Windows 10 Is Finally More Popular Than Windows XP

Microsoft’s drive to kill off the past seems to finally be paying off as Windows XP usage continues to fall.

The latest figures from Netmarketshare found that Windows 10 usage now finally outstripped that of Windows XP, as 11.85 percent of all Windows devices now run Microsoft’s latest release, a 1.89 percent increase from the previous month.

Windows XP still has a big chunk of the market, however, with 11.42 percent of users, showing that for some people, letting go is hard to do.

Overall, the figures show that Windows 7 still reigns supreme, with 52.47 percent of the market share, with Windows 8.1 (10.4 percent) and Windows 8 (2.68 percent) rounding out the top five most popular versions.

Goals

Microsoft has been understandably bullish about its rollout of Windows 10, which is set to be the last standalone Windows release, with future services distributed as online updates.

The company has set an ultimate goal of having the software installed on a billion devices, and last month revealed that over 200 million devices around the world already run Windows 10

And recent figures seem to suggest that this may be eminently doable, as estimates from Gartner predict that 50 percent of organisations will have started Windows 10 deployments by January 2017.

Many organisations to begin planning initial trials of Windows 10 in the first half of 2016, before rolling out a wider deployment later in the year, as they look at completing their migrations in 2019.

Read More: Windows 10 Review

A recent TechWeekEurope poll showed that 75 percent of readers plan to download Windows 10, which has been greeted by a strong critical response.

The first major update to Windows 10 was released last week, providing a wide range of user interface and software improvements, including updates to some of the most popular apps such as Messaging and Skype.

It also included the option of coloured title bars for desktop apps, improved context menus, and an extra column of Live Tiles for the Start menu.

What do you know about Windows 10? Try our quiz!