Windows 7 Sells 100 Million Licenses

[outrun]

Just six months after its release, Windows 7 is now installed on one in 10 of the world's PCs, Microsoft has confirmed.

The operating system was launched on 22 October 2009 and has gone on to sell more than 100 million licences - making it the fastest-selling Windows OS in history according to Microsoft.

[silicon.com...]

[bill]

There was a lot of pent up demand as a lot of consumers and companies decided to forgo Vista and wait for the next OS.

[J_RaD]

windows 7 is great!

now if we can get the enterprise onboard we can lay good ole XP to rest.


100 million old already, but the only thing we hear is apple sold 1 million ipads......

[iambic9]

2 million ; )

[johnnie]

Justly so. Windows 7 is in amazing OS. It's basically what Vista should have been and then a bit more.

[piatkow]

The cynic in me wonders how much of that 10 percent is just new machines sitting in shops and warehouses awaiting sale.

I must confess that, having seen friends using Vista, I am glad that I am still on XP. There is a couple of years life in the laptop yet and I have no plans to upgrade just for the sake of it.

[mack]

Windows 7 is miles ahead of Vista. I suspect the initial bad press that effected Vista hurt sales enough to make potential users hold off. Now with Windows 7 all is well and people are buying again.

Mack.

[dreamcatcher]

Justly so. Windows 7 is in amazing OS. It's basically what Vista should have been and then a bit more.

I agree.

dc

[iThink]

The cynic in me wonders how much of that 10 percent is just new machines sitting in shops and warehouses awaiting sale.

I used to work for a major PC maker. So have a good idea about their supply chain management.

Typical brick and mortar stores all over the world keep inventory for no more than 10 days. On an average 21 days is all it takes for a PC being assembled in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore or India and it reaching home/office of an end-user customer in any part of the world. Inventories do increase to around 30-35 days around peak season like Christmas in the USA/Europe. So you can bet that 100 million copies sold means around 90% or even more of them are already in use by customers.

[weeks]

Windows 7 is in amazing OS. It's basically what Vista should have been and then a bit more.

I am happy to hear this. Really.

Still, how a major company can get by with continuing to sell what they label as new and improved products which are actually fixes to what they should have done in the first place is amazing to me.

The entire IT industry needs to grow up and take responsibility for its work. I have the same problem with the coders we hire. They all want to work by the hour. I want software that does x and y. Build it and I'll pay you. Instead we have to work with their projections on what it will take. And, when something does not work because of their screw up, we have to pay them to fix their mistake.

I blame Microsoft for this attitude. All of the risk is shifted to the consumer. It's not right.

[dreamcatcher]

The only thing they screwed up on with Win7 was the dreadful taskbar and those stupid preview thumbnails. The way it groups open windows on the taskbar is ridiculous, so counter productive. The first week using Win7 it was doing my head in.

Once you`ve got it more like XP its much better. I can`t see any reason at all for those stupid preview thumbnails for windows. Start menu is also rubbish, but I`m getting used to it. Removing the option to revert to 'Classic' startmenu was a bad move.

dc

[edited by: dreamcatcher at 3:00 pm (utc) on Jun 4, 2010]

[centime]

I've been delighted with the pc since i got my windows 7 PC,

[edited by: centime at 2:16 pm (utc) on Jun 4, 2010]

[venice]

I purchased at least 7 of those. Loving Windows 7. Put an SSD in 2 machines and w/7 they are running sweet!

[JerryOdom]

I really enjoy it after I figured out how to turn off some of the babysitting options however before I turned those off it wasn't that bad. I don't know how I ever lived without that Search Programs and Files option. As a .NET software developer full time it's caused me to have to adjust a little but pretty seemless overall.

[J_RaD]

The only thing they screwed up on with Win7 was the dreadful taskbar and those stupid preview thumbnails. The way it groups open windows on the taskbar is ridiculous, so counter productive.

wahhhhhhhh, those are my favorite features, aeropeak makes me MORE productive!

[Gomvents]

took me a while to get used to some changes in Win7 from XP and I still am unsure how to make the bottom taskbar function like XP vs Mac OS but I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually. Bottom line for me, my computer runs fast as hell and hasn't crashed or slowed down at all since March when I bought it and the PC has only been shut down or rebooted a handful of times to install software that required reboots. Windows 7 with SSD storage is out of this world fast.

[gpilling]

@gomvents @venice Is the SSD the only drive, or just for OS with "my documents" on another drive?

[jimorandy]

Windows 7 is in amazing OS. It's basically what Vista should have been and then a bit more.

I disagree!
I'm the windows guy and I hate Windows 7.
Many of my old programs don't work on it!
What kind of OS it is when I can't even get the Putty to run...
Also, the option to "run program as under old version" doesn't do anything.
So, now I have a brand new Windows 7 laptop, and it's completely useless for work.

