Vista Share Drops for the First Time In Two Years 332
adeelarshad82 writes "Windows Vista lost market share last month for the first time in almost two years, a sign that users are already abandoning the oft-ridiculed operating system in favor of the new Windows 7. According to Web metrics firm Net Applications, Vista dropped 0.2 percentage points during September to end the month at an 18.6% slice of the operating system pie. Windows 7, meanwhile, gained 0.3 percentage points, its biggest one-month gain since Microsoft began handing out the new OS to the public in January 2009. Windows 7 powered an estimated 1.5% of all computers that connected to the Internet last month, also a record."
Not even October 22 yet... (Score:2, Insightful)
This shows something, that Windows 7 is good enough that people are running the trial of it en masse. The date that will confirm this trend is when W7 gets released to the street for both upgrades and bundled with new PCs, on October 22.
Windows 7 released? (Score:1, Insightful)
Sorry I didn't realise there was an actual release of Win7 already... it doesn't even have a fancy name. Not too bad for MS to have more market share than Linux for an OS that is not even officially released.
Re:Stupied Fucking Vista (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is Vista "stupid?" Why do you think XP is better? Why didn't you buy a Mac if you wanted a Mac?
A lot of Vista's original criticisms revolved around drivers (since the entire driver architecture got re-invented). After a lot of the driver issues got resolved (*cough* Nvidia and Creative *cough*) the OS became no better but no worse than XP.
If I purchased a laptop today I'd rather have Vista than XP since I lose nothing but owning Vista but I lose a few things by owning XP (low privileged IE, UAC, et al).
A lot of people who continue to bash Vista are just sheep that have no real clue why exactly Vista was bad or why Windows 7 is better (hint: Vista paved the road for 7).
Vista Beta (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not even October 22 yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
The new taskbar alone is a step forward. The old model with the labels just doesn't scale to more than a few windows. Now I just hope the *nix desktop environments follow suit. This was in NeXTSTEP in the 1988, for Pete's sake!
Re:Microsoft's done itself a lot of damage lately (Score:1, Insightful)
Add to that list: Windows 200 and Windows XP. (...) Windows 200 had major problems with hardware drivers.
Eh, 200? And you're repeating it twice? And what was probably the best Windows releases for business (2000) and home (XP) ever? I'd mark you troll, but I figure stupid is more on target...
Re:Vista's share doesn't matter (Score:2, Insightful)
Damn, I remember the days when XP was the abomination. I guess if you beat people up enough, they learn when to say "uncle".
Re:Microsoft's done itself a lot of damage lately (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not even October 22 yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
The new taskbar alone is a step forward. The old model with the labels just doesn't scale to more than a few windows. Now I just hope the *nix desktop environments follow suit. This was in NeXTSTEP in the 1988, for Pete's sake!
Since we, users of Unix desktops, have been using virtual desktops for ages, we don't need to cram tens of windows on each desktop. So an un-crowded list works fine. If we want a full list, we can display all of our windows or all of our desktops via some of the newfangled desktop effects, or just a list of all of the opened windows sorted by desktop, as all the window managers have been able to do since pretty much forever.
Traditional Windows users don't like virtual desktops. I never understood why. Couldn't do without them myself.
Re:Microsoft at it's finest, (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Vista got some really undeserved looks. (Score:5, Insightful)
a prime reason FOR those issues in usability is because lots of users don't know how to actually use them properly
Just a minor nitpick, but if the user can't figure out how to use it properly, that is a usability problem.
Re:Vista got some really undeserved looks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry dude. That never works as an excuse when some Linux interface baffles the average user, so I don't see why it should let Microsoft off the hook here.
Besides which, these same people knew how to use XP just fine by and large, so you're not talking about naive users baffled by computers in general. The complainers, on the whole tended to be seasoned Windows users who didn't get on with the new O/S. That's got to be a black mark, however you look at it.
It wouldn't be so bad, but (in technical terms, at least), user interfaces are what Microsoft do well. I don't have a good word to say about MS on the whole, but aside from two or three glaring exceptions, they do seem to have a knack for making things accessible to the less technical end of the user spectrum. So when someone tells me that if they couldn't even get that part right, I have to wonder what horrors lurk elsewhere.
Re:They CAN afford to get it wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
... They can't afford to get it wrong.
