Windows 8.1 Adoption Rate Gaining Steadily
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.
If the guys bashing 8 just for the sake of the internet hate bandwagon,should stop and take a better look at 8 you would probably have noticed that 8 is snappier than 7 in every way, in games though not having any bigger max frame rates differences over 7 (well the hardware does the most work not the software) you would see that all the reviews out there state one thing, Windows 8 has better lower fps than Win7 thus resulting in better averages. So the guys like you who cry about a button please take your heads out of your asses and get over a missing button.
Windows 8 fails only in your minds because as a mature human you can`t get used to another interface, which by the way you will see very rare.
@killerclick .. does it matters how it`s called ? Service Pack, update , 0.1 number incrementation etc... as long as it`s free and adds more functionality while fixing things i don`t see your point about being a "bad thing".
Win8 is not another Vista, Vista came out on computers that didn`t quite had the power to run it smooth and thus making it look very bad.
Win8 has some implementations that for some people is ok, with some is "meh".. and for many ... "WHY THE HELL DID THEY TOOK MY START BUTTON?" reaction. Mostly when i see people bashing 8 i automatically assume they are the 3rd kind.
I have to admit though that the new art with simple dull shapes and text is kinda ugly, but this trend can be seen in Apple`s iOS 7 , and even in Battlefield 4 ... the score board and general text is similar to this "new look"
Personally i don`t call 8 a flop, it has some negative things about it but technically is far away from being a flop.
And yes, for desktop version they should get rid of the touch interface approach, nobody with a mouse and keyboard will chose to grease the monitor with their fingers, for that we have tablets and people who only do facebook and play temple run or candy crush on them.
They keep popping up a blue bar across the middle of the screen asking you to upgrade.
You must click go to website or remind me later, until you do you can do nothing else, no task mgr no nothing. The first time it happens you are given only one choice go to website, which when clicked did nothing on two machines.
Since 7 there is so much crap running in the background, like when you use your browser there are 15-20 connections being made by the OS linking to copyright checking sites. Just load up Sysinternals TCPview and see for yourself data being exchanged with these sites. The OS is keeping track of the programs installed on your system and when they are uninstalled and how many you have added and reports back to MS , hardly necessary for OS operation.
So hopefully linux will become a more modern OS and leave the erector set style behind so we can say farewell to MS as they head where they have tried to get to before owning the whole environment end to end.
I've been noticing this type of comment on every news piece about the 8th Abomination here on Tom's. My only explanation is that Microsoft is actually paying the site to bash XP like that.
Stupid Microsoft is obviously catering the new touch and tablet users and completely forgot and alienated all current keyboard / mouse users. A huge mistake that I will never forgive selfish and stubborn Microsoft. I would fire all the idiots who designed this garbage new OS, shame on them. Microsoft should have designed 2 separate versions of this new OS, one for tablets/touch users and the second for all existing Windows users who want to use keyboards and mouse, like me. By being stupid, short-sighted, stubborn and uncaring Microsoft failed big time with this horrible new OS.
I hope that the new Windows 9 will have all the horrible and irritating features fixed and removed so I can use it and be productive again.
If Microsoft does not listen to me and to the billions of unhappy customers they will be a huge loser. We will start using Linux systems. I hate Apple and will never ever use it.
It is up to Microsoft. Fix it or get lost.
I can undestand why some people don't like win8, but I don't understand why people believe that win9 will go back to win7 style? MS has allready said that there will be improved Metro UI in win9... So it is win8 redux, like win7 was Vista redux. The UI was same, but some improvement under the hood. (Good improvements I have to say, but still it was the same OS and same UI with a littel chrome on it) It will be the same with win 9 that will be win8 with some craphical chrome and some upgrades to the undelaying system, like new disk operation system (if they can get it ready by then)
Win10 will be next "big" upgrade. And what MS has said it sill be very much more like a cloud aka sky-drive upgrade. Hard to say how, but Internet based services are in much bigger role in win10. And that may be really big difference! Who knows if we then have the same os in desktop, tablets, laptops and mobile phones? In any way that is the direction they are going. Next they will integrate Windows phone and Win RT, maybe after that the whole package. So you really have to learn to live with win8 (or win9 aka win8 with chrome) or go to Linux systems... Win9 may be the last "real" desktop OS you newer see from MS...
And while we're at it, let's take out the western world too and just count Africa, South America, and some sub-Asian island chains. I bet that would throw the numbers for a loop!