back to article Is this what Windows XP's death throes look like?

It's the first of the month (US time), so off we go to Netmarketshare and Statcounter to see what operating systems are getting a run on the world's desktop computers. Our long series of stories on the two analysts' output has shown, time and again, that Windows XP is just-about-unkillable. Despite Microsoft ceasing support, …

Page:

  1. ThatGuy

    Oh wow...

    Linux has less market share than Vista? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Too funny.

    1. 45RPM Silver badge

      Re: Oh wow...

      Yup, it's fair to say that there aren't that many intelligent, independently-minded, people in the world. Which is why most people use Windows. Windows is adequate, there's lots of it about (like the common cold), and so yer average luser will put up with it without pondering whether another OS might be more suited to their needs.

      From what I've seen, the average (just the basics) user would be better served by a nice ChromeBook. A gamer probably does need Windows (although a console might do nicely too). And power users should, and do, turn their thoughts to some kind of Linux / Unix variant.

      1. Archaon
        Trollface

        Re: Oh wow...

        "(although a console might do nicely too)"

        Instafail. Back in your box.

        1. 45RPM Silver badge

          Re: Oh wow...

          @Archaon

          I'm not a gamer, so please indulge my curiosity. Why wouldn't a console do? Surely it depends on the game type? I mean, something like Civilization wouldn't work on console, I see that. And I'm told that big FPS games don't translate well either. But is it not the case that, for some games, a console might be preferable?

          Off topic, I know.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Oh wow...

            I didn't get that either. I play on my PC and on a console. The console provides a very good gaming environment and is my preferred option.

            I'm not saying it will be everyone's preferred option but there's lots to like about it. It's tru that the graphics are often better on a good PC with a recent graphics card but for me the improvement isn't big enough for me to care about..... in the language of the kids, for me it's all about the game play :-)

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Oh wow...

            > Why wouldn't a console do?

            Keyboard. Mouse. That is all.

            > I mean, something like Civilization wouldn't work on console, I see that. And I'm told that big FPS games don't translate well either.

            OK it wasn't all. Didn't you just really answer your question? I want a machine which can play ALL games, not just the subset which happen to be available in walled garden #1 with a stupid interface form factor.

            For sake of disclosure, I do own a console (or two), but also heavily use a decent Windows gaming PC. With Linux in a VM for "Real Work".

            1. MJI Silver badge

              Re: Oh wow... - Keyboard & Mouse

              Unfortunately for me it feels too much like the tools of work, rather than the tools of play.

              For a lot of IT staff a console is a better bet because it is NOT a PC like they use at work all day. (Yes I know about graphics card, and yes my sons PCs graphics cards cost more than some basic PCs).

              So sit at a desk all day using a PC, not so much fun to do the same for gaming.

              So for me to slob out on the settee with a controller is relaxing, nothing to do with frames per second or resolution, but it is not like work.

            2. Uffish

              Re: "decent Windows gaming PC"

              From a quick look at the article and comments I guess that the commentators here are not at all representative of the pc and internet using public.

              It looks like people here prefer the minority choices (eg linux or win8.1). Either that or all the winfans are running XP.

          3. Archaon

            Re: Oh wow...

            Keyboard and mouse aside, if you compare gaming to productivity then gaming on a console is akin to working on a 7 year old workstation. They get some leeway out of being optimised platforms running (hopefully) optimised software, rather than general purpose machines with general purpose software, but they're generally underpowered. The new and shiny consoles (Xbox One and Playstation 4) are struggling to run a lot of new "AAA" games (i.e. big budget games akin to Hollywood films) at a decent frame rate and/or 1080p resolutions.

            Don't get me wrong, I do like to kick back on the sofa with a console (I have many). I'm also not ashamed to admit that I quite regularly plug a console controller into my PC because for that game it's preferable for me. But bottom line saying that you can replace a Windows gaming PC with a console is like saying you can replace your workstation with an android tablet. It does the same job to an extent, but you lose a hell of a lot in the process.

            1. Fading
              Happy

              Re: Oh wow...

              My nephew is using my 9 year old workstation as his gaming rig (Dual Xeon Dell Precision) . Doesn't seem to suffer too much :)

          4. jabuzz

            Re: Oh wow...

