Windows XP Market Share Finally Falls Below 50%

An anonymous reader writes "At the end of July 2011, Microsoft can say that Windows XP finally fell below the 50 percent mark. In other words, Redmond's decade-old operating system is now used by less than half of all Internet users."

Would switch if it weren't stupid-expensive...

[Omega Hacker]

We have new hardware to install in my church's office. The old computers run XP, purchased as charity licenses. The new hardware came with Vista (bleck!), and I was hoping we could install Windows 7 instead. However, it seems that Microsoft decided to do away with charity licenses. That means that we'd be stuck spending over $400 for a 3-pack of licenses for machines that totaled $750 in hardware. That's not even remotely going to happen. As a result, we're going to be shoe-horning XP back onto the *new* machines, and I'll be installing an Ubuntu dual-boot on them to see if there's any way to get the staff to consider moving to it. Go-go-gadget greed, Microsoft!

Re:Three years before end of support

[hazem]

I'd push him to Linux, if Wine could support his "Really old graphic arts software" he runs.

I used to dual boot between Windows XP and Linux because I preferred to use Linux but there are applications that require Windows. After a recent hard-drive crash, I re-evaluated my setup and tried out VirtualBox - and it's fantastic!

Essentially you run it as a virtual machine on your host system (Linux) where you can then have Windows run in a box. I've been using that setup since January and I love it! I even managed to copy the partition of my work laptop and got it working as a virtual computer as well.

The biggest shortcomings are that I cannot get my Creative Zen to work in the virtual computer. Also, support for writing to DVD/CDs is not very good. I haven't found a good workaround for the Zen (gnomad2 kind of works), and for the DVD stuff, k3b works well on the native Linux side.

I also had success in getting the same image to work on my mom's computer running Vista. She hates vista and a lot of her old games don't work on it. She's thrilled to play her old favorite card game in the virtual computer I set up for her.

VirtualBox is now owned by Oracle, but I think it's still open source. I didn't try VMWare because VirtualBox as served my needs pretty well. You might want to look into it.

Re:just sayin'

[PopeRatzo]

The logical path is to stick with XP. And that seems to be what most people are doing.

I thought so, but I put Win7 on a recently-built computer and I really like it. I had to make a few adjustments to fit the way I like to work, but at least those adjustments are possible with Win7.

Re:just sayin'

[TehNoobTrumpet]

Windows 7 is GREAT for DAWs. ReWireing Reason 5 into Live 8 without a hitch, couldn't do that on XP.