Posted on 12/31/2020 7:14:13 AM PST by dayglored
Microsoft officially ended support for its one-time flagship operating system, Windows 7, at the start of 2020. As the year draws to a close, I ran the numbers to see how many PCs are still running this unsupported OS. Spoiler: It's a big number...
With a heartfelt nod to Monty Python, Windows 7 would like you all to know that it's not dead yet.
A year after Microsoft officially ended support for its long-running OS, a small but determined population of PC users would rather fight than switch. How many? No one knows for sure, but that number has shrunk substantially in the past year.
On the eve of Microsoft's Windows 7 end-of-support milestone, I consulted some analytics experts and calculated that the owners of roughly 200 million PCs worldwide would ignore that deadline and continue running their preferred OS. That was, admittedly, a rough estimate. (If you want to do the math yourself, read my year-ago post, "It's 2020: How many PCs are still running Windows 7?")
During the holiday lull at the end of 2020, I decided to go back and run the latest version of those analytics reports. They tell a consistent story.
Let's start with the United States Government Digital Analytics Program, which reports a running, unfiltered total of visitors to U.S. websites over the previous 90 days. One of the datasets includes a report of visits from all PCs running any version of Windows, which makes it an ideal proxy for this question.
At the end of December 2019, 75.8% of those PCs were running Windows 10, 18.9% were still on Windows 7, and a mere 4.6% were sticking with the unloved Windows 8.x.
A year later, as December 2020 draws to a close, the proportion of PCs running Windows 10 has gone up 12%, to 87.8%; the Windows 7 count has dropped by more than 10 points, to 8.5%, and the population of Windows 8.x holdouts has shrunk even further, to a minuscule 3.4%. (The onetime champion of PC operating systems, Windows XP, is now nearly invisible, with its device count adding up to a fraction of a rounding error.)
If my calculations a year ago were on the mark, that means more than 100 million Windows PC were retired, recycled, or upgraded in the past 12 months.
Other metrics tell a nearly identical story.
At NetMarketShare, for example, the numbers at the end of 2020 show Windows 10 usage up 11 points, from 63.0% to 74.0%, while Windows 7 usage dropped 9.5 points, from 31.2% to 21.7%.
Likewise, StatCounter Global Stats showed the number of PCs running Windows 10 increased more than 12 percent, from 64.7% to 76.0%, while the Windows 7 PC population dropped nearly 10 points to 17.7%.
Turning those percentages into whole numbers isn't a matter of simple division, unfortunately, because we don't know the denominator. Microsoft has told us for years that the Windows user base is 1.5 billion, but I argued a year ago that the number of Windows PCs is probably much lower than that, even with a pandemic-induced resurgence in PC sales. Even allowing for that uncertainty, it's clear that at least 100 million PCs are still running Windows 7, and that number could be significantly higher.
Some of those holdouts are paying Microsoft for the privilege of receiving security updates, although it's not clear how many are part of the Extended Security Update program. And those customers will face more pressure to upgrade in 2021 as the cost of those updates is set to double.
Unless the hardware of the new computer is nearly identical to the hardware of the old computer, you may have trouble transferring the old Win7 to the new hardware "as is". That said, it's often possible, if you use a good system-migration program that can accommodate different source and target configurations. Probably the toughest thing will be finding device drivers for new hardware that isn't supported by Win7, since most manufacturers stopped releasing drivers for Win7 years ago.
As to starting with a fresh Win7 installation, it may have trouble with device drivers for the above reason, and that commonly includes the network driver, meaning you'll have no internet on the new machine until you get the right driver. So make sure you have another computer that can connect to the internet, search for drivers, download them, and put them on a USB stick for transfer to the new machine. Then you can start doing Windows Updates. Win7 SP1 typically has around 250 updates to download and install, and it takes many download/install/reboot cycles (lather, rinse, repeat).
Make sure that "one of these days" happens at a time when you have lots of time. And good luck! :-)
I cannot recommend Samsung. They stopped Android OS updates after my S9 reached 2 model years old. I did receive some security updates earlier this week however Android 10 is the last OS update it'll receive per Samsung's website.
As much as I hate to say it, I may go to an iPhone. GF's iPhone 10 seems faster than my S9 and the sound is far superior to it as well. Same for the photo's the iPhone takes.
UGH, wife has one, I've been avoiding Apple but like you may be forced into it.
Thank you!
That sounds like something I could screw up on my own, but I do know people smarter. I once tried and couldn’t even figure out how to open the Win 7 laptop and get the hard drive out. Told myself it was about as prudent as representing myself in court, if not performing my own surgery.
(At some things I’m positively brilliant. One of them is in knowing my limits!)
bttt
I would still be using it at work, but we had to upgrade to 10 (spit) to accommodate some new techie stuff.
I do have the transfer software now thanks to a previous thread here talking about the most painless ways to do this, but ...
You are right about the drivers and that update list is long and tedious to install ... been there and done that a few times.
Which is why you are also right about why it’s still a “one of these days” project.
Dread looms large and procrastination is even stronger, but sadly, motivation is just barely visible in the shadows, leaning against the wall and pretending to not be interested.
While I listen to the loud sound of static on AM stations when that computers is running ... hmmm ... power supply? Hard drive? ... not sure, but something’s not happy.
You and me, both.
I am on Windows 7. I have NO plans on changing to Windows 10.
26 years in the IT business “spoiled” me with ready access to current iterations of software. Happily retired now and content to let my software age along with me.
IMO most likely culprit is the power supply. It's a "switching" supply, and generates RF hash not only at the switching frequency (generally 25-100KHz) but at all the harmonics, which easily reach up into the 650-1530 KHz AM radio band. Of course there may be other culprits as well, and the many cables can act as antennas.
I have been known to use a hand-held AM pocket radio as a "sniffer" to see where static is coming from. Surprisingly effective, and informative.
Still have Windows 7 on my desktop. It feels like a sports car compared to the miserble W10 on my laptop.
Dealing with 10 on my wife’s laptop cements my decision to stay with 7 pro 64.
Her rage when MS decides to update and she is locked out is just icing.
“Bought a new laptop 3 yrs ago and insisted on W7. “
Did the same. Dell was still selling them and I grabbed one.
Windows 10 is a pita. Absolutely. It is the worst PC program I have ever used. Ever. It is snarky, obliterates date into a disappearance channel, it takes you where you never had any intention of going and it changes all kinds of things during the night including passwords and ID.
My old Dell is a 7 but its motor burned out and I don’t have the money to replace it.
Life is often hard and unexpected. If I this piece of HPS continues to give me problems I will trash it and never get another computer. I really don’t care anymore...it is used for FR and for internet searches, primarily. I will find someone who will share...maybe
Do you see how we have been captured?
If you’re using your laptop with WiFi exclusively (no wired network connections) you can effectively stop updates by changing the WiFi connection to “Metered Mode”. This is the very first thing I do when setting up a new Win 10 machine.
More info and instructions here: https://www.howtogeek.com/226722/HOW-WHEN-AND-WHY-TO-SET-A-CONNECTION-AS-METERED-ON-WINDOWS-10/
Please note that if you plug a live Ethernet cable into your laptop you will receive updates almost immediately.
Count me in. Win 7 forever.
bmp
I was bouncing weekly between DOS 6.62 and Windows 3.0.
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