            To be honest the best platform for something like Civilization is a tablet. It's head and shoulders above a PC.

      2. John 172

        Re: Oh wow...

        Just yesterday I had Linux (Ubuntu 10 LTS distro) completely fail to boot. Did it's mini boot text then just hung, repeatedly on every reboot, in recovery mode too. The cause, a new GPU. The BIOS had mapped the GPU into a 64-address space, the 32-bit OS decided that it would try and use it anyway with disastrous results. A warning that the device was misconfigured would have been nice but this is Linux, a hard lockup of the kernel is much nicer! Until tatty stuff like this doesn't happen anymore regular users don't stand a chance.

        1. Adair Silver badge

          Re: Oh wow, John 172

          Look, if you want Windows, use it. If you want OSX, use it, etc. (ad nauseum). But, don't come whining about how something doesn't work when the whole philosophy of what you are whining about is that it is a hairy work in progress---if that is a problem to you you are clearly in the wrong game and do not, or will not (maybe even cannot), understand the rules of play.

          Linux is not for everyone, nor every use case, but it clearly is also an accessible, usable, and effective solution for a large number of users and their needs. My wife knows nothing about what makes a computer tick, but gets on fine with her Lubuntu laptop (and all I have ever had to do with it is an occasional update).

          OTOH my desktop, running Mint (and occasional experiments), needs fettling on and off because I persist in fiddling with it---I'm sorry, but I can't help it, it's why I enjoy using Linux, because I am free to play around breaking things, fixing them, learning stuff, and generally enjoying my non-work (work means Windows) computing experience.

          So, by all means wallow in your chosen pit of despair, but please don't kid yourself that because you haven't chosen what someone else has that their choice is fundamentally more stupid than yours. I am quite aware that my choice is the superior one.

          1. Archaon
            Linux

            Re: Oh wow, John 172

            "But, don't come whining about how something doesn't work when the whole philosophy of what you are whining about is that it is a hairy work in progress---if that is a problem to you you are clearly in the wrong game and do not, or will not (maybe even cannot), understand the rules of play."

            LTS releases are meant to be stable releases supported over a considerable timeframe. To paraphrase Ubuntu/Canonical, aside from support length the tenets of the LTS releases are enterprise focused, hardware compatibility and improved testing.

            I appreciate that in this case it's just a freak bug and these things happen (to any platform). The fact that you consider it acceptable for any 'stable' release - let alone something that's described as LTS - to be a 'hairy work in progress' suggests that it's you who doesn't understand "the play".

            Messing with your own system is fair enough, seeing it's limits, breaking it, learning how to fix it? That's all good. Fair play to you. But to have you claim someone 'doesn't get it' when they're specifically using a LTS release - probably because of the reasons mentioned above - boggles my mind. Bottom line is that someone screwing about with their PC at home is all well and good, but it is not "the game". Business is the game. To think otherwise is, to quote your good self, "stupid".

            Thankfully the majority of the Linux community understands that acceptance is more important than the ability to accidentally break stuff and has been consistently working to reduce the latter, resulting in a stable platform that can actually be used.

            1. Danny 14

              Re: Oh wow, John 172

              don't you pay a subscription on consoles to multiplayer? How quaint.

            2. Adair Silver badge

              Re: Oh wow, John 172

              "Business is the game. To think otherwise is, to quote your good self, "stupid"." - Archaon

              O, dear me no! Business is PART of the game, it definitely is not THE game, and that is why so many people end up whining, because they think that their particular interest/need defines 'the game'.

              <arbitrary OS> has its niggling bugs, some of them are show stoppers for certain people's needs/hardware, and that really ticks us off when it happens to us, but the chances are that the vast majority are sailing on, blissfully unaware of our pain.

              Linux, far more so than any of the proprietary OSs, currently encapsulates the ideal and necessity of being free do do what you like with a computer. If that means business, go for it, but it may mean science, arts, whatever.

              The moment we expect our computing kit to 'just work' with no responsibility or understanding (note, that is not the same as knowledge) on our part is the moment we want an appliance not a computer. And the moment we want an appliance is the moment when all we can really do is whine when our magic box doesn't behave the way we want or expect, assuming, of course, it doesn't break the terms of that lovely EULA, and local trading standards law.

