author: Bart Swiatek
Windows 7 Remains Popular Even a Year After End of Support
It's been almost a year since Microsoft finished supporting Windows 7. Despite this, the software is still installed on nearly 20% of PCs.
IN A NUTSHELL:
- Nearly 20% of PC users still use Windows 7, despite the end of support last year;
- This could be as much as 100 million PCs;
- The number of PCs using Windows 7 increased in December.
Microsoft officially ended user support for Windows 7 almost a year ago. It did so after ten years of Windows 7's existence on the market. However, it seems that despite the move, this version of the OS remains very popular. What is interesting, according to the NetMarketShare website, last December the OS not only did not lose, but also gained users - and not few. At the end of the year Windows 7 could be found on 19.71% of computers. This is almost a percent more than a month earlier (in November it was 18.78%).
Popularity of OS in 2020. Source: NetMarketShare.
So the stats suggest that potentially every fifth PC user relies on an OS that is no longer officially supported. How many people could this be? It is difficult to present accurate data, but according to the approximate calculations of ZDNet, it is more than one hundred million PC users.
It is worth mentioning at this point that in the case of business customers (companies), Microsoft makes it possible to extend the period of support for a fee - until January 2023. Some entities have without a doubt used this option. We do not know what part of the aforementioned 20% of PCs are corporate equipment, because NetMarketShare's data does not discern between PCs of individual and business users.
It should also be noted that the statistics of Windows 7 popularity among players look significantly different - according to a recent Steam survey, only 3.88% of its users still use this version of Windows (with as much as 3.7% using 64-bit edition). The 64-bit version of Windows 10, which 94.72% of PC users have chosen, is definitely leading in this field (moreover, this group is constantly growing).
Popularity of Windows operating systems among gamers. Source: Steam survey - December 2020.