Did Windows XP, a PC operating system that's over 10 years old, actually gain some new users in January? That's what the newest report from Net Applications claims. The report shows that Microsoft's OS is not only the world's most used PC operating system but in January 2012 it had a worldwide market share of 47.19 percent. That's higher than December 2011's 46.52 percent.
While the report does claim that it is based on preview data that has not been reviewed by the company's Quality Assurance team, the fact that the data even suggests a rise in Windows XP is interesting.
Microsoft's latest OS, Windows 7, lost some market share in January. The report claims that Windows 7 is now used by 36.40 percent of PCs worldwide, down compared to 36.99 percent in December 2011. Windows Vista had 8.22 percent of the PC OS market share in January, followed by Mac OS X 10.6 at 2.95 percent, Mac OS X 10.7 at 2.18 and "other" operating systems at 3.06 percent.
Microsoft has been trying to get the message out that it will be shutting down its official Windows XP support in less than 800 days from now. It has been urging businesses to upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as possible, not only because of Microsoft's support deadline but also because of security concerns that could enable hackers to attack the older OS.
Microsoft still plans to launch its latest Windows OS, Windows 8, before the end of 2012, with a public beta release planned for the end of February.
Image via Net Applications
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