              LTS, or not, If we are paying good money for our computing needs to be supported we're entitled to demand someone fixes our problem, assuming it falls within the contract. If we've got our OS, etc. for free (as in beer) then, I'm sorry, we take what we get, we are grateful, and we don't feel ripped off when it's crap because, after all, we didn't give anything for it---seems like a fair trade to me.

              We're always quite free to take our itch/pain and see if another OS/application will do the job properly, we might pay someone to meet the need, or we might even do it ourselves.

              When it comes to 'Linux' and Free/Opensource software 'Business' is a 'use case', it isn't 'the game'.

        2. John H Woods Silver badge

          Re: Oh wow...

          I don't understand why you would put a new GPU in a 64 bit machine running a 3 year old version of a 32bit OS that went out of support two years ago. And I really don't understand why you expected it to work seamlessly. And I really don't understand why you would consider the failure of this edge case to allow you to infer very much at all beyond the specific instance you describe.

        3. Jamiroph

          Re: Oh wow...

          Just yesterday I had an issue with an operating system that was end of life two years ago.....

          Slow clap.

        4. Richard Plinston

          Re: Oh wow...

          > The cause, a new GPU. The BIOS had mapped the GPU into a 64-address space

          So you swapped the video card, the BIOS misconfigured it and Linux had nowhere to output a visible message !

          Would Windows have done a better job of this ?

          "Regular users" don't usually swap around the guts of the machine.

        5. CFWhitman

          Re: John172 Re: Oh wow...

          Well, of course we have the obvious mitigations. That is, the operating system is five years old and the hardware that caused a problem is new. Desktop support ended two years ago and server support will end this month. You are using the 32 bit version, while the 64 bit version would probably work without incident.

          However, even though these factors help to explain this incident, they're not what I thought of first. What I thought of first is that this is exactly the type of thing that is less common with Linux than with Windows. Do you realize how rare it is for Linux not to boot? The only times I have had a kernel panic were due to either failing hardware or hacking a system together from backups while accidentally leaving out necessary steps. Generally with Linux I can take a hard drive from one system and put it into another system which is an entirely different model and still have it boot up, sometimes working perfectly with no adjustments and other times needing a bit of tweaking to make it act perfectly normal. That didn't used to work for Windows ever, though it is more likely to work now.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
            Linux

            Re: John172 Oh wow...

            "Generally with Linux I can take a hard drive from one system and put it into another system which is an entirely different model and still have it boot up, sometimes working perfectly with no adjustments and other times needing a bit of tweaking to make it act perfectly normal. That didn't used to work for Windows ever, though it is more likely to work now."

            FWIW, that was the case until Windows XP too apart from the NT line of Windows. Certainly 95 and 98 would boot on moving the HDD to another PC although audio/video/CD drivers would need replacing.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: John172 Oh wow...

              "Certainly 95 and 98 would boot on moving the HDD to another PC although audio/video/CD drivers would need replacing."

              That was only really true if moving to the same chipset, i.e. Intel > Intel, Via > Via, AMD > AMD, any kind of crossover would usually result in a BSOD.

              These days, if Windows doesn't boot up and handle it happily, safe mode and uninstalling the 'Computer' driver in Device Manager along with any motherboard controller drivers generally sorts the issue without a complete OS re-install.

    2. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: Oh wow...

      Linux has never been big on desktop.

      Would you like to re-run that survey for the OS that SERVED the website in the first place? Although Windows has made huge strides in that area, Linux is far from being marginalised.

      And then let's do mobile OS, rather than desktop OS as the survey does. Android currently outsell Apple 3:1 and... oh... where's Windows?

      It's like being shocked that Rolls Royce don't sell many Transit-like vans, or that Skoda don't make many aircraft engines. It's a lack of understanding of markets and, I'm afraid, it just shows your ignorance.

      But... in true Nelson fashion HAHA! Linux. Yeah. What an OS that's not deployed on hundreds of millions of devices....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh wow...

        "Would you like to re-run that survey for the OS that SERVED the website in the first place?"

        Oh here we go, the penguinistas coming out defending their OS. Can't they just get over the fact that the Linux Distro Anarchy is its single biggest problem, that "its greatest strength" is actually a huge f*****g monumental block to its widespread adoption outside the land of geeks, nerds and con artists? And that the anarchy actually serves to create huge numbers of extra jobs inside server-land simply because it causes a load of extra unnecessary work, and they get away with it because their bosses see "free" and think that it must be a good thing?

