Stats: Operating System Usage

This post we look at the operating systems used by visitors to our sites.

XP still has a massive lead over both Vista and Windows 7. Businesses and consumers despised and rejected Vista from day one, and Microsoft acknowledged that failure. But it did ship on new computers for quite some time, so takes the distant second place.


One would have to assume that people are only moving into Win7 with the purchase of a new computer, rather than buying it to install on a current computer. And computer purchases must be slim, since Win7 has been shipping on new computers since around Christmas 2009. I was shocked at such a low percentage of Win7 users, as it has gotten fairly good reviews from techies. Although when you look at it another way, there are more Win7 users than Mac users, and Mac OSx has been around for a heck of a lot longer than 9 months. So Win7 certainly has market share.

The other/unknown browser category include some iPhones, Win2003, WinNT, network servers, and search engine crawlers. None of them accounted for more than a few percent each.

Windows 7 Test Version

What Microsoft calls the "release candidate" of the new operating system is available to download for free "at least through July 2009", according to their web site. So if you want a copy, get it now.

This is intended to be a fully-functioning trial version of the successor to XP, but remember this is a test version only. This isn't something to be using for important work, or if you have concerns about privacy. This software is designed specifically to be in constant contact with Microsoft, and send tons of information directly to them about what you are doing with your computer, exactly how and when you are using it, other installed software, errors it encounters, and how well it's working in general. It will also update and modify itself as the engineers see fit. This is the sole reason it's being given away for free - to monitor people using it. This should be installed on a spare drive as a play toy and nothing more.

The software should function until July of 2010, then will start shutting down every 2 hours on purpose. This is a warning that it will completely stop functioning soon, as it's designed to, so you don't get caught off guard.

If you do try it out, be sure to share your thoughts.