
The State of Windows 8 - vinothshankaran
https://www.soluto.com/windows-8
======
robomartin
I am not sure how good this data might be, being that it originates from
software that might not be widely deployed. That said, it is always prudent to
look for other sources and compare:

<http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems)

[http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-
share....](http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-
share.aspx?qprid=10)

<http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php>

The most surprising bit of information for me has to do with Vista. I didn't
realize that it lost out so much ground to W7. We are still running Vista 64
bit on a number of machines because upgrading to W7 would also require
upgrading a number of engineering packages that don't play well with W7 unless
upgraded. That would cost tens of thousands of dollars and it simply isn't
necessary. Aside from a few "features" Vista 64 has been rock-solid as a
platform. Some of these workstations see heavy FEA work 18 hours a day, 5 to 7
days a week.

~~~
bluedanieru
Vista got better right around the time W7 was released anyway, right? Both in
terms of the OS itself as well as better support from third parties. I've
always thought that W7, while a great operating system in its own right, also
benefited from Vista acting as a sort of beta test for all the new shit they
added like UAC and better separation of concerns. FWIW I had a Vista machine
from a few months after release until W7 came out and I liked it well enough
to consider it at least an improvement on XP.

~~~
DoubleMalt
XP got good with SP2. W7 ist SP2 of Vista ;)

------
account_taken
I find it really hard to believe average crashes is 7.1/month on Windows 7. I
run Windows 24/7. It's never crashed. I have an overclocked 4.5Ghz i5 and have
many VMware sessions running. Maybe it's because I have quality hardware? Same
experience with OS X. Both are rock solid.

~~~
jongalloway2
They list which apps crash most - stuff like Google Drive, Adobe Creative
Suite, iTunes. The only common one listed is Explorer in Windows 8, which
could be due to a storage driver or something. So if you're not running the
software they're listing, less likely that you'll see crashiness. I agree, I
pretty much never see app crashes and haven't seen a BSOD since like Vista
betas.

~~~
georgemcbay
I've been happily using Windows 8 since the RTM months prior to the retail
release and I mostly like it, but I've experienced a _lot_ of Explorer
crashes. These aren't a huge deal because the OS detects the crash and
restarts another explorer automatically within seconds, but it _is_ a bit
annoying that it happens so often.

I haven't really looked into the issue much because it isn't a showstopper but
I suspect the problem has to do with thumbnail generation because I mostly see
it when navigating folders full of video clips used for video editing. It is
possible/probable that explorer itself isn't what is crashing but rather some
dependent codec used for the thumbnailing is crashing, but it would be nice if
explorer isolated itself better from such crashes.

------
bloaf
Interesting, but I suspect that the reduction in crashes may simply be due to
the fact that a majority of windows 8 installations are either on new
computers or are clean installs. I will be curious to see how the
"crashes/user" number trends over time.

~~~
jakeonthemove
I'd be more worried about what's crashing - Windows 8's Explorer is at the
top, which is not a good thing...

~~~
cail
This could come with the same concern. If a lot of these Windows 8 installs
are new machines or clean installs there may not be as much third-party
software installed so crashes that happen are more likely to occur in Windows
components.

That said, the explorer crashes do worry me.

~~~
mistermann
It's very sloppy, but not unusual for Microsoft, and easily fixed.

------
bobsy
The issue here is data relevancy. How high tech is this audience? How big are
the numbers which they are using to pull this information together? You would
hope its 6/7/8 figure numbers but as it isn't specified it could be based on a
1000 users which I feel is of limited value.

I recently upgraded to Windows8 and I was pleasantly surprised. I like it. It
has some issues with consistency. ( Getting IE10 Metro to run requires IE to
be your default browser which I don't like. / There are like 3 ways to shut
down your PC / Navigation can be slightly awkward between metro app and
desktop and back again. )

That said I feel it is a step forward and I hope to see more positive numbers
like this in the future.

