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Two thirds of PC Advisor readers still use Windows XP

July 16, 2009

Windows XPIn the final months of Windows Vista's reign as the top dog at Microsoft, around 64 percent of PC Advisor users are still running Windows XP on their PCs.

According to anonymous user stats gathered via our free online 'PC Performance Monitor' tool, around 34 percent of PC Advisor users are running Windows Vista, with the remaining 2 percent already enjoying some variant of the Windows 7 Beta/RC.

Such stats may explain Microsoft's keenness to get Windows 7 on to store shelves - nearly three years after Vista was completed, two thirds of PC Advisor's tech-savvy users have remained with XP, and a small percentage prefer to use an upcoming OS that as yet remains in beta.

PC Performance Monitor enables PC Advisor readers to monitor system, process, and network performance while contributing to a global repository of information that yields an unprecedented, real-time image of Windows-based system performance and behaviour. To date around 4,000 PC Advisor users have signed up.

Visit www.pcadvisor.co.uk/pc-performance-monitor to find out more and sign up for free today.

Of the minority of PC Advisor users that have 'upgraded' to Windows Vista and continue to use the maligned OS, 75 percent have also updated their machine to Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1), while 19 percent have installed SP2. Of the majority Windows XP users, 57 percent have adopted Service Pack 3, while the rest are still on XP SP2.

In terms of hardware, nearly 7 percent of PC Advisor users are running with quad-core CPUs, while more than a quarter (26 percent) have more than 2GB of RAM installed.

Sixteen percent of PC Performance Monitor users have Dell PCs, with 8 percent using HP systems, followed by Packard Bell (7 percent), Acer (5 percent) and Toshiba (4 percent).

Interestingly, fully 52 percent of PC Advisor's PC Performance Monitor user base is running an off-brand or custom/homebrew system.

Posted by: Matt Egan

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Comments

Posted by Peter on July 17, 2009 :

By the sounds of it many of the none 'home brew' users are using laptops while the majority of the desktop brigade prefer a bit of DIY. Probably down to the control that building your own PC gives you. I couldn't now imagine buying an off the shelf desktop system.

Posted by BLUEHAZEMAN on August 8, 2009 :

Some very interesting stats Matt, i`m one of the majority of users who`s stayed with XP SP2, does what it says on the tin as they say with no problems, in fact i`m looking to upgrade my laptop to a 2GB unit at the moment but trying to avoid Vista and get XP again, it`ll be interesting to see how Windows 7 is received and whether or not it will tempt the XP users to "upgrade", nearly all my freinds still prefer XP to the much maligned VISTA, if it`s not broken then don`t fix it seams to be the general train of thought, will WIN 7 take the high ground/hit the shelves running ?

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Blogger Daily news, views and thoughts from the PC Advisor staff as they put together the magazine. Collectively the PC Advisor team has over 100 years of computing experience, so as you'll imagine they're never short of an opinion or two.
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