uk Windows 7 still being sold on up to 93% of British PCs

[vcfan]

Huh. Do you have a source for that?

Demand for Windows 8 touch-screen PCs is strong, according to two analysts who spoke with CNET.

"Touch machines are actually selling above expectations," said Bob O'Donnell, a program vice president at IDC.

And that means supply shortages. "Some vendors are actually facing shortages because touch panels are in limited supply. Vendors are saying they can't get as many touch-based machines as they would like to meet the demand that they're seeing."

Rhoda Alexander, an analyst at IHS iSuppli, echoed O'Donnell's comments. "We've talked to a number of PC makers that are having trouble obtaining touch panels and some of the vendors I've talked to said they can't keep them on the shelf," she said.

And Microsoft has said as much. Tami Reller, chief marketing and financial officer for Windows, said last week that there are "not enough" touch devices on store shelves.

http://news.cnet.com...-demand-strong/

some Microsoft Stores also sold out of a $1,500 touch-enabled Ultrabook from Sony. ?Sony Vaio Touch Intel i7 was the fastest selling Windows 8 notebook in the high-end category,? Chowdhry added.

While this may be the year that the desktop PC died, Dell has not given up on the market. And it?s a good thing, too ? if it had, it could not have built the fastest-selling all-in-one Windows 8 desktop. On Black Friday, Dell?s XPS One 27 earned that crown.

Chowdhry said that while he could not get any color on the number of units available, the converged view was that the ?demand was too high? for Dell?s $2,000 machine.

http://www.forbes.co...indows-8-sales/

go around and search,theres a ton of these articles about windows 8 touch devices being in high demand. Dell said these devices are in high demand. HP just came out recently and said things are starting to ramp up with windows 8 and its devices.

[The Evil Overlord]

http://news.cnet.com...-demand-strong/

http://www.forbes.co...indows-8-sales/

go around and search,theres a ton of these articles about windows 8 touch devices being in high demand. Dell said these devices are in high demand. HP just came out recently and said things are starting to ramp up with windows 8 and its devices.

I'm sorry, but what did that have to do with this topic?

[vcfan]

I'm sorry, but what did that have to do with this topic?

maybe if you read the previous posts you would know.

[The Evil Overlord]

"I don?t remember this with people upgrading from Windows XP."

Strange, because England held onto Windows XP for dear life after the release of Windows Vista and even Windows 7.

And it still has one of the best enterprise editions, not to mention offices and supermarket checkout machines still running just fine on xp

Amazing that It's still going strong for it's age

[+Warwagon MVC]

don't think windows 8 that much faster than windows 7 is both have an SSD.

[Noir Angel]

I believe I saw that here on Neowin years ago before I signed up. I cannot find it now.

I don't really see XP on that many machines now apart from older machines that can't run here. Businesses are admittedly slow in migrating, but businesses are always slow in migrating. The impression that I get is that most of our public like using Windows 7. I'm yet to meet anyone that likes Windows 8 however.

[The Evil Overlord]

maybe if you read the previous posts you would know.

Err nope, still don't know.

[Noir Angel]

don't think windows 8 that much faster than windows 7 is both have an SSD.

Windows 8 does admittedly boot insanely quickly on an SSD if you use the hybrid boot mode, before 8 started failing on me I was booting to desktop in about 5 seconds. However if you have hybrid boot disabled it seemed if anything a touch slower than Windows 7. Drive reads and writes are about the same. Other problem is that it doesn't seem to clear the hibernation file, I had a problem with hybrid boot and I had to disable and then re-enable hibernation to clear it.

[The Evil Overlord]

don't think windows 8 that much faster than windows 7 is both have an SSD.

To each, their own bud. (I never saw the ultra fast startup or the high speed interactivity neither, but then I was testing on dual core athlons and 7200 rpm drives)

[Silver47]

93%? Wow, such a high number! Ohh wait this is just from one source :/. Good old sensationalist headlines for the win eh?

