Unsurprisingly, Windows 7’s end of life (EoL) has resulted in myriad Microsoft fans flocking to the American firm’s newest operating system – Windows 10. Of course, that has given Windows 10 a healthy boost as the most popular desktop operating system on the planet. Microsoft recently discussed its financial results for Q2 in FY20 (the current fiscal year that runs from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020), and although the firm was keen to highlight its soaring cloud computing performance, Windows also performed remarkably well, too.
As noted by ZDNet, Windows 10 Home grew by four percent when compared to the same quarter in the last fiscal year. That’s particularly notable because that’s the first time consumer revenue for Windows has climbed in a year. Additionally, Windows Pro OEM revenue (that’s the number of PCs with Windows installations pre-loaded on them) was also up 27 percent year-over-year.
Of course, much of that increase in consumer revenue was put down to users migrating from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Microsoft cut off support for Windows 7 on January 14 this year but gave users plenty of time to either update their existing PC, or save up for new hardware with Windows 10 pre-installed.
According to data from NetMarketShare, Windows 10 has been steadily gaining users from February 2019 until now. As you’d expect, Windows 7 market share has fallen during the same period as Microsoft fans make the jump from the once ubiquitous operating system.
It actually took until December of 2018 for Windows 10 to finally overtake Windows 7 in terms of market share following its release back in 2015.
NetMarketShare claims as of January this year, Windows 10 holds a commanding 57.08 percent of the world’s desktop market share, up from 53.36 percent the previous month. Windows 7 is still the world’s second most popular operating system despite its support from Microsoft ending.
Apple’s macOS Mojave – the fifteenth major release of macOS that launched back in 2018 – is listed as having a mere 3.12 percent of global desktop market share by comparison, down from 3.29 percent the month prior. This is the most popular version of macOS as listed by NetMarketShare.
In the coming months Windows 10 will receive its first of two substantial updates for the year. Dubbed 20H1, the new upgrade is anticipated to introduce a variety of notable upgrades for Microsoft fans.
Windows 10 20H1 will soup-up Microsoft’s chatty virtual assistant with what the firm is dubbing a “new Cortana experience”. This will allow users to type questions to Cortana rather than having to use their voice.
Microsoft will also invite Windows 10 users to go “passwordless” in 20H1, too. Preview builds of the new software have suggested it’ll emphasise using Windows Hello and PIN passwords instead of traditional combinations comprised of letters, numbers and symbols.
Assuming the Redmond firm follows tradition, we could see Windows 10 20H1 land in April.