Is Windows 11 Less Popular Than Windows XP?

Slashdot ^ | Apr 17, 2022 | EditorDavid

[C210N]

My own ‘close personal friend’ also is curious, but for WIndoze 7.

I’d like to upgrade my motherboard, but fear it would be a $100-$200 folly, as I’d be gambling that it would work.

I don’t want any OS newer than W7, but it would be nice to have a faster PC.

[dayglored]

> LOL! Almost NONE are sticking with XP!

Tell that to the half-dozen businesses and medical offices I know of, such as my optician and an NC-machinist shop among others, that are still using XP-SP3 because their fancy optical scanning and processing equipment, or their NC controlers, or their custom business applications, don't work with any later release.

Nobody is saying it's a huge percentage. Just that Win11 is even smaller, among business users who need something that works, not the "latest and greatest" from Redmond.

[Terry L Smith]

im retired, and retired with win7. the last local tech shop a few years ago installed win10. the shop owners have passed on, so im stuck. i bought a refurb thinkpad that has win10 also.

and yes, i get the nasty message my machine is not compatible with win11, so what?

i do not use and have microsoft office junk.
i use rough draft. or abiword.
my financial, i use 3x5 spiral notepads, i do my 1040s in ballpoint, and send them such.

i use immunet and spybot.

im good!

[dayglored]

> Should I just keep Windows 10 for now?

That's what I'm doing, but you should make your own determination of what makes the most sense for you.

I figure the time will come when we are all forced to either migrate to Win11, or face the risks of our Win10 machines going out of support, i.e. no more security updates. That's what I did with Win7 -- relegated it to non-internet service, supporting my older applications that didn't like Win10.

[Dalberg-Acton]

I bought two retail copies of Windows XP they last week they were available. One box is unopened, the other opened to see what was inside. Neither were ever installed.
Still stored in a closet, I doubt I will ever have any use for them.

[mowowie]

I thought windows 10 was to be the last?

i guess that was sooo last year..

[daniel1212]

" Can XP be loaded on to a new computer? Asking for a close personal friend. "

No, except as a VM under W/10 or 11, since it would not support the hardware, especially if it were the normal 32bit. And unless the OS is on the Retail channel, then it would not activate.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

The takeup of Win11 in businesses is glacially slow

The takeup of any new OS in business environments is glacially slow, and for good reason.

[ducttape45]

I don’t know about AMD based motherboards, but W7 will only run on Intel boards up to Generation 7, and I got XP running on a Generation 1 Intel board. But newer motherboards have technology that XP can’t support so I’m betting the answer to your question is, “no.”

[throwthebumsout]

“Still running XP, but some web sites are freezing me out because of it.”

Are you sure your problem isn’t related to the browser that you are using? I don’t see how a website would care about the underlying OS.

[TexasGator]

“Just that Win11 is even smaller”

Source article cites two surveys that say otherwise.

[tje]

I really quit caring about what OS I was on with Windows 8. Yes, it had a horrible UI, but I didn’t use it. Just like I don’t really use the UI in Win 10 (I do cad work there) nor on my notebook with Win11

[TexasGator]

Having to stick with an OS is not the same as preferring to tick with an OS.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Windows ten is a stable platform that will do most of what you want it to do.

If you are a home user there is no reason to upgrade until you get a new PC.

A quick switch means you delivered a hot mess last time. See Windows 8 or Windows Millennium. People RAN from those systems because they were horrible. Seven was a good system but not as backward compatible as XP. So people drifted away from it as they upgraded their systems. They had no reason to run from it but no compelling reason to keep it either. Windows Ten did about the same as Seven. Maybe slightly better and was not a pain to use.

Windows XP was also the last system that you could play legacy games and software on without having to do a bunch of tweaking.

Businesses who are on contract with Microsoft, have the latest business software and want all the security updates they can get are a different matter.

[VeniVidiVici]

Still run Win7 on my desktop.

[doorgunner69]

“Can XP be loaded on to a new computer?”

Win 7 Pro has a “XP mode”

No idea if MS kept that in later versions. I am sticking with 7 x64 pro

[Fresh Wind]

I don’t want any OS newer than W7, but it would be nice to have a faster PC.

Assuming you already have W7, you should get an SSD and disk cloning software. You will end up with everything you currently have on the new disk, and you can simply disconnect the old one and keep it as a backup. I did exactly that, and it made a huge difference.

[glimmerman70]

I loved windows 98. Used until I was forced to XP. Now forced to 10. It’s ok but doing a update and I lost my start menu. So I put it in tablet mode. Last time I did a update it lost the tablet mode. Apparently it happens to some but no fix from Microsoft. And the fix looks hard.. not going to windows 11..

[Jim W N]

I find a pattern about every other upgrade. Seems like if upgrade “A” is good, upgrade “B” has problems and then Upgrade “C” fixes the problems and is good. So every other one.

Maybe wait until Windows 12.

[Paal Gulli]

XP did 90% of what 100% PC users buy PCs for and 100% of what 90% buy them for. It had a level of market penetration and customer fidelity that Microsoft will never surpass, and it was the last operating system M$ sold that sold itself.

XP was Microsoft's "Thriller" moment, it was the artistic achievement they could never surpass, regardless how many more albums they produced.

But that market penetration proved a problem, because unlike Apple, who created an entire ecosystem around their operating systems, Microsoft users grew up buying their add-on softwares from 3rd-party companies, which left M$ in the lurch. So once they sold a copy of XP to everyone in the world who wanted one, they had to come up with a scheme to reopen their access to all those XP users. Either that or go into the aluminum siding business.

So they sunsetted XP and replaced it with a piece of detritus called (pardon my French) Vista.

And that was when Redmond lost its mojo. Now a great many users have for be forced to step up to each new Windows version, which, after all, is how M$ earns its daily bread. And far fewer go willingly now than in the pre-Vista days.

If they could, and if XP and all the customary supporting applications were still being updated, it's a dead nuts certainty that a very significant portion of the planet's occupants would still be running 32-bit XP.

M$'s greatest source of heartburn today is that peak desktop PC was more than a decade ago, and that market continues to dwindle. And they've completely missed the boat on the handheld digital devices revolution. Spent billion$ in R&D with nothing to show for it but a long stream of red numbers on their P&L sheet. So they sat on the sideline with a sour look on their faces and watched Android (a Linux derivative) become the most widely used operating system on the planet.