How Do 400 Million Windows 7 Licenses Compare Against Windows XP and Vista Histo

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mauller07

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i take all this as windows 7 being the decent upgrade from xp, while vista started implementing the features that would be improved in windows 7, it was rushed in places. this caused bad publicity and the decline in uptake of vista. i still know many tech illiterate people who hate vista on its original release even after sp2 helping alleviate many of the problems.
 

hangfirew8

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Vista is still slow to appear to react to user interaction, even after SP2. It doesn't matter if Vista is "faster" than XP by running an app in 30 seconds instead of XP's 32... if it takes 3-4 seconds to give the user feedback that they've even launched the app.

On top of fixing perceived speed, Windows 7 has a significantly better performing TCP/IP stack.

Some folks with overclocked i7 quad cores and 8-16GB of memory say smugly "Vista runs fast for me!" Meanwhile the average Vista user with a slow dual core Turion and 1GB of RAM is wondering if she should double click again, or wait a few more seconds.

In other words... there are still plenty of good reasons to hate on Visa, even for the technically literate.
 
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deleted previous user's innappropriate post.

Evidently you give enough of a &%#$ to bother clicking on the article, scrolling down to the bottom, typing "i don't give a &%#$" and pressing "Submit my comment".

Seems a massive amount of effort to go to for somebody who supposedly doesn't 'give a &%#$'.
 

bloodlust22

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WOW, So in other words alot of OEM's have bought a great deal of keys in bulk. Again, WOW. Instead of MS showing skewed data, Why not show how many of those 400 million keys have actually been activated by a end user? I highly doubt there's 400 million users out there running Windows 7. I would guess maybe 100-150 million are actually running Windows 7 while they other 250 - 300 million are still sitting at Dell, HP, Sony, Store shelves, etc...etc...
 

dark_knight33

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You're article makes quite a bit of assumptions in your analysis, but the way you state your conclusion makes it seem like simple math. The truth of the matter is, the sales figures used are mostly released by Microsoft. Perception is everything; if you want your product to be successful, people need to think it's successful.

W7 may be a better OS than Vista (this is true in my own experience), but given the research figures your article relies on should be taken with a grain of salt, so should your article. ;-)
 

spookyman

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Windows XP came out a year after Windows 2000 was launched. There was no launch party or campaign when it released to push the OS out to the masses compared to 2000, Vista or 7.

 

beavermml

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you know.. i think vista plays a very important part for windows 7.. we all know that vista is so bloated and i cant help wondering that may be microsft purposely did that so it can somehow force us to upgrade our machine ( or buy new one ) in preparation for next windows.. i cannot help wondering that the next windows ( 8? ) will be so bloated that we again have to upgrade our machine or buy a new one just to boot it... so that our pc will be ready for the next windows 9?.. well... i dont think any standard computing ( office, web surfing, etc ) needs more than a core2duo UNLESS the OS really bloated...
 

lradunovic77

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Funny thing is that Windows XP will be still dominant when Windows 8 is released which means that people don't want what MS is trying to push since Windows Vista and that is bloatware OS.
 

f-gomes

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[citation][nom]bloodlust22[/nom]WOW, So in other words alot of OEM's have bought a great deal of keys in bulk. Again, WOW. Instead of MS showing skewed data, Why not show how many of those 400 million keys have actually been activated by a end user? I highly doubt there's 400 million users out there running Windows 7. I would guess maybe 100-150 million are actually running Windows 7 while they other 250 - 300 million are still sitting at Dell, HP, Sony, Store shelves, etc...etc...[/citation]

And how can yuo justify such a guess? Just a hunch? That's worth 0, as I'm sure you know.
 

belardo

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Win2000 didnt have much of a launch... That went to windows ME. Then xp came out soon afterward as the proper os to replace win9x OSes. There was fanfare for xp.

The numbers are even lower for Vista. Why? A lot of people replaced vista with upgrades to XP. And throughout vistas life, xp oem was available. Think pads continued to sell with xp, etc. Keep in mind... Even when a company like Lenovo sold a Thinkpad with xp, it WAS SOLD with a vista licence with an XP option. Ie: if they sold 500,000 with xp, they were only counted as Vista sales.

I only know of one person I meant in rearl life who though Vista was good. I have 2 PCs with Win7... I'd never ever would except vista on my hardware... I'd take xp first. Note: win7 ain't perfect... It's faults are same as vistas.
 

RazberyBandit

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[citation][nom]bloodlust22[/nom]WOW, So in other words alot of OEM's have bought a great deal of keys in bulk. Again, WOW. Instead of MS showing skewed data, Why not show how many of those 400 million keys have actually been activated by a end user? I highly doubt there's 400 million users out there running Windows 7. I would guess maybe 100-150 million are actually running Windows 7 while they other 250 - 300 million are still sitting at Dell, HP, Sony, Store shelves, etc...etc...[/citation]
I kinda said something similar in yesterday's announcement article. The only issue I have with what you've said is that none of the data presented was from Microsoft, save the numbers of licenses sold. Microsoft isn't making any comparative analogy, Wolfgang is.

The sheer number of PCs sold has risen drastically since XP's day, naturally. Why naturally? World population increase is one factor, and progress within nations with economies that have grown over the last ~10 years (India, China, Korea, former Eastern-Bloc, and some Middle East nations) is another. With increased PC demand comes increased OS license sales. So, it's only logical to see Win7 reach XP's total number sold in less time.

Wolfgang's comparison shows that Win7 has sold in a greater ratio to PCs sold than it's predecessors. How many of these licenses are actually in use presently is something we simply don't know. I'd venture to guess many, if not most, as the numbers show Win7 licenses have sold rather steadily over it's short lifetime,
 

bloodlust22

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[citation][nom]f-gomes[/nom]And how can yuo justify such a guess? Just a hunch? That's worth 0, as I'm sure you know.[/citation]

Yes, It is more or less a hunch since no one is actually going to spend millions upon millions to come up with such conclusive data. The reason I make this guess is based on the following. I work in the IT field doing many different things. Based upon what I have seen the ratio of users with XP/Vista to 7 is about 8 to 1. Now, again this is just a hunch, but from personal experience I know there's double the users using XP/VIsta then 7 and that's a fact. With that there would be roughly 1 billion people using XP/Vista. That again is not a accurate total.
 

mchuf

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[citation][nom]hangfirew8[/nom]Meanwhile the average Vista user with a slow dual core Turion and 1GB of RAM is wondering if she should double click again, or wait a few more seconds.In other words... there are still plenty of good reasons to hate on Visa, even for the technically literate.[/citation]

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.
 

hachem

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i remember the time where i preferred the much hated windows me to xp. XP only became enjoyable/workable for me starting from service pack 2, before that, it was sh...
i also learned to enjoy vista, even though it took me an hour to tweak it each time i installed it. so upgrading to windows 7 was indeed a great positive change. i consider windows 7 as the actual vista sp3.
 

cookoy

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only microsoft can have the exact figures of how much licenses were sold. win7 does seem to be the fastest selling one, given that a lot of people were waiting to replace their aging xp or were holding off on using vista. what is interesting is the actual number of xp vs win7 that were in used - from all sources, legally (purchased/licensed) and illegally (pirated, cracked)
 

hellwig

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[citation][nom]bloodlust22[/nom]WOW, So in other words alot of OEM's have bought a great deal of keys in bulk. Again, WOW. Instead of MS showing skewed data, Why not show how many of those 400 million keys have actually been activated by a end user? I highly doubt there's 400 million users out there running Windows 7. I would guess maybe 100-150 million are actually running Windows 7 while they other 250 - 300 million are still sitting at Dell, HP, Sony, Store shelves, etc...etc...[/citation]

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. Think about the millions more computers and retail boxes sitting in the warehouses of Dell, HP, Newegg, etc... Every one of those has a Windows 7 License attached to it, and NONE of them are being used. It's not hard to imagine a few dozen million (maybe 100 million) unused licenses as we speak.

It's the same with the record and book industries. The "sales" numbers for newly released albums and books are the number of units shipped to a retailer. Ever walk into a store and see 100 copies of the same CD marked down to $5? Well, Sony BMG or Warner Bros claimed all 100 of those CDs as sales, even if no one buys them. You ever go to a wholesale/overstock book store? Those books are all returns. The publishers initially claimed them as sales, then the stores returned them (oops), and now they're 3-for-$10. Sure, that latest Vampire thriller sold 10-million copies, but 9-million ended up at a flea-market.

Long story short, the numbers released by the company doing the releasing are pretty meaningless this day and age.
 
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Your statement shows how little you know about retail environments. Most retail stores only pay for books, magazines, movies, and games/software that they sell. Not that they get shipped to them. There are exceptions, but generally if a retailer like Wal-mart, Target, or Best Buy doesn't sell it, then the vendors, merchandisers, and sales representatives from the various distribution companies have to come and pick it back up and take it back. The final word is, the sale is only a sale once it is scanned at the register and removed from the retailer's inventory. This only applies to OS licenses sold to stores as retail box copies, however. Licenses packaged in with whatever garbage is on the shelf in the store are already sold, but those were sold to someone else.

Also, you know very little about manufacturing. Companies do not buy massive amounts of something in order for it to sit in a warehouse waiting to be mated up with other components and a finished product built out of it. Nearly all factories only maintain enough inventory to build a certain amount of product over a certain length of time, and it doesn't make sense to order many hundreds of thousands of something only to wait for it to be mated up with other assembly materials.
 
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