
Windows XP drops below 40% market share while Windows 8 passes 1% - Quekster
http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2012/12/01/the-big-fight-begins-windows-xp-drops-below-40-market-share-while-windows-8-passes-1/
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webwanderings
I am sticking with XP for my home PC as long as I can. I really don't have a
good reason to move off. Why break things when they work.

~~~
melling
Microsoft spent how many billions of dollars and how many man hours to improve
Windows since XP? My guess is that you'll get a much better PC. Sorry, I can't
go into details since I'm a Mac user but for $40, I can still conclude that
it's worth it for the average XP user.

~~~
webwanderings
My major use of my desktop is my browser and I don't really see a valid need
to upgrade (even though I can upgrade any time). You throw additional memory
to a decent hardware and things just work. There are people who raise security
red flags on XP but I keep things tidy through my browser use (Ghostry,
Adblock and occasional Spybot checks along with usual watch of firewall logs).

------
Mythbusters
Windows 8 shines on a touch screen laptop. I was in the market for one over
the black Friday and not many were available at a decent price. If that
picture changes then I am sure the adoption will accelerate.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
The best device for Win8 is what Microsoft calls the "convertible". A device
that's a laptop one second and a tablet the next. I particularly like the
Surface, and those ultrabooks that bend backwards, so you can use the base of
the unit to keep it stood up!

~~~
stephengillie
Win8's hybrid interface is exactly designed for these hybrid devices that can
change use-cases in a second. Surface tablets are just a variation on the
tablet/laptop convertible idea. The first convertibles had screens that
swiveled 180 degrees, and the back of the screen latched against the keyboard.

Many ideas have been tried out, some having an always-forward screen and a
keyboard that "slide-and-rotate" out from underneath. Others have a screen
which rotates vertically inside a frame, allowing it to flip over and cover
the keyboard.

Surface basically takes the motherboard & battery and fits them behind the
screen, instead of under the keyboard. The keyboard itself can become just a
detachable accessory. This arrangement isn't new -- it's been used in many
mobile devices for more than 10 years.

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tvwonline
Does anyone think that iOS and Android tablets should be included in these
reports?

I think it is only a matter of time before for some people, a tablet will be
their primary computing device.

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rlu
It's mentioned in the article though not really on topic but...any idea why
Chrome has been losing users for 3 months in a row? Where are they going to?
Firefox? Why? What is Chrome doing wrong/others doing right?

~~~
aluhut
I realised that both crash (possibly because of plugins) BUT it is easier to
kill one Firefox process in the task manager then x Chrome processes.

Adblock works with ff better also.

I use Opera as secondery browser.

~~~
philwelch
I don't use Windows, but Chrome's Adblock Plus works great (perfectly if you
disable the "allow not-so-bad ads" preference) and I've never had all my
Chrome processes go rogue, usually just one, and I can kill it by closing the
tab itself or by using Chrome's process manager.

~~~
aluhut
I've seen Ads in Chrome I haven't seen in years. Nasty popups also. I am not
the only one with the experience so I guess we two are just not surfing the
same pages but belive me: it is not as good as the one for FireFox. Even if I
don't understand why...

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Shorel
I just reinstalled Windows XP after some years of using Windows 7.

I will use Windows 7 again, just not in my current computer, but on a new one.

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toksaitov
I wonder where those 40 million copies went (no hate here, just interested
whether OEMs (or users) buy such incredible volumes in advance).

~~~
Quekster
Think Black Friday and Cyber Monday... presents that won't be opened till
December 24/25.

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hexasquid
So for every 7 Macs out there, there is one Windows 8 pc? Am I reading that
right?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Windows 8 hasn't been out on the market for more than a few months. Why is
that surprising?

~~~
drivebyacct2
Not interested in taking sides, but it seems like OS X seems to migrate users
on major version upgrades much faster than Windows.

Actually, every OS I can think of seems to have faster upticks in major
versions than Windows. I can think of lots of reasons why that may be though.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
OS X tends to break older apps IIRC. On the other hand, Windows has excellent
backwards compatibility. And there's always the very long support period.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
_"OS X tends to break older apps"_

[citation needed]

New versions of OS X don't break older apps. The opposite is true: new apps
are often coded to take advantage of APIs in newer versions of OS X, those
will not work on older versions of OS X.

My 2004 PowerPC notebook can't run the most current OS X, and few new apps
work on PowerPC Macs. That's why I still use Adobe CS3 on that computer.

My 2009 Intel desktop Mac can run all apps ever released for OS X, even the
ones compiled for PowerPC.

About Microsoft: Lots of drivers needed to be rewritten for Vista in order for
peripherals to work. Internet Explorer 9 doesn't work on Windows XP and older.
Internet Explorer 10 doesn't work on Vista and older. Modern UI apps don't
work on Windows 7 and older.

~~~
CrazedGeek
> New versions of OS X don't break older apps.

A minor QuickTime version update halfway into Tiger's lifespan completely
broke RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 for a while. It wasn't an OS update, granted, but
still irksome. Also, Mountain Lion throws a hissy fit if you try to run a
Flash-based app with Gatekeeper enabled (even if you do the right-click->open
workaround).

> My 2009 Intel desktop Mac can run all apps ever released for OS X, even the
> ones compiled for PowerPC.

Are you still running Snow Leopard, by any chance?
[http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/26/mac_os_x_lion_drop...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/26/mac_os_x_lion_drops_front_row_java_runtime_rosetta.html)

~~~
gizmo686
> A minor QuickTime version update halfway into Tiger's lifespan completely
> broke RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 for a while.

Any insight into how that happened?

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mtgx
By the end of the first month Windows 7 passed 5% of the market, so Windows 8
sales are 5x slower than for Windows 7. This is pretty bad for Microsoft and I
don't think it will get much better from here. In fact, they were supposed to
get a boost in the launch quarter, and so far they haven't as PC sales have
fallen by 21% compared to a year ago.

[http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/30/windows-8-hard-sales-
numb...](http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/30/windows-8-hard-sales-numbers-are-
finally-out/)

And by the way, this shows Net Apps' data is not to be trusted yet again. NPD
has already said the sales numbers are 58% for Windows 8 for new PC's sold
this month, while Net Apps says it's 68%. I for one trust NPD more, because
they actually measure sales, not traffic data through weird methods.