~~~
roee
Hi, Roee from Soluto here, please see my full comment:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4793863>

------
kenjackson
If this is representative then sales of win8 are great.

About 700m units of win7 sold to date. From this win8 is a bit more than
1/25th the sales of win7 So about 28m units sold so far?

~~~
AdamTReineke
That matches the numbers that Ballmer of about 1 million units per day [1] and
keeps them on track for 400 million by EOY 2013 [2].

1: [http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/steve-
ballmer-f...](http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/steve-ballmer-four-
million-upgrades-of-windows-8-sold-in-four-days-206076) 2:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2012/09/07/how-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2012/09/07/how-
microsoft-can-sell-400-million-windows-8-devices-in-2013/)

~~~
Someone
Everybody can predict that 400 million number.
<http://phys.org/news/2012-11-china-lenovo-consumer-pcs.html> claims

 _"The survey by IHS iSuppli said the total PC market in 2012 is expected to
contract 1.2 percent to 348.7 million units, down from 352.8 million in
2011."_

I think it is safe to bet that 90% of PCs sold in 2013 will be sold with
Windows 8 installed. 90% of 350M gets you a good way towards that "400M copies
sold" figure. Add in some sales for tablets and two months of sales in 2012,
and you probably are there already. To get anything different, the economy
would have to collapse spectactularly, or people would have to stop buying
Windows PCs en masse.

For Windows, the more interesting figures would be how many PCs run Windows 8
(I bet many companies will overwrite Windows 8 with Windows 7 or XP), and how
many standalone upgrades got sold.

------
roee
Hi all, Roee from Soluto here (providers of the W8 data). I'll try to respond
to the questions and comments here.

But first, a bit of background to the size and quality of our userbase. I warn
you this is going to sound defensive, but it's important to establish that
we're not a bunch of kids who sampled 50 Win8 VMs. So - Soluto's agent has
been downloaded on over 3M machines in over 150 countries. We had one of the
first applications running on the developer preview of Windows 8 over a year
ago, and our first metro app was in the first batch released to the public in
February together with the launch of the first consumer preview. We are a 2012
Microsoft Partners of the Year (in the startups category), we share investors
with the likes of Skype, Dropbox & LinkedIn and most importantly - we're
building a service that helps techie folks to provide tech support for their
friends and family remotely without the need for remote desktop (free for
supporting up to 5 PCs). Our hundreds of servers now deal with over 50 million
data points every day, and we're big data junkies. Use Google to verify all
that :)

And now a couple of points I hope will answer some of the questions-

1\. The data used for the Windows 8 part is only based on RTM versions and
later, i.e. it does not include developer preview or consumer preview.

2\. Our users are outright techies, but on the other hand the machines we
manage are a mix, since our users support their friends, parents and grandmas,
leading to some really non-techie level usage types (IE6, 5 toolbars, etc).
That being said, Windows 8 is more prominent on the supporter side in our
userbase (i.e. we see more techies using it then non-techies).

3\. The sample size for Windows 8 is still way smaller than that of Windows 7,
naturally. But that page is automatically updating, so check it out once in a
while, and with time the data will become more accurate, as big numbers tend
to become. We still think it's valuable that way, even if not everything is
perfectly significant. iTunes crashes more and Google Drive crashes less, that
probably won't change without an update from these vendors.

4\. To those who say there are no BSODs in the world since Win7 - I'm sorry
but you are just plain wrong. I see the data on a daily basis. The situation
is much better then XP and Vista, but part of the population still suffers
from BSODs, mostly because of 3rd party drivers. I personally had a BSOD on W8
(the sad smiley modern BSOD, but still a BSOD).

5\. I'm not the OP of this post and I don't know vinothshankaran.

6\. As our page gets refreshed with data, we'll also be adding more components
and clarifications.