[J_RaD]

im running putty right now.

?

[carguy84]

dreamcatcher and gomvents, 7 Taskbar Tweaker (free - no affiliation) is the utility you need. It allows you to customize how the programs are grouped (or not grouped) on the taskbar. It also allows you to get rid of the thumbnails and the Windows 7 right click menu (and use the XP version).

That plus manually adding in my quick launch to Win 7 has me back to feeling at home.

I don't really use the Start Menu save for the search feature. If I need an application open I either have it in my quick launch or just search for it.

Chip-

[BillyS]

The cynic in me wonders how much of that 10 percent is just new machines sitting in shops and warehouses awaiting sale.

That really doesn't make any difference unless all of a sudden everyone started increasing their total inventory of PCs, which is unlikely.

I could use your example and say that a load of PCs sitting in warehouses waitng to be sold delayed the true launch of Windows 7...

[Mike_Feury]

Fascinating how peoples' preferences and experiences differ :)

wahhhhhhhh, those are my favorite features, aeropeak makes me MORE productive!

Completely agree, new Taskbar and Preview features save me tons of time when there's a need to have lots of apps open simultaneously.

Many of my old programs don't work on it!
...
Also, the option to "run program as under old version" doesn't do anything.

Jim, sounds like there's something amiss with your setup. I find Win7 much better than XP at running old and less-stable programs. I especially like how if something misbehaves after install, next time you launch it Win7 will auto-run it in compatibility mode--that fixes things about 75% of the time, without any user input.

I blame Microsoft for this attitude. All of the risk is shifted to the consumer. It's not right.

Have you hired a doctor or lawyer lately--or bought a politician? ;)

[dreamcatcher]

dreamcatcher and gomvents, 7 Taskbar Tweaker (free - no affiliation) is the utility you need.

Thanks, I already have a utility that works great and the taskbar is exactly how I want it now. :)

Fascinating how peoples' preferences and experiences differ

Indeed Mike_Feury. The taskbar does seem to have had a mixed response. Many nice things in Windows 7 though, definitely glad I switched from XP.

dc

[pp46]

I see no difference with vista..
maybe the reason that it is on so many PC's now is that you do not have a choice when you buy a new machine....?!
:-)

[frontpage]

I really like Win7, unfortunately a couple of our propriety programs that use Win XP Pro don't work on Win7. You would think Win7 would automatically be backward compatible.

[bill]

I really like Win7, unfortunately a couple of our propriety programs that use Win XP Pro don't work on Win7.

Then you should upgrade to Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise, where you can use Windows XP Mode. You get a virtual disk image containing a pre-installed, activated, licensed copy of Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 preinstalled, complete with a copy of Internet Explorer 6. You can run your legacy programs seamlessly in Windows 7 via XP Mode. You'll never know it's there.

[J_RaD]

and best of all IE6 will be running in a virutal machine safe from letting viruses wreak your w7 install

:-D

[JerryOdom]

I disagree!
I'm the windows guy and I hate Windows 7.
Many of my old programs don't work on it!
What kind of OS it is when I can't even get the Putty to run...
Also, the option to "run program as under old version" doesn't do anything.
So, now I have a brand new Windows 7 laptop, and it's completely useless for work.

Jim,

. I use software 10 years old. Drafting software, specialty software, old Macromedia Fireworks MX. Once you get accustomed to the way it does things you'll like it. It sounds like you might need to spend a little time researching and getting used to the Program Compatability Assistant. For some server tools I had to turn it off because there were hard blocks built in to it so that the assistant would completely deny me. It's a pain at first but no big deal once you're used to it.

[snag]

Windows 7 is terrible in my experience. Like every version of windows, MS once again moved and renamed things for no apparent reason. Add/remove programs is now programs & features, have fun tech support guys!

The 100M number is complete rubbish. Every PC I've bought from Dell/HP in the last few months had the BS windows 7 license, but came with XP installed. That is the ONLY way for someone to get XP installed on a computer, all so Microsoft can claim inflated sales for another garbage OS that no one needs.

When was the last time a MS OS had a feature that was actually useful? It has only gotten more bloated, more demanding of system hardware, and changed for the sake of change. They renamed a service pack and charged people for it, and they gobbled it up.

[claus]

Windows 7 is in amazing OS

For all of you who like win7 - just what particular set of features is it that makes it a good experience?

It seems to me it's the usual story: Paint job and shuffling things around a little, fixing what was never broken in the first place. But perhaps I'm wrong.

my computer runs fast as hell and hasn't crashed or slowed down at all since March when I bought it

For me it's been five plus (5+) years. I'm on XP. It all depends on how much garbage you allow yourself to collect.