Windows 10 passes the 50% share mark

Windows 10 in May added another 1.6 percentage points to its user share total, finally pushing the four-year-old operating system over the 50% mark.
 
According to California web analytics vendor Net Applications, Windows 10's share of the PCs running Windows reached 51.8% last month, the first time the OS accounted for a majority. Windows 10's May growth put it at 45.7% of all personal computers. (The first number was significantly larger than the second because Windows does not power every personal computer; in May, Windows ran 88.3% of the world's machines. All but a tiny fraction of the rest ran macOS, Linux or Chrome OS.)
 
May's gain was only about half that in March, when Windows 10 went on a binge and added a record 3.3 points, the most since August 2015 when Microsoft was offering a free upgrade for consumers. But it was the sixth in the past year where the increase was of one or more percentage points.
 
 Meanwhile, Windows 7 fell one point in May, sliding to 35.4% of all PCs and 40.1% of those running Windows. The dead-OS-walking Windows XP - which recently was patched by Microsoft, five years after its official retirement - also shed some weight, dispensing with two-tenths of a point, ending at 2.2% of all PCs and 2.5% of the PCs powered by Windows.
 
Windows 8 and 8.1 - Computerworld tosses both in the same bucket - got with the program, too, as between them they lost two-tenths of a percentage point, dwindling to 4.8% of all personal computers and 5.4% of those running Windows.
 
In general terms, Windows played out May as it should have, with the newest edition gaining ground and all its ancestors giving up share.
 
 

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