I'm afraid they can. They can force it on every new machine, like Vista.
No they can't. Not if they want to maintain their status for a few more years. As you said they forced Vista on new machines and after 3 years it still has 19% marketshare, compared to XP which has 72%. But the biggest failure of Vista was that even regular users noticed it. It was the first time that non advanced users where really unhappy with Windows and sought alternatives, either downgrading or switching. If 7 proves to be another failure (I don't think so) people won't stick with XP for another 3 years.
Is vista that bad or Win 7 that good? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Vista's share doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stupied Fucking Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
I would venture that many of the Vista Haters have never really spent any time with the OS. A poster above commented that the initial release was flawed, primarily due to crappy driver support (and I was burned on the nVidia chips in my laptop), but by the time that the first SP came out, it was solid, reliable and, dare I say it, almost a pleasure to use.
My new job demanded that I go back to XP, and it reminded me of how much I prefer Vista over XP.
The true test will be how long will it take for major corporate IT uptake in Win7. Perhaps the learning curve of watching Vista and the polish that Win7 has added will begin migration plans. I sure hope so, 'cuz I can't stand XP.
Re:Vista's share doesn't matter (Score:2, Insightful)
Windows 7 forces me to use the retarded new start menu and the retarded new task bar
No it doesn't: if you right-click on the Windows 7 start button / taskbar, you can select "properties" and revert to Vista-style behaviour.
There's a surprising number of Anonymous Cowards spreading falsehoods about Windows 7 in this thread...
Re:Vista got some really undeserved looks. (Score:4, Insightful)
I had a Microsoft refrigerator, top of the line. My neighbor couldn't figure out how to set the temperature with the foot pedal and built-in accelerometer, so all her food spoiled. The stupid woman took it back and got one of those Apple refrigerators that doesn't have a built-in accelerometer or foot pedal, choosing instead to have one that matched her decor. I painted my kitchen fuschia argyle to match and it looks AWESOME!!!11!!1!!eleventy. Why would you use a refrigerator that doesn't let you have that level of control?
Re:Microsoft's done itself a lot of damage lately (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe this is nitpicking but both of his points are valid.
Windows 2000 had an awful process scheduler, which I'm guessing caused the problems GP referring to. By the way never attempt to run vmware-server on Windows 2000 box. Also Windows 2000 didn't have plug-and-play whereas Windows 98 did.
XP was okay until Microsoft silently added genuine advantage in it, incidentally that was one of the big reasons for me switching to Linux. Now it's been 3+ years using Debian. I'd rather live with flunky wireless card than a computer that holds me in contempt.
Re:Vista got some really undeserved looks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of people gave Vista a bad rep because -- get this -- they didn't know how to use their damned computers!
I'm sure that must be it. I've only personally owned computers since 1982, taught myself assembler to write faster games on a C=64, hacked hardware on an Amiga, switched to Linux in '98 or so, got a Slashdot login some time the same week, picked up FreeBSD a few months later, snagged a degree in CompSci, built the home server sitting next to me from Newegg parts, and turned an HP Mini into a Hackintosh [facebook.com] last month. That must be why my wife's dual-core laptop with 2GB of RAM and Vista ran like crap from the day we bought it, even after I stripped out the OEM junk and have almost nothing running at startup: because I'm a technophobic newbie who doesn't know how to use my damned computers.
Yeah.
Re:where is OS 10.6? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Vista got some really undeserved looks. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, okay...get back to me when you don't need to tweak xorg.conf just to make video work okay...with Compiz no less.
Re:Vista's share doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember the days when XP was the abomination.
I keep hearing that lately, but I saw it happen. When XP came out, everyone was still stinging from ME. They had been happy with 95 because, like it or not, for the day, it was a pretty decent OS. ME came out and was a horrible. Then XP came out. It added the shiny of ME plus some, and the stability of 2000. The only people that I ever heard complaining about XP were the people who were already running 2000, had no interest in playing games, and were offended by the rounded edges of XP's interface. That was a pretty small group. Beyond that, all I ever heard were people who like the massive improvement in stability.
As far as I can tell, this XP hate is just revisionist history.
Re:Microsoft's done itself a lot of damage lately (Score:2, Insightful)
Uh, Windows 2000 definitely had plug-and-play.
