Windows by the numbers: Windows 10 rolls on past seventy%

Windows x accounted for 72.2% of Windows-only machines in October, according to U.Due south. analytics vendor Net Applications. At that charge per unit of growth, it will run three out of four PCs by the terminate of Jan.

Senior Reporter, Computerworld |

windows 10 windows microsoft laptop keyboard update by nirodesign getty
NiroDesign / Getty Images
Table of Contents

Show More

Windows ten breached the 70% share bulwark last month when calculated as a portion of Windows-only desktops and laptops, putting the operating arrangement on rail to account for 3 out of every four Windows PCs by the finish of January.

Co-ordinate to U.S. analytics vendor Internet Applications, Windows 10's share jumped by 2.8 percentage points, the most since January, and ended October on 64% of all systems. When figured as a fraction of Windows-only machines, Windows ten accounted for 72.ii%, a tape for the v-yr-old Os. This 2d number is the more of import of the pair, as it provides the most accurate representation of Windows 10's position inside the business universe, where runs-on-Microsoft remains central.

(Windows ten's percentage of only Windows PCs was larger than the percentage of all personal computers because Windows did not power every system last calendar month. In Oct, Windows was the OS on 88.8% of all PCs worldwide, up i-tenth of a percentage point from September. Of the remaining 11% and $.25, all just a picayune tenth of a point ran macOS, Linux or Chrome OS.)

Windows 10 has been piling up the share this twelvemonth, pandemic and business organization chaos exist damned. Through the outset ten months of 2020, Windows 10 has added 10.seven percent points of share, representing a 20% increment.

Meanwhile, Windows 7 took a swoop almost as steep every bit Windows 10'south climb.

Windows 7 lost ii.four points of share, plummeting to 20.4% of all personal computers, representing 23% of Windows-only PCs. The downturn was the largest one-month decline since Jan 2020 and the concluding number was a record low for Windows 7 on its post-2015 swan song.

Then far this twelvemonth, Windows 7 has shed 9.2 points of share, which represents a 31% decline in the operating system since January 1.

Windows 10 shoots for 80% by mid-2021

The major changes to Windows' shares upended the forecasts Computerworld made as recently as a month agone.

Windows ten's prognostication skewed upwards compared to the ane issued at the beginning of Oct. By April, Windows 10 should account for more than than 78% of all Windows, up two percentage points from the previous prediction. Come up June 2021, Windows 10 should ain 80% of all Windows editions, a point above the former forecast.

On the other manus, Windows vii's decline-of-doom volition go on. The now-retired Bone will sideslip under the twenty% marker (of all Windows) in February 2021, ii months sooner than had been expected. And by August, the operating arrangement should exist below 15%, two points lower than the forecast of a month ago. (At the stop of Jan 2021, almost the one-twelvemonth anniversary of its retirement, Windows 7 will account for near 20% of all Windows, a couple of points under Oct'south estimate.)

Elsewhere in Net Applications' numbers, Linux rebounded afterward two consecutive months of losses, adding seven-tenths of a per centum signal and bringing its total share up to 2.two points. While that was below its superlative of 3.6 points in June and July 2020, information technology put paid to the Computerworld theory that the sudden growth of the OS (Net Applications tallies all distributions) was little more than the aftereffects of an open-source fantasize.

As Linux again jumped, macOS took a drubbing, losing ane.3 points — a ane-calendar month record — to end upwardly licking its wounds at 8.4%, the lowest marking of the last three years.

Net Applications calculates operating system share past detecting the agent strings of the browsers used to reach the websites of Net Applications' clients. The firm tallies visitor sessions of those browsers to measure out global operating system activity.

Or it used to.

At the same time it published October's share numbers, Net Applications announced that it was pulling the plug on its OS metrics. "October 2020 is the last calendar month of data," the visitor said. "Why? An upcoming change in browsers will intermission our device detection technology and volition cause inaccuracies for a long menstruum of time."

The change Net Applications cited would remove much of the amanuensis cord information used not merely to compile analytics such as operating system share, but also by advertisers and/or scammers to "fingerprint" individuals so that they can be more thoroughly tracked as they conduct their online lives.

Computerworld has not yet decided whether to continue the "Windows past the numbers" series, and if so, which alternate information source might exist used.

Stay tuned.