Windows 10 continues to grow despite end of free upgrades for users of Windows 7 and 8

Windows 10 could be on one-in-four PCs and laptops by the end of the year.

During the normal slow month of August the quantity of desktop PC’s and laptops that are using Windows 10 has increased considerably and this is despite Microsoft withdrawing the free upgrade for PC users running Windows 7, 8 and 8.1.

After the Anniversary Update the new operating system happily experienced a large rise to 22.99 % of the market (+1.86 percentage points)

This month’s figures will make happy reading in Redmond, as everything else went on a downward trajectory, save for the constant fly in the ointment, Windows 7, which went up to 47.25 per cent (+0.25).

Windows 8.1 rose marginally to 7.92 (+0.12), offset slightly by a larger drop for Windows 8 to 1.82 (-0.27), meaning that Windows 8.x is down to 9.74 (-0.15) overall.

These figures are suggesting that those on Windows 8 have opted to upgrade to Windows 10 rather than moving to Windows 8.1.

The Windows XP operating system which is completely obsolete now took its biggest blow for a while, it dropped nearly a full percentage point to 9.3 (-0.98), this means it is now lower in popularity that Windows 8.x for the very first time. Windows Vista sits at 1.05 per cent (-0.17), its position as a footnote in history now seemingly assured.

In other areas, macOS Sierra is being beta tested by enough people for it to show on the Netmarketshare numbers, appearing at 0.04%.

The current version, 10.11, was down this month to 4.38 (-0.31) while its predecessor, 10.10, held more or less steady at 1.73 (-0.02). Other versions were down to 1.21 (-0.21).

Even Linux took a hit, this time dropping to 2.11 (-0.22).

In essence things are finally looking up for Microsoft. Windows 10 is still proving to be a success even with the cost associated to it and this is despite them having to revise down a promise of one billion machines by the middle of 2017.

It appears that Windows 10 could make it on to one-in-four PCs and laptops by the end of the year, even with the meltdown of Windows Phone, where sales have dropped into the BlackBerry field, it really is showing that Windows is, altogether, less popular than Google’s Android operating system.