If there's anything specific you'd like to see added to the page, by all means
please share it here. As the lead product manager at Soluto and a long time HN
enthusiast, crowdsourcing our requirements to this community sounds like a
dream :)

And if you have specific questions or comments do feel free to contact me at
roee@soluto.com

One last point- if you're the kind of person who receives phone calls for PC
tech support from your friends and family members - give Soluto a try :)

Roee

~~~
aleyan
Fantastic sample size. You should really mention it on linked page since a lot
of people are skeptical about these sorts of surveys because of small sample
sizes.

------
josteink
Interesting to see how vendor-provided files, drivers and utilities seems to
be causing most problems across the line.

Also it seems that Windows 8 has a lot going for it stability-wise. The
figures reported (if reliable) seems to indicate that Windows 8 is about 2-3
times more stable than Windows 7, which I already would consider pretty good.
That's a remarkable improvement.

As for Windows 8 itself, I had a chance to fool around with it on a MS Surface
tablet. Not saying I'm buying the tablet myself (I already have an Asus
Transformer), but Windows 8 suddenly feels like it makes a lot more sense,
once you are using it on a touch-enabled device.

~~~
bruceboughton
I would be slightly hesitant to put the improvement in stability purely down
to Windows 8. On average, the Windows 8 installs will be newer and fresher
than the XP and W7 ones, and Windows has a bit of a reputation of detioriating
with use.

Finally, early adopters are far more likely to buy highly specced machines,
rather than cheaper machines that are not up to the job.

------
dubcanada
This is slightly inaccurate, for starters I don't know a single person with
soluto nor have I ever heard of this before.

This is most likely geared towards a more tech savvy user, proving pretty much
nothing as that is not the majority.

~~~
natep
It started out as targeted towards very tech savvy users (i.e. most HN users,
including me), but recently they added a feature where you can manage the
computers of your friends and family through their web site, which I am doing
for my parents and brother. Just yesterday I got an email saying my mom
installed the "AOL Toolbar" Firefox extension. I asked her if this was
intentional, she said no, and with 1 click, I disabled it. I'm not affiliated
with it in any way, just a happy user (although 90% of the time, I don't think
about it)

------
gokhan
There are hundreds of windows 7 & 8 users around me, including myself. Haven't
seen a bluescreen for a long long time.

~~~
roee
Hi, Roee from Soluto here. When you deal with big numbers you see lots of
BSODs, both in W7 and W8. The people surrounding you may be taking better care
of their machines then the average. I personally encountered one BSOD on my
shiny W8 machine.

~~~
illuminate
"The people surrounding you may be taking better care of their machines then
the average."

Selection bias works both ways, people who install such "utility" software may
be taking worse care of their systems and installing more bloatware.

~~~
roee
Just to clarify, the vast majority of our audience currently arrives through
sites like LifeHacker, MakeUseOf and HowToGeek. "Bloatware" is uncalled for in
this case, it usually refers to shit that's trying to make money of you
without providing value. Please read my full comment that includes our bias
analysis: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4793863>

~~~
illuminate
Will do! For the record, I was referring to the sort of user who installs
"tuning" software in general, I was not referring to your product
specifically. No insult was intended.

------
timc3
Stats aside, that is a great looking and at the sametime readable site.

------
nnq
...uhm, is it just me or is this just a very successful way for them to
promote their products via publishing more or less relevant statistics to have
something under a link bait title? (dunno how much traffic this brought to
their product site but I think this little scheme really worked for them :) )

~~~
nivla
Given that a good majority of the posts by startups here on Hacker News is
aimed at attracting new customers, I see nothing wrong with this one. They
analyzed their data and talked out the results. At no point did I feel
pressured to learn more about their product, although out of curiosity I did
checkout their main page.

------
JimmaDaRustla
No offence, but understanding the effect of Windows 8 based on a tool that
speeds up boot times...is moronic considering Win8 has some of the fastest PC
boot times I've ever seen on the PC market.