Yeah, that's the ticket. (Score:3, Insightful)
Millions of people on every forum on the Internet are bashing a product they've never really spent any time with that's actually great.
That's plausible. Why didn't I think of that?
Re:Not even October 22 yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Counter-opinion: the new taskbar is a HUGE step BACKWARDS. You can no longer have "quick launch" buttons, you can only "pin" items to the taskbar (and they're HUGE), and then they slide around like crazy depending on the order in which you launch things. You can drag them around after launching, but why is it a "feature" that I can drag something back into position that shouldn't have moved in the first place? After using 7 for a few days I was thanking God that I was only testing and didn't have to use this giant steaming pile of crap.
I started using both Windows and Mac OS heavily in 1995 and I preferred Windows for a long time because it was more responsive, multitasked better (than classic Mac OS), and ran on cheaper hardware. Windows 2000 was my favorite OS - it ran my few favorite games just fine, was totally stable, I could strip out the few effects I didn't want (fading menus, etc.) and it ran like a champ for YEARS on a 1 GHz Pentium III. I never liked XP (used it at work for years) as much as I like W2K and my experiences with Vista were very much like the stereotypical complaints. Windows 7 is slightly better than Vista in some ways but worse in others, like the taskbar and the fact that you can't use the 'classic' themes. Luckily for me, Mac OS X came out right around when Windows XP did, and it's been getting better and better and better (mostly) over the years while Windows has been getting worse and worse and worse. Mac OS X is the only OS I use for personal reasons and I'm lucky enough to be able to use it at work.
Re:Vista got some really undeserved looks. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. That's exactly my point.
Re:Not even October 22 yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
The snipe about Unix users using multiple desktops for ages is unwarranted. NT (and 9x?) has supported multiple desktops since the dawn of time via the Windows API
I disagree with your claim of virtual desktops being supported in Windows. I am always trying to use virtual desktops on XP and Vista. All of the available solutions are poor and frustrating. Some apps work some of the time, some don't. It's better than nothing, but it's very very weak support.
If you have found a good 3rd party virtual desktop app, please share a link with us. VirtuaWin is what I have been using in Vista, after going through several even-worse virtual desktop apps. SQL Management Studio is one of the apps that never seemed to work quite right, for example.
There's no excuse for Windows to not have an officially supported virtual desktop system. Even Macs were pretty far behind, but did finally put in Spaces a year or two back. That's still a decade after I was using virtual desktops in unix (and litestep on Windows).
Saying Windows users are noobs is no excuse, even if it were true. The number of "power" users of Windows is several times large than the total population of Mac and Unix users. With money to burn and such a large user base, it's very hard to justify how poor the Windows desktop experience is.
Re:Vista got some really undeserved looks. (Score:2, Insightful)
Consider yourself 'gotten back to' as of last year. Hell, you don't even need an xorg.conf on Slackware any more. If it's shown up in Slackware, it works.
Re:Not even October 22 yet... (Score:3, Insightful)
I completely agree with you that it's rubbish that Windows doesn't have out of the box support for virtual desktops. It should have been part of Windows a long time ago, at least a basic implementation of, allowing 3rd-party developers to offer more complex and powerful implementations at their own leisure (as is often the case with built-in Windows functionality). Another personal beef is the lack of multi-mon taskbar support, instead having to rely on UltraMon or similar applications.
My point was purely that the APIs to enable this support have been in place for a very long time, it's just Microsoft seems to have no interest presently in using them to create solid built-in support; but other 3rd-party apps use them to create the desired effect. As for your options, you might want to check out this old Ask Slashdot: Virtual Desktops on Windows? [slashdot.org] discussion; it has plenty of good recommendations.
In a similar vein to the old XP VDM PowerToy (which admittedly wasn't very good), Mark Russinovich has written a nice tool as part of Sysinternals Suite simply called Desktops [microsoft.com]. It differs a bit from many other virtual desktop apps, but the link explains it well. The result is it has some (possibly very significant) downsides, but there are some advantages as well. I've found it to be very fast personally and by nature it eliminates in my experience the compatibility problems you mentioned.
Proper built-in virtual desktop support really ought to be at the top of the MS's UI priority list, and I'd hope we don't have to wait till Windows 8 for it, but something tells me that'll probably be the case...
Re:Not even October 22 yet... (Score:3, Insightful)