Skip to main content

Report: Windows 7 Now Has More Users Than Vista


A new report from Janco Associates finds that, in less than seven months after being released to consumers, Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system already has more total users than its predecessor, Windows Vista. According to Janco’s figures, Windows 7 now accounts for 14.8 percent of the operating systems market.

“The last OS that was accepted as quickly in the market was XP,” said Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis, in a statement. “Vista’s market share has peaked and is in the process of being decommissioned in most enterprises.”

However, Janco also noted Microsoft is seeing increasing competition on the browser front, with a net loss of 3.7 percent of the browser market in the last 12 months. “While they have good news on the OS front,” said Janulaitis, “their browser market share has fallen to the level that it was in 1998.”

In the meantime, Microsoft has been touting Windows 7’s success as a major feather in its cap…and at least putting a dent in Apple’s gains in the PC market. In Microsoft’s most recent earnings report, the company highlighted that it was sold more than 100 million licenses for Windows 7, and estimates more than 10 percent of PCs worldwide are now running Windows 7.

Recent figures from industry analysts show the PC sector experiencing significant growth as the U.S. and global economies begin to show signs of recovery: recent figures from IDC have the global PC market growing by 24 percent during the first quarter. A large number of those machines are running Windows 7…and Windows 7’s success may be putting a dent in Apple’s market gains. Those IDC figures show Apple slipping to a 6.4 percent share of the U.S. PC market in the first quarter compared to 7 percent a year before, with an overall 8.3 percent growth in Mac shipments. However, Apple recently reported a 33 percent year-old-year growth in Mac sales for the same period—and IDC’s estimates came out before Apple’s quarterly results.

Geoff Duncan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
How to factory reset Windows 10 or Windows 11
Windows 10 Home vs. Pro

Returning Windows 10 or 11 to their defaults with a factory reset can be a great way to improve performance, clear our old unnecessary software, and make your PC feel like-new again. While you can always use our Windows speed up tricks to give your system a boost, sometimes there's no substitute for starting from scratch.

Here's how to factory reset Windows 10 and Windows 11 to get your PC feeling right again.

Read more
Whatever you do, don’t buy a Windows laptop right now
Gaming on a laptop with the Snapdragon X Elite chip

There's a revolution in the making. Those of us who've been watching closely know that Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chips are rumored to be just around the corner. And they're about to ignite a bomb in the world of Windows laptops.

That might sound like exaggeration at first blush. But Qualcomm has spent the better part of this year trotting around a demo unit with this chip, and the performance so far looks pretty astounding. Not only is Qualcomm claiming that its new chips will run circles around Intel's latest Core Ultra chips -- but it's even pitting them against Apple's M3. That's right. There's even a significant jump in AI performance via the chip's neural processing unit (NPU).

Read more