        Give me strenght.

        1. hplasm
          Windows

          Re: Oh wow...

          "Give me strenght."

          And a decent spellchecker.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Oh wow...

            @hplasm

            And a decent spell checker

            To be honest I'm not sure I spelt 'fucking' right either...

          2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
            Joke

            Re: Oh wow...

            "Give me strenght."

            And a decent spellchecker.

            ...and we'll move the word!

        2. 45RPM Silver badge

          Re: Oh wow...

          @AC

          Distro Anarchy? Oh! You mean choice. But this really is a case of having your cake - and eating it. If you want the ultimate flexibility in your OS, with your choice of tools, then you can roll your own (or possibly find one pre-rolled by someone who shares your aims.)

          If you'd rather forgo the 'Anarchy*', you can choose Mac OS X or Ubuntu (and others, I'm sure), to benefit from a stable platform, maintained by someone other than yourself, but still enjoy the benefits of Unix and Linux power. If you don't need that much power, the ChromeOS (another Linux variant) has your back.

          I suspect that you don't really care that much though. You're a dyed in the wool Windows fanboy, and you don't want to investigate, much less use, anything else. But that's your loss, kiddo.

          *your words

          1. tony2heads
            Trollface

            Re: Oh wow...

            Yup, you can't claim to be a 1337 h4x0r without compiling your own custom kernel

            1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @45RPM

            "If you don't need that much power, the ChromeOS (another Linux variant) has your back."

            And hand over even more personal data to google than the bastards steal already? No thanks.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              @ Pete H

              I understand about the keyboard mouse combo for some games, although controllers have got so much better that I no longer miss them..... apart from a very few games.

              However, you don't get all games on the PC as some only come out on the console or come out first on the console. Of course the inverse is also true but 99.9% of games I want to play are available on a console and in a state where I don't feel I'm missing out much compared to the PC version, if it exists.

              In one respect comparing a console to a 7 year old PC is a gross exaggeration, unless you're looking further ahead into the console's life and you've got a new PC.

              On the other hand you could argue that most 5 year old PC workstations do the job they need to do just fine and a user probably wouldn't even notice the "upgrade" to a new one.

              Coming back to the console what I like is that I don't have to pay so much for a good graphics card and nor do I have to upgrade it every few years. I also get the same experience as everyone else rather than finding I can't use the latest flash graphics feature because my graphics card doesn't support it or that my specific combo of CPU, memory and graphics card causes the game to crash from time to time.

              I'm not saying console games are bug free, they're certainly not but fixes tend to come faster because everyone's running the same kit. Sometimes on the PC I've been stuck with what the developer must consider a "rare" problem and it's taken an age to get it fixed.

            2. 45RPM Silver badge

              Re: @45RPM

              @AC

              "And hand over even more personal data to google than the bastards steal already? No thanks."

              I'll up vote that. I agree with you. But I'm not most users - and I suspect that you aren't either. I'm not a member of FaceBook for exactly the same reason, and I stay out of the cloud.

              Thing is that most people don't care - the argument about security has been had, and the geeks lost. Government, Google and Facebook won. Most people are delighted to abdicate responsibility for their digital lives, handing it over lock, stock, the f*cking lot to someone else. And, if they're going to do that anyway, surely it also makes sense for them to save a few bob over a 'proper' computer with a 'proper' OS and buy a ChromeBook instead?

              I've played with ChromeOS. The latest versions are very nice indeed. Very easy. Perfect for someone who doesn't care about IT and couldn't give a shit about security either. Just not for me.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: @45RPM

                There is an alternative view on Chromebooks and security - http://www.chromebookworld.com/2015/02/26/6-not-13-steps-to-improved-security-and-privacy-with-a-chromebook/

        3. Fatman
          Joke

          Re: Oh wow...

          Oh here we go, the penguinistas coming out defending their OS. ...

          I didn't know that ElReg allowed YOU to comment here, Loverock Davidson?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lee D

        Here, have a snickers.....

