Microsoft’s latest desktop OS continues growing

Jan 3, 2018 06:27 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has been rather aggressive in its attempt to boost adoption of Windows 10, and the company has even turned to very controversial tactics like upgrades without user consent.

And yet, it looks like all of these are yet to pay off, as Windows 10 keeps growing at a pace that doesn’t allow it to overtake Windows 7, the operating system launched in 2009 and which reaches end of support in January 2020.

Windows 10, however, achieved a new personal best in December when its market share finally got past the 32.93% milestone, up from 31.95% the month before. Windows 7, on the other hand, remains the king of the castle with 43.08% market share according to NetMarketShare, down just slightly from 43.12% in November.

Windows 7 and Windows 10 are by far the most popular desktop operating systems right now, with Windows 8.1 coming third in charts with 5.71%, followed closely by Windows XP with 5.18%.

The Windows XP struggle

As far as Windows XP is concerned, it looks like the nearly 17-year-old desktop operating system still refuses to die, despite no longer getting updates and security patches since April 2014.

The decline of Windows XP is taking place at a worrying pace, and the last month for example, it dropped only 0.55%, even though it was abandoned nearly three years ago.

Not everyone seems to be ready to get rid of Windows XP just yet, and this is not at all good news for Microsoft, as the company is approaching the end of another major Windows version. Windows 7 will no longer receive updates beyond the January 2020 deadline, and just like in the case of Windows XP, Microsoft is very likely to have a hard time convincing users to upgrade to remain secure.

Time will tell if Microsoft can convince users to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 before end of support is reached, but by the looks of things, the software giant is very likely to experience another Windows XP moment.