In January Windows 7 reached end-of-life status. No more security updates are issued for the operating system and, as a result, publications and experts have recommended that end users find an alternative solution, in particular the transition to Windows 8.1, Linux, macOS or Windows. 10 himself.
NetMarketShare data indicates that after a respectable decline from December to January, adoption rates barely budged in February. Windows 7 went from 25.56% of the market to 25.2% of the market. It’s quite interesting that the NetMarketShare data does not have Decrease further because we know Windows 7 is very popular in China, where Covid-19 resulted in factory closings and many people did not return from work.
Data by NetMarketShare
For a different perspective on the issue, I decided to check out the Steam Hardware Survey. Steam hardware survey is not the best window on what high end gamers are buying – survey takes all systems on Steam and counts them as well, which means the laptop where you play a handful of low-end games on business trips and on the desk you play regularly are weighted identically in the tally – but that may be of some use when it comes to the broader trends in the industry, like the operating system that people are running. One interesting thing about the Steam operating system data is that it has always identified a higher percentage of users using Windows 10 than the general population. This continues to be true.
The SHS reports that Windows 10 had a market share of 80.37% in February 2020, up 1.14% from January. Windows 7 adoption fell 1.17%. Gamers / people adjacent to the games continued to move away from Windows 7 faster than the general population, which implies that the end users who join the operating system can be grouped in specific countries or demographics.
When Microsoft encountered this problem with Windows XP, there were loud groans and gnashing of teeth on the people who stuck to the OS in the end. I suspect that this problem will be solved without much ado. Most people who are still using Windows 7 probably don’t know or know that it is no longer supported, but also know that support ended relatively recently. It’s not uncommon for people to postpone upgrading or fixing something until they see a particular need, and Windows 7 only recently reached EOL.
Windows 10 has been available on new PCs since 2015, which means that the hardware behind most Windows 7 devices will be at least 4 to 6 years old. In today’s slower-paced market, it is entirely possible that a PC of this vintage still offers reasonable performance. Give it another 3-5 years, however, and even a 6700K quad-core is likely to look a bit gimpy compared to the new hardware. This will be even more true in laptops
– All Windows 7 era devices will be 2C / 4T chips on the Intel side of the equation or AMD Bulldozer-based designs. Already in 2020, you can buy a laptop with considerably higher boost clock speeds and a higher total number of cores than what was available when Windows 7 was available. Laptops also tend to age faster than desktops, if only because physically carrying them around inevitably causes more wear and tear than leaving the system stationary every day.
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