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        hah hah

        There again with the 'Android is linux' claim. Android is a crap load of spyware, authored by google, stuck on top of an os kernel that google chose to steal rather than spend money writing themselves. But yeah, well done the penguin!! You have surely out foxed all of those us corporates to dominate the world!

        1. Mikel

          Re: hah hah

          Steal? Dave Cutler stole NT from Digital. If you want to talk about OS stealing.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @ThatGuy - Re: Oh wow...

      You're missing one point here, pal!

      Linux has that market share without a vendor pushing/shoving it and without any one single dollar being spend on marketing. How's that for you ?

      Remember, Windows it's like the belly-button. You don't have to do anything to get it and it actually is pretty difficult to avoid getting one.

      1. 45RPM Silver badge

        Re: @ThatGuy - Oh wow...

        @AC "Remember, Windows it's like the belly-button. You don't have to do anything to get it and it actually is pretty difficult to avoid getting one.”

        It’s an amusing aphorism, but slightly flawed. Windows didn’t come with my Asus or DFI mobos. It didn’t come with my Mac, or with my Raspberry Pi. I chose to buy a copy (because development, and I’m an OS whore - I’ll go with all of them), but I had to go out of my way to get it.

        Granted, most people will get Windows just because they bought a PC - but it’s very easy nowadays to opt out of having any Microsoft software on your machine. But, and I realise that this view is controversial, I have to say that Microsoft software today is, IMO, better than it’s ever been.

    4. enormous cow turd

      Re: Oh wow...

      Linux (branded as Android) seems to be doing quite well - I have 4x Android devices (Phone, Tablet 2x TVs) 1x iPhone, 1x WinXP Laptop, 1x Win7 Laptop - so that's 5x Unix derived devices against 1x Current Windows + 1x MS Abandonware. So yes - you're right, Linux never did very well on the desktop, but that isn't where the battle for users is anymore - it's on consumer devices - and MS has already lost that market.

  2. Ole Juul

    web or not

    “this is what we see hitting web servers”

    That's an obvious, and perhaps the only realistic way to go about this, but I have a feeling that there are quite a few machines running XP which are no longer (or perhaps never were) connected to the net.

    1. Gray
      Holmes

      Re: web or not

      Four machines in this household alone, running dual-boot: WinXP to run essential (and expensive) legacy software; and Debian 8 Linux, for web research, finances and banking, and email.

      Two things that don't show up: none of those machines expose WinXP to the 'net or to trackers, so it's under the radar; and Microsoft will never realize another penny from this household. As for Linux, it does the job and nobody is keeping score. It's all about as relevant as tracking what OS is running the systems in one's family car.

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: web or not

        Whilst you might be correct reports like this are needed to keep at least some of those ANALysist's in gainful employment.

        After all there is only so many times they can write articles (sorry fiction) stating that company XXXXX is doomed and everyone should sell their stock today.

        Where is the...

        won't someone think of the analysist's icon when you need it?

      2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Re: "Microsoft will never realize another penny from this household"

        I'm sorry to say that all the time Microsoft get royalties for the FAT patents, or any of the patents owned by MPEG LA or any of the other patents Microsoft defend but will only tell people about under an NDA, you cannot definitively make that statement.

    2. bazza Silver badge

      Re: web or not

      "That's an obvious, and perhaps the only realistic way to go about this, but I have a feeling that there are quite a few machines running XP which are no longer (or perhaps never were) connected to the net."

      You're probably right, but then there's the old adage, "Does it really exist if it is not connected to the Internet?".

      Those machines might be nothing other than an abstract philisophical construct.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: web or not

      650 here!

    4. Stuart 22

      Re: web or not

      The issue for us is we want to provide more secure websites than we have IPs.

      No problem with SNI except for mostly the WinXP/IE fraternity. Use SNI and we screw them. Much as I would wish to - our clients don't fancy losing 16% of their users. And it is very variable depending on the demographic of the website. We have a few still getting 35%+ WinXP/IE.

      Way to go yet I fear frustrating the upcoming salvation that is Let's Encrypt.

  3. Tufty Squirrel

    Gosh

    It's almost down to Windows 8 levels.

  4. cosymart

    Interenal Systems

    I was in my bank yesterday and all of their terminals are still running XP non of these ever go near the internet. I suspect that this scenario can be repeated in all banks and insitutions.

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like