Windows 8.1 overtakes Windows 8 in desktop OS arena

C/NET ^ | 06/03/2014 | Lance Whitney

[SeekAndFind]

Friendlier to PC users than its prececessor, Windows 8.1 continues to eke out a higher share while Windows 8 slips downward.

Net Applications

Windows 8.1 is now more dominant than its predecessor, at least based on all desktop OS traffic seen by Net Applications.

For the month of May, Windows 8.1's share inched up to 6.35 percent from 5.88 percent in April. That gave it just enough of a nudge to steal third place from Windows 8, which earned a 6.3 percent share, down from 6.36 percent the prior month.

Windows 8.1's gradual ascension over its predecessor in the desktop market should hardly come as a surprise. Launched last October as a free update, Windows 8.1 added several features missing in action from the touch-driven Windows 8, notably a Start button, a boot-to-desktop option, and a way to sync the same background for both the Start screen and desktop. An update released this past April added more items to appeal to traditional mouse and keyboard users. Microsoft will try to further placate PC users with the return of a full Start menu, though that may not arrive until sometime next year.

In first place, Windows 7 took home more than half of all desktop OS Web traffic for the first time ever in Net Applications' stats, rising to 50.06 percent from 49.3 percent in April. On the flip side, Windows XP continued to lose share a little bit at a time, slipping to 25.3 percent in May from 26.3 percent the previous month.

The slow but steady rise of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 at the expense of the now unsupported XP is a promising sign, certainly in the eyes of Microsoft. For the past couple of years, the software giant has been urging users to upgrade from XP to a more modern operating system, either Windows 7 or 8. In early April, Microsoft finally ended support for XP, meaning that users will no longer receive bug fixes or security updates, putting them at greater risk to security threats.

Still, Windows XP remains firmly in second place in the desktop OS market. Responsible for a quarter of all desktop OS traffic, the now almost 13-year-old operating system won't be going away completely anytime soon.

[ansel12]

So far, every one of your posts is personal, why not explain why you suggest not updating from 8 to 8.1

[Mr Rogers]

“we see that all the time from the OS complainers”

Does MS pay you to act like a jerk on the Internet? Tell your friends at MS to pull their heads out of their rumps, and learn to release a decent OS without needing 3 takes - that would be Windows 8, 8.1 & 8.1 Update, and it still isn’t what people wanted.

[TexasGator]

“Right next to the config.sys file. :)”

I found it! It has been renamed! Config.dos and autoexec.dos.

[dfwgator]

Reminds me of the old joke.

What do you get when you cross Lee Iacocca with a vampire?

autoexec.bat

[ansel12]

You are the one ranting, you contact them, I thought you were looking for my opinion, since you posted to me.

Shouldn’t you be asking how to turn off corners, besides, if you preferred 7 why didn’t you keep it?

[Mr Rogers]

Windows 8 came with the laptop. Then I updated it to Windows 8.1, and now Windows 8.1 Update. If it is so great, why have they had 3 releases?

And reviewing this thread, you are attacking anyone who doesn’t say nice things about Windows 8...why? Is this just your day to be an Internet prick?

[ansel12]

No, I told someone with windows 8 that they should accept the 8.1 update, and that people should google for solutions to other tweaks they desire.

So far all you have done is rant while avoiding even the very problem that you brought up, “corners” on your system, it seems that your interest was ranting, not getting the answer to your corner settings.

[RegulatorCountry]

I suggest avoiding Windows 8 altogether. The GUI is a farce.

[ansel12]

That hardly has a place when the question was whether one should accept the update from 8, to 8.1.

[RegulatorCountry]

My comment was motivated by amusement over your gruntle not being dissed. The topic of the thread deals with market share, not whether to upgrade or not. Do issues of control arise elsewhere in your life as well?

That notwithstanding, Windows 8 is a silly GUI born of a faulty premise. No patch or upgrade short of ditching the McDonald’s cash register look and function of it will address this fundamental flaw.

Classic Shell addresses it. 8.1 does not.

[ansel12]

Still personal, and still no real statement related to my posts about, if you have 8, upgrade to 8.1.

From that post, I would have to guess you oppose updating 8, although you won’t say it clearly.

[Blue Highway]

and breaks other things and they don’t give a disclaimer that you can revert back to 8.0 if you don’t care for 8.1. On my 2 Lenovos that had 8 on it I got a pop up for the 8.1 upgrade and I thought sure why not. Well that was I forget, Sept, or October of 2013? Anyhow now certain hotkeys (the F5 and FN shortcut for airplane mode no longer works) don’t work anymore and the energy management driver has something to do with it. Lenovo had a 8.1 specific driver released Oct 13th 2013 and it didn’t work. Well fast forward to today and they still haven’t released a new driver and after several threads posted on their support message board and phone calls to tech support they basically tell me to reformat and go back to 8.0.

[Blue Highway]

What are those processes or programs running in the background that do those stupid tile updates and news/weather crap? I use Classic Shell so I have a start button and I never have to see the stupid metrosexual screen with the tiles unless there is a glitch or I accidentally hit the top right corner of the screen.

[Blue Highway]

Windows did that same crap back when the switch from Win 3.1 to Win 95 as some hardware would not be recognized by Win 95. Same sort of thing happened between 95 and 98. Then 98 to XP. Then XP to Vista. And now 7 to 8...

[RegulatorCountry]

Jeez, I feel like I’m talking to the DMV or something.

[ansel12]

Who knows why you jumped on this thread to launch into a sustained personal attack.

Since you first posted to my post 68 about accepting the update from 8 to 8.1, I thought that somehow I could get you to actually respond to that question, but you refuse.

[Blue Highway]

Instead of belittling the disgruntled Windows users how about admitting 8 and 8.1 isn’t as great as you are cracking it up to be. I use 8.1 now and pissed as it doesn’t allow certain functions and the only solution is going back to 8.0 and I’m not about to spend a day or 2 reinstalling programs and reconfiguring hard drives. Cloning is out as it never clones the boot partition and the hidden recovery partition intact, and I don’t have a hard copy of Windows and there is no way to get an ISO or DVD media of it from Microsoft if you have an OEM version without charging you more $$$$$$$$

[RegulatorCountry]

I attempted to inject some humor when you were getting personal with another FReeper, ansel12. If I were forced to prefer one fragmented Windows iteration over another, I suppose it would have to be XP, since that’s the one I use. It’s roughly four times more popular than the 8.1 that you’re touting. Why is that, I wonder?

[Blue Highway]

I’m calling BS on this as there is no simple upgrade path from XP to 8.1 without completely wiping the drive. Noice try smart a$$

[Blue Highway]

8.1 may be better than 8, but those people who are complaining would still prefer XP/Vista/7 over 8.1 even.