Microsoft hasn't had the easiest time of it the past few weeks. Xbox One enthusiasm is down; Windows Phone, while taking big strides in growth, is still struggling against other mobile OS options and Microsoft's bread and butter; desktop software has been having similar PR problems with consumers. Even so, 8.1's early numbers are pretty positive given its two-week run.
According to Net Applications, a web tracker, Windows 8.1 has nearly doubled its install base since September. To be sure, the upgrade is available for free to Windows 8 buyers, and a good chunk of those users made the upgrade. In September, Windows 8 sat right around 8 percent, but that figure fell to 7.53 percent in October.
Also telling is the extreme, almost ludicrous, persistence of Windows XP. The aging operating system, unsafe and riddled with problems though it may be, still has almost a third of all OS traffic. Windows 7 still tops the list at almost half of all users.
Really pathetic.
unsafe and riddled with problems? I beg to disagree.
You could just use one of the many start menu replacement programs. No need to give in to the idiotic touch style interface if you're using a mouse.
Still, if they continue caving in and rolling back on Metro (like they did with boot-to-desktop and Start-Button-but-not-Start-Menu), Windows 8.2 could be just good enough. Hell, the Start Menu being farmed off to 3rd party tools could prove to be a good thing in the end.
But for PC for business/enterprise, almost every new computer still using Win7.