[+Warwagon MVC]

To each, their own bud. (I never saw the ultra fast startup or the high speed interactivity neither, but then I was testing on dual core athlons and 7200 rpm drives)

I'm taking the hibernation trickery out of the equation.

[Noir Angel]

Ahh yes, if you disable that there's no difference. I admit I do miss hybrid boot now I'm back with Windows 7 but given that I kinda need my USB devices to work I feel I had no choice :p

[The Evil Overlord]

I'm taking the hibernation trickery out of the equation.

Oh, was that how it was done? Lol I've never used hibernate, have it disabled on my machines, partly because of the amount of space it takes up and because I never felt my pc bootup was far too slow.

[MorganX]

IMO 7 is the best Windows OS by miles, the new XP

I don't agree. 8 is technically better. But I don't disagree. Microsoft doesn't have it's application act together, there's no compelling reason to move to Windows 8 for most people. No reason to put up with the UI annoyances. And the Music App is a giant leap backwards.

[matt4444]

+1 what driver issues really?

Possibly the digitally signed drivers feature, which can cause problems with some programs?

[Noir Angel]

Possibly the digitally signed drivers feature, which can cause problems with some programs?

That's always been a feature in 64 bit editions of Windows. Have they started enforcing it on 32 bit as well? Never been an issue for me as almost all modern hardware now has proper 64 bit support

[matt4444]

That's always been a feature in 64 bit editions of Windows. Have they started enforcing it on 32 bit as well? Never been an issue for me as almost all modern hardware now has proper 64 bit support

Not sure about 32-bit, but in 64-bit Windows 8, there are a lot of compatibility errors with some programs and devices whether the feature on or off.

[Wyrdstorm]

I work as an IT Support Officer and not 1 person in my department, or that i know, are using Windows 8 due to the UI changes etc, Win7 is perfect for our uses so seems we are sticking with it, I can see a use on touch screens, thats about it really...I did buy a copy when it was ?25 upgrade to see what it was like, I took it off after 5 mins...but each to their own really...

[Noir Angel]

Not sure about 32-bit, but in 64-bit Windows 8, there are a lot of compatibility errors with some programs and devices whether the feature on or off.

Never run into any of those problems myself apart from apps that are either insanely ancient, or rely on 16 bit support (Which frankly should have died years ago anyway). I've been using 64 bit windows for about 5 years now and the only application that's not worked properly for me in that time was the original Trackmania game, and that was only due to the dated version of Starforce it shipped with.

[BajiRav]

Possibly the digitally signed drivers feature, which can cause problems with some programs?

That's been a feature since Windows XP 64bit, nothing new with Windows 8.

Not sure about 32-bit, but in 64-bit Windows 8, there are a lot of compatibility errors with some programs and devices whether the feature on or off.

If a driver or program works with Windows 7, it will work with Windows 8. That's been my experience with Windows 8, not sure what the article really talking about. You will only need to worry about stuff like AV or Firewall (which I don't use and have no experience). I have upgraded my wife's late 2009 vaio laptop, my own mid-2011 custom built PC and a friend's early 2010 vaio laptop to Windows 8. All of them work just fine out of the box and have no compatibility issues with either drivers or apps.

[jakem1]

What percentage of PC sales do these shops represent? I'm willing to bet it's very small.

This is totally anecdotal but I was talking to someone at work today who has to buy his wife a laptop and was saying that it's impossible to get one without Windows 8. I think it's pretty safe to say that most PCs sold in the UK come with Win8.

[torrentthief]

I think the reason why microsoft is forcing people to use metro is that they want people to use the app store and take 30% of their money. Unfortunately very few people are using win8 so they are making 30% of very little :p

Btw win8 does have driver problems, my laptop showed the yellow exclamation sign in system-devices, couldn't figure out which driver i was missing. Nvidia's latest graphics drivers has a lengthy changelog fixing win8 bugs so