It’s taken three and a half years, but Windows 10 has now officially passed Windows 7 in terms of usage share.
Windows 10 is now tracking at 39.22 percent of usage, versus 36.90 percent for Windows 7. The shift was reported by online stat-tracking service Net Market Share.
While there are many different web-based stats-tracking services, Net Market Share is notable for being the preferred site of Microsoft and Mozilla, who quote it regularly.
The Clock is Ticking For Windows 7
Considering Windows 7 is scheduled to be end-of-lifed in January 2020, that’s a remarkable number of people using an almost out-of-date OS.
What it also means is that there’s a large number of home users who only have a year left to migrate to a more modern OS, or be left with no support. Enterprise users are luckier – Microsoft is offering paid extended support for three additional years of security updates.
While Net Market Share is only now stating Windows 10 has surpassed its early predecessor, StatCounter – another widely used alternative – believes this actually happened a year ago. It puts Windows 10 at 52.42%, compared to Windows 7’s 36.65%.