Edit: I know, it does more than that, but I've always known Soluto from when
it was a startup analyzer.

~~~
ygra
Since you do know it does more than that (including monitoring system health
and crashing applications – which it did for a long time, too) why do you
still consider it moronic?

~~~
JimmaDaRustla
Just saying, a fresh install is a "healthy" install. I don't know anyone who
gets a new PC and says "Boy, you know what this brand new machine needs? Some
system maintenance software."

~~~
ygra
You never bought a computer with Windows already installed, did you? :)

~~~
JimmaDaRustla
Haha! I see your point!

Actually, my Dell came with minimal bloat.

------
aluhut
My home PCs XP runs for years now. No crashes, no stuck "Apps", no demand for
a change.

My laptops 7 is a constant crash, constantly overloaded, reinstalled several
times but I have to work on it.

Did not even think about installing 8...

~~~
boyter
Maybe the problem lies with the laptop? I never have issues with 7, but my
experience is just as anecdotal as yours. Have you tried XP on it to be sure?

~~~
aluhut
Not XP (my private licence) but I have Ubuntu running parallel for my private
stuff. Never had any problems with it.

~~~
boyter
Going to go on a hunch and suggest its a dodgy driver then, or some piece of
hardware windows is picking up that Ubuntu isn't. Its annoying that bad
drivers still crash windows but the same thing happens on Linux systems.

~~~
aluhut
That would explain the crash but why is it so horrible slow?

I don't feel the speed difference between an Ubuntu/XP is as big as in between
Ubuntu/win7 (talking about the old-desktop here).

~~~
boyter
Going to go with drivers again. The sad truth is closed source drivers can be
as hit or miss as open source. By any measure I have tried, Windows 7 is
considerably faster then XP for the gear I run, but only when proper drivers
are installed (not the included Windows 7 ones).

It is annoying when you get something that's slower or doesn't work though. I
was burnt by Creative with my Live! Drive and as such will never buy their
hardware or software again, but I don't blame Microsoft.

------
riffraff
is the map half-user-localized ?

I get data for USA, Australia, China, Hungary and Romania, which seems like an
example of "find the odd one" unless they detect my position somehow between
HU and RO

------
damian2000
Blown away by the stat about 7% of all Chinese PC users on Windows 8 already.
Wonder how many are purchased as opposed to trial/beta versions though.

~~~
ygra
7 % of Chinese PC users who installed Soluto. I guess the large portion who
uses a pirated, unpatched, malware-ridden XP probably doesn't have Soluto
either.

------
oemera
I don't use Windows and I also don't use Google Drive but why on earth does it
crash so often?

~~~
dagw
I honestly have no idea, but I can confirm it. I uninstalled Google Drive on
my Windows 7 machine and never bothered to install it on my Windows 8 machine
since it was basically unusable. It worked fine for several month and then one
day it just started crashing within minutes of me logging in.

------
chris_wot
Windows Explorer is _still_ crashing?!?!

------
sproketboy
This is just an Ad to get people to use their service which monitors
everything you do on your machine. Nope.

------
blisse
I'm confused, why is this relevant?

Where did they get this data? How do they get this data? How many people are
they tracking? Who is Soluto? Their site doesn't make it clear at all. And I'm
not going to watch a video to figure it out.

And clearly the only people using Soluto would be more tech-savvy users? Prove
to me that this sample is representative of the entire population?

~~~
AdamTReineke
Scroll down on the home page. Talk about hidden below the fold...

// Edit: I wish they had more info. This looks like it could be REALLY slick
for monitoring family computers health VS my current solution with LogMeIn.

~~~
natep
For the things it can do, yes, it is very good. It's not a general-purpose
login, so of course there will be things you can't do (like uninstall things).
But the things you can do cover most things:

* Install/update programs via Ninite * Install Windows updates * Any screenshot they take with Soluto (F8) get automatically sent to you with system runtime information * Enable/disable/delay programs during startup (delaying them means Soluto starts them after you have a usable system) * Enable/disable web browser extensions * View hardware and driver information

