Posted on 10/21/2010 6:08:31 PM PDT by dayglored
Microsoft says it has sold 240 million Windows 7 licenses since releasing the operating system to retailers a year ago, making it the fastest-selling OS in the company's history.
Also, as of September, the successor to the much-maligned Windows Vista was running on 93% of new consumer PCs, Microsoft said Thursday. According to Web metrics firm Net Applications, Windows 7 accounted for 17.1% of the global OS market as of the end of September and had surpassed Vista in July.
In the six months after Windows 7 started appearing on store shelves, all of Microsoft's more than 18,000 computer-making partners were selling PCs with the new OS. That compared with 70% during the same period for Vista.
In general, Microsoft software has been getting higher marks from consumers. In 2007, the first full year Vista was available, the company's rating on the American Customer Satisfaction Index was a 70, which is less than the 75 rating for all other software makers. This year's, Microsoft's rating is 76, while other software makers as a group scored 77. (The ACSI scores on a 0-100 scale.)
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(Excerpt) Read more at informationweek.com ...
Windows 7 is a very good operating system, easily the best and most secure version of Windows ever, and more than compensates for the mistakes of its predecessor, Vista. And hundreds of millions of XP and Vista users were insanely hungry for a good new release.
So I'm not surprised Win7 is getting a good reception.
I've commented on this forum before that Win7 is pretty much "Vista-Done-Right" (it is, after all, just a point release of NT6, not a major release). But that's not a strike against Win7 so much as it is recognition that Vista was a step in the right direction but done wrong.
I'm very pleased to say that Windows is at last getting to within spitting distance of OS-X and Linux in robustness and security. Win7 is the first version of Windows I feel completely at ease with, stability-wise.
With Microsoft Security Essentials, Win7 does a fine job of trapping and stopping most malware. I personally trust it enough that I have stopped getting 3rd party Anti-Virus packages, even the free ones. Yes, some are probably better than MSE, but I feel it is good enough for what I do (which does not include surfing to known dodgy sites).
But please, NO PERSONAL ATTACKS OR TROLLING about people's preferences in personal computers and operating systems.
This is a Windows thread. If you're not here to discuss Windows, please respect those who wish to do so.
Thanks!
(And is SOMEBODY going to start a Windows Ping List...???)
Care to join a celebration of the best version of Windows yet?
Damn, that’s going to be a HUGE botnet...
I run an HP laptop, but had to get the pro version as I need to run legacy software on the 64 bit machine. It is backed by 8 gig of RAM, is fast, and works well.
But it won’t run on our other machines, so it is a best a questionable advance.
YMMV, of course.
The virus-writers will have a hell of a time -- Win7 is pretty darn resistant.
Of course, as with any operating system, the biggest security weakness is the component between the keyboard and chair. Human-engineering has overtaken direct OS attacks, for the latest releases of all the OSes.
I bought a solid state hard drive and Win 7 the day it came out.
Very fast and couldn’t be happier.
Does anyone know if the full version will upgrade on top of an installed Vista system? I’m dealing with a balky hard drive that has a good chance of crashing during install, so I’d prefer to buy the full version and install it on a clone of the old drive on a new drive and save me the time and trouble of reinstalling all the software. However if that doesn’t go well I want to be able to fall back to a “start over” in which case the upgrade would be useless to me.
That’s a LOT of licenses, in just 1 year... Whoa! Microsoft has pretty much stepped-up and re-owned the desktop.
I've mostly been installing Pro or Ultimate. The Home versions only drive me up a wall with their limitations with regard to networking and such.
“...making it the fastest-selling OS in the company’s history. “
After Vista, there was significant motivation!
I make it a habit to never do in-place upgrades of Windows. For that matter, OS-X either.
By the time I'm done fussing with the almost-but-not-quite results of an in-place upgrade, I would have been better off starting fresh with a new (and usually, larger) hard drive.
It's good to give consumer operating systems a fresh install from time to time.
Servers, no -- I have servers that have been in-place upgraded for over 10 years without a hiccup. But they're BSD Unix, which is designed to allow that. Consumer OSes, nah...
Yep, MS has a decently stable system, at last. W7 is stable enough that I usually run Windows as the main system with a Linux guest virtual machine now, rather than the other way around. That's a sign of progress!
I am computer illiterate. But I did just get a new lap top with windows 7 and I think it’s great!
Yeah, but that exploit was developed and practiced for weeks or months ahead of time.
The Pwn2Own contents are nothing but crap marketing hype shows for the journalists. They mean NOTHING in the real world. If they did, you'd see OS-X viruses running around in the wild. There are none.
But your statement about Win7 being the most-malware-resistant OS from Microsoft is right on.
Good point. Come to think of it, so do I!
Well, they weren't really in any danger of losing it -- I don't think they dipped below 85% even at the worst depths of Vista despair and OS-X growth.
To answer your question - yes it will upgrade Vista. It will not upgrade XP. I did an upgrade from Vista ultimate to 7 Ultimate with no problems, but I did do a fresh install and went to 64bit. (the upgrade was 32 bit)
I also have it installed on a vintage 2003 desktop with 4 gig ram, sata hard drives and dvd/rw. I did have to find a software upgrade for my brother 4 in 1 to install scan on the desktop (the vista drivers work fine). I used an upgrade on this pc, but did a clean install on the drive.
I've been very happy with Windows 7.
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