
This means that Windows XP and Windows 7 have a combined share of 75.86 percent, which is more than impressive given the fact that we’re talking about operating systems launched 13 and 5 years ago, respectively.
As far as Valve’s Steam gaming platform is concerned, Windows XP 32-bit is currently installed on 4.90 percent of the gaming rigs out there, up 0.29 percent from the month before. The 64-bit version of XP is far behind with only 0.27 percent, thus leading to a combined share of 5.17 percent.
As you can see, there’s absolutely no doubt that Microsoft cannot kill Windows XP so fast or, at least, not as fast as the company actually wanted. Windows XP continues to be a very popular choice for users across the globe and will remain so until the software giant brings out a more advanced version of Windows that really convinces those who are often accused for living in the past to purchase a new computer running modern Windows.