Microsoft released the latest edition of its Security Intelligence Report (SIR), which covers malware trends for the first half of this year.
According to the statistics released, Windows XP computers showed nearly twice the infection rate of Windows 7 systems. Of every 1,000 computers scanned, 9.5 XP computers with SP3 revealed a malware infection, while the number dropped to 4.9 and 5.1 for Vista (32-bit, 64-bit), 5.3 and 4.3 for Windows 7 RTM, and 4.9 and 3.1 for Windows 7 SP1. The data also revealed an increased infection rate for Windows XP and Windows 7, Windows Vista with SP2 is declining and actually shows lower infection rates than Windows 7.
According to the latest SIR, the most common malware on Windows computers was the worm Win32/Autorun with a share of 11.3 percent in the first half of the year, followed by JS/Pornpo Adware (8.0 percent), Win32/Obfuscator (7.3 percent), the Balcole exploit (6.2 percent), and the Win32/Dorkbot Worm (6.3 percent).
This will quickly drop as Windows 7 is finally overtaking the aging XP. R.I.P. One of the best Windows OSes.
If anything, this study (to me) shows that there are 2x more XP users than Windows 7 users out there based on the infection rates.
This will quickly drop as Windows 7 is finally overtaking the aging XP. R.I.P. One of the best Windows OSes.
- smoke much crack lately? I just updated my XP yesterday with security fixes that MS released on Tuesday
"XP is more than ten years old and most computers running it simply don't have modern malware protection (if any at all)"
- Funny, my Antivirus on XP updated its definition this morning (as it does everyday).
you guys are a bunch of BS'ers to the max
Viva XP!
So Vistas are slower to infect because of so few of them on the market? How does that make security? Gonna be hilarious in 5 years near the end of 8's lifespan to show that vista is more secure than 7 and 8 combined because no one bothered with it.
wiyosaya, you are either an experienced power user, or very lucky, or don't use your computer on the interwebs. Either way, in my experience, I am surprised that XP viruses are ONLY twice as prevalent...
Granted, MSE has alleviated a lot of people's virus issues, even on XP...
The number of active Windows 7 users is fairly similar to that of the active XP users, at least for both systems that have people connected to the internet last I heard of it (only like two weeks ago).
I dislike XP. Always have. I was forced by my driver set to move away from both 98 and 2000... XP always felt bloated. It was more stable than 98, but less than 2000, and far more resource intensive. Windows 7 is by far the best OS MS has ever released. It just works. Minimal fuss... And 7 is more secure? Awesome. And not the least bit surprising..."
0o huh? You're calling an OS (xp) that only requires 64mb's or RAM, a few hundred MB's of HD space, and can run no a regular Pentium from the mid 90's bloated? I mean I use to consider it bloated back in the day too, but saying it is "bloated" vs Windows 7 that requires 1gb of RAM, a few GB's of HD space, and at least a Pent. III to even boot up, is like saying a geo metro is faster than a Ferrari simply because you think it "feels" faster... Do you see the problem here?
Also because of careless users.
I have way more vista machine to repair than any others and most of the time because of malware.
Ususally on vista machine the malware was able to srew up the whole system while on xp and 7 I can get rid of malware
VISTA was and still is the worse windows ever.
Being able to run XP and being able to run it well are 2 different things.
I had a clean install of XP on an Atom netbook with 1gb ram (single core, hyperthreaded). Ran like a dog. Upgraded to Windows 7, it worked much better. That was before upgrading to 2gb ram and an SSD.
Same thing with my brother, who wanted to return his netbook until he tried the Windows 7 preview a couple years back, same deal...
Did the same thing to a dual core Athlon with 2 gb of RAM. Viruses viruses viruses, and slow as molasses. Put Windows 7 on, with no other changes to the computer, and the customer couldn't be happier...
I have so many stories where XP was part of the problem, not the solution. Sure, I put XP on an old P2 233 with 64 megs of RAM. Guess what? It ran like trash. XP shouldn't have ALLOWED me to install it on that system it ran so slow.
I never had that problem with available hardware when Windows 2000 was still around.
Sure, run XP on a Quad Core with an SSD and it will run fine. But not nearly as good as 7...
At that point, it's not bloated compared to 7 (although it is compared to 2000), it's just less optimized for modern hardware. It's still less bloated and Windows 8 is decent evidence for that because it shaves off some of that bloat and is still more bloated than XP. I think that the other guy's point was that there's a difference between calling it slower and calling it more bloated.