Windows 7 has achieved twice the usage share Vista hit in the first five months since its launch, says Net Applications.
According to the web metrics firm, Windows 7, which shipped on October 22 last year, accounted for nine percent of all operating systems in use online.
By comparison, Vista had a 4.5 percent share five months after its late-January 2007 release to retail.
Windows 7's trajectory has been faster than Vista's ever since the former's release, with the newer operating system beating Vista to the 4 percent mark by several months.
By the end of January 2010, Windows 7's usage share was 7.5 percent, also double the 3.75 percent that Vista enjoyed by the end of its fourth month.
"Looking at the trends, the [Windows 7] growth rate seems to be strong and consistent, with no visible decline," said Vince Vizzaccaro, executive vice president with NetApplications.
Vizzaccaro also noted that the difference in Windows 7's weekend and weekday scores has been increasing, a sign that, "personal usage is growing faster than corporate usage, which fits the expectations".
In the past, Vizzaccaro has explained that the usage share of newer versions of Windows climbs on weekends as a greater percentage of computers online are home machines.
Enterprises traditionally lag behind consumers in the uptake for new versions of Windows.
Microsoft's operating systems accounted for a combined 92% of all OSes powering computers that went online last month.
The bulk of that, 66.3 percent, was Windows XP, with Vista at 17.4 percent. Apple's Mac OS X controlled just 5.1 percent of the usage market.
If the trends of the last three months persist, Windows 7 will overtake Vista as the second-most popular operating system - and grab the number 2 spot behind XP - by June.
NetApplications measures operating system usage by tracking machines that visit the 40,000 sites it monitors for clients, which results in a pool of about 160 million unique visitors per month.
Comments
Sirjohng said: I would have tried Windows 7 by now if Microsoft had provided an upgrade path for it from XP which is fine I have 6 PCs each of which would take around 6 hours to change over and some require expensive upgrading in order to do so
Mike J said: Thanks for the comments guys XP gets the job done dunnit
Rob_08 said: Hi Mike JBought Windows 7 pro back in September for 83 Retail still havent installed it as i havent found a reason to do so yet XP is still running everything i need and im a bit loathe to change for changings sake Might eventually but only when i find a valid reason to do so
Cyteck said: Hello Mike JHay 100 Nothing wrong with windows XP its an excellent OS Ive used XP it since it first came out up until recently However having migrated to windows 7 I really like seven its also a very high quality product and I can highly recommend it to you when you eventually decide to make a change to your system Ive been using win7 since its launch and Im very happy with it
Mike J said: I feel like a dinosaur still running XP but apparently I am not alone I will switch to 7 or maybe its successor only when this bargain-basement Acer desktop croaks