Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 Pass 10% Market Share, Windows XP Falls Below 30%

An anonymous reader writes "With the release of Windows 8.1 to the world in October, Microsoft ended 2013 with two full months of availability for its latest operating system version. While Windows 8.1 is certainly growing quickly and eating into Windows 8s share, the duo has only now been able to pass 10 percent market share, while Windows 7 seems to be plowing forward unaffected. The latest market share data from Net Applications shows that Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 made steady progression in December 2013, gaining a combined 1.19 percentage points (from 9.30 percent to 10.49 percent). More specifically, Windows 8 gained 0.23 percentage points (from 6.66 percent to 6.89 percent), while Windows 8.1 jumped 0.96 percentage points (from 2.64 percent to 3.60 percent)."

Re:It doesn't matter

[RDW]

Classic Shell fixes most of the issues in Windows 8.x. The Windows 8.1 update doesn't really fix anything.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Windows XP still at 28.98%

[nojayuk]

XP has a number of limitations that Win7 and Win8 supercede -- nearly all XP installs still running are the 32-bit version with a 4GB limit on RAM and a 2TB limit for disk volumes, and as far as I know XP doesn't support TRIM for SSDs. It also limits out at DX9, important for gamers and there are probably other limitations due to its age and end-of-support status.

I'm OK with Win8, I run it exclusively in desktop mode where it presents a look and feel similar to Win7. I pinned my most used programs on the taskbar so I don't need to invoke the start menu very often. I have Vistart installed as a shell replacement but I could work without it if I had to. The upgrade to 8.1 on my main machine went OK apart from the very large download (3 GB plus) needed to make it happen but I was satisfied with the original OS release (I still have it on another desktop which is waiting for a replacement motherboard).

Re:It doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

A little late for you maybe, now you can create a bootable DVD/ usb flashdrive for Win8/ 8.1

http://www.howtogeek.com/178487/how-to-download-windows-8.x-and-create-a-bootable-dvd-usb-legally/

Re:It doesn't matter

[RDW]

Sadly classic shell doesn't fix all the problems.

For me there are no showstoppers, though. I'd go as far as saying that I slightly prefer using 8.1 + Classic Shell (with filetype associations re-assigned to non-Metro applications) to a stock Windows 7 installation. Startup is quicker, the file copy dialogue and task manager are improved, and I never liked Aero Glass. There's certainly no compelling reason to 'downgrade' to Windows 7, any more than there is to 'upgrade' a Windows 7 system to 8. Of course, if I were stuck with a locked down Windows 8 installation with its horrible default configuration and jarring interface shifts, that would be an entirely different story. Windows 8.x is still an awful experience out of the box, but there's nothing serious that a knowledgeable user with an admin account can't fix in 10 minutes (or at least, nothing that has affected me so far).

8 is the one to skip

[JeffOwl]

Everyone who has paid attention to Windows the last couple of decades knows, Windows 8 is the one you skip. Just like Vista, just like Millennium Edition before that. Sure they threw a in a minor wrinkle in with 8.1, but that was just a distraction to make you think they are doing something, not a major version roll. 98(SE) decent, ME suck, XP decent, Vista suck, 7 good, 8 suck. Next time around they'll keep the back end improvements and fix all the crap they screwed up in the front end.