14 DAY TRIAL // New data provided by analytics firm StatCounter for the month of September 2019 shows that Windows 10 keeps growing and growing, while Windows 7, which has long been considered the only alternative, continues its decline ahead of the end-of-support due in January.
Windows 10 managed to increase its market share from 59.82% in August to 60.65% last month, while Windows 7 declined from 30.92% to 29.39%. All the other Windows versions are far behind, with Windows XP said to run on just 1.44% of computers.
Microsoft has recently revealed that Windows 10 is running on more than 900 million devices, suggesting that the accelerating pace of upgrades from previous Windows versions in general, and Windows 7 in particular, substantially contributed to reaching this milestone.
The demise of Windows 7
Windows 7 losing market share isn’t necessarily a big surprise, as the 2009 operating system will be retired in January 2020.
Windows 7 has long been considered the only alternative to Windows 10, especially because it was the last Windows version to stick with the classic desktop approach. Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 both insist for Microsoft’s modern approach with an app store, so many decided to stick with Windows 7 just for the sake of a simplified experience.
But with Windows 7’s support coming to an end in just a few months, more and more devices are upgraded to Windows 10, something that makes total sense from a security perspective.
Without security patches, Windows 7 would technically remain vulnerable to any security flaws found in the operating system, especially if no other mitigations are put in place. Analysts and tech experts expect a significant number of devices to stick to Windows 7 even after the end of support is reached, mostly because in enterprise environments the costs of upgrading to Windows 10 are higher due to resources involved.