There is less than a month left until the release of Windows 10, and now is a good time to take a look back at the playing field before it shakes up on July 29. Specifically, we're looking at market shares from last month and how much was held at the time by Windows 7, 8 and 8.1.
Despite the end of mainstream support for the Windows 7 operating system, it still had the biggest slice of the pie, holding 60.98 percent of the market. Security updates are still available, but for any other problems with the OS, you can either head to the forums or pay Microsoft for additional support.
Windows 8.1 comes in second at 13.12 percent, while Windows 8 only has a measly 2.9 percent market share. Windows 10 allows free upgrades from Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, so it remains to be seen if Windows 8 will hang on and maintain any significant usage past the end of July.
Other notable Windows operating systems on the chart include Windows XP, which has a third-place share of 11.98 percent, and Windows Vista, which has the lowest portion of Microsoft users at only 1.62 percent.
We don't know the exact number of people who are already planning to upgrade to the new operating system, but considering the hype building up to the release date, it's not hard to imagine a large group of people already saved their spot in line for an upgrade. This is Microsoft's biggest release yet, with seven editions of Windows 10 ranging from the desktop to mobile; there's even one specifically built for education.
We had a detailed look at the new system in January, which showed off new features such as Cortana, Universal Apps and integration with the Xbox One. At BUILD in April, we also learned more about Microsoft Edge, the new browser previously named "Project Spartan." Along the way, many users participated in the Technical Preview for Windows 10, with the most recent build coming out just one day after the previous version. It's all coming to a head in less than a month, so if you haven't started counting down to the arrival of Windows 10, now's a good time to start.
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