[citation][nom]tommysch[/nom]On steam:Windows 7 64 bit - 38.57%Windows XP 32 bit - 19.98%Windows Vista 32 bit - 12.54%Windows Vista 64 bit - 11.68%Windows 7 32 bit - 10.13%MacOS 10.6.7 64 bit - 4.43%Windows XP 64 bit - 0.95%[/citation]
That is gamer stats, which is pretty useful info. But it doesn't reflect the entire world... in which MOST PCs are NOT used for playing games. My desktop has STEAM, my ThinkPad and iPad do not.
In the big scheme of things, Win7 has passed XP for license installs. Vista never made it past 25% install rate (which I predicted). There are still millions of pirated XP in use as well.
[citation][nom]tommysch[/nom]I work in IT and I loved Vista when it came out. The only problem was the sound driver debacle with Creative. The thing is that I didnt try to piggy back it on a P4 with 256MB of RAM.[/citation]
There were video driver issues, and many people had issues with Vista with 1~2GB of RAM installed. Vista didn't offer any user experience improvement over XP. Oh, for fun - I've installed Win7 on a P4 with 256mb of RAM... still ran better than Vista with 1GB.
[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]no all the hate on vista is pure ignorance. it came from all the people who bought a copy of vista and expected it to run on there 800mhz PC's with 256-512MB of ram. the hate on vista was just plain ignorance[/citation]
Thats your fantasy. Even an MS executive sent out the email about his $3000 POS Vista system. An ex-GF grandma's HP with Celeron 300mhz XP box died when Vista was a few months old... since she only does a bit of wordprocessing and Solitaire - a $450 HP with P4-Class Celeron at 3ghz /512mb should do (it was 8:50pm and she didn't leave us much options). The HP computer is NEW, in a box... it was horrible horrible slow. IT was sooo much slower than her dead computer. I even added a free stick of 1GB I had laying around, still ran like crap. It damn computer was TOO slow for a 75 year old WOMAN! I disabled the things not needed (She didn't need internet)
She call me every other week... computer slow, Solitaire crashed, the PC wouldn;t shut down, wouldn't boot up. After 2 months, she bought XP-OEM for $100 and I wiped her PC and installed it for her. Never EVER a peep from her again about the computer.
Truth: Vista is slow at a lot of things, unless you throw a lot of horse power at it... Why the hell should someone require a $400+ quad core CPU and 8GB of RAM to check their email? (back then) Even Toms did an article comparing the memory management between Win7 and Vista. Each open window ate resources out the butt.
And before I murdered Vista off that HP, I DL the XP drivers (hidden on HPs FTP servers) and Vista reports it will take 4~5 minutes to unpack a 40mb audio driver ZIP file?! I stopped it, copied the drivers to my key in ZIP form. Killed vista, install XP which unpacked the same 40mb ZIP file in about 15 seconds. Yeah, Vista is faster.... not!
Hey, Win7 still a bit slow on unzipping file.
When I had 1GB on my ThinkPad (bottom end Core2 CPU), I can do most of my work and still have about 200~300mb free (XP it would be closer to 600mb).
[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]I agree with the principle, even if the number might be a bit off.Think about every computer sitting in a box in BestBuy or Staples. Think about every physical copy of Windows 7 (Home, Pro, Ultimate) sitting on the shelves. [/citation]
A) Shelves are restocked.
B) Most of those boxes are EMPTY, you buy the software and the actual box is given to you afterwards (Costco / Frys, Sams, etc)
[citation][nom]mchuf[/nom]Since 2 gb of ram is recommended for Vista. People with only 1gb should wonder why it's so damn slow. Hell, 1 gb of ram in XP is kinda slow.[/citation]
XP for office and general use is fine at 1GB. I ran Win7 with 1GB for a year on my ThinkPad with barely an issue. I've seen Vista run like crap with 2GB... optimal vista is 64bit with 6~8GB of RAM for general use. Why? Vista memory system is shit. It offered pretty much nothing over XP, the GUI wasn't nothing more than a skin job.