Microsoft Windows Vista was released into retail on January 30, 2007, and there’s not been many nice words said about it since. It suffered from being incompatible with much of existing hardware and software, problems with drivers, imposing annoying security procedures on users, and more.
It seemed like everyone loved to hate poor Vista, enough to earn it a spot on the list of “Top ten terrible tech products.”
So today we can say happy fifth birthday to Windows Vista. But what does it look like around the world when it comes to the use of Vista? Is anyone still using the much-maligned OS?
Still more popular than Mac OS X
In StatCounter’s most recent figures for January 2012, Windows Vista is still the third most used OS in the world, commanding a 10.5% share of the desktop OS market. But Windows XP, released in 2001, lands at almost 35%, crushing its younger sibling.
And with Windows 7 at 44% worldwide, only about two and a half years after release, it would seem clear that users have wanted to avoid Vista, either by never upgrading, or upgrading just as fast as they can.
But that doesn’t mean Windows Vista is not used at all, far from it. In fact, looking at 216 countries around the world, using StatCounter’s data, it’s clear that many millions of people around the world still use Vista. In the map, the redder a country is, the more popular Windows Vista is there.
From this we get some key numbers:
- 84.2% – Out of the 216 countries included in our list, in 182 of them Windows Vista is the third most commonly used desktop OS, after Windows 7 and Windows XP.
- 19.06% – The highest percentage of Windows Vista usage is in Ireland.
- 1.03% – The lowest Windows Vista usage is in Cuba.
- 16 – The number of countries where Mac OS X is bigger than Windows Vista.
- 2 – The number of countries where Linux is bigger than Windows Vista.
What about Windows 8?
Even as Windows Vista celebrates its birthday, the OS is still hanging in there, with up to 20% of people browsing the web in some countries still using it.
Back in 2010, Windows 7 overtook Vista in just nine months. We can predict with quite some confidence that Windows 8, when it’s released later this year, will not overtake Windows 7 with the same speed.
If you’re still running Windows Vista, are you likely to upgrade to Windows 8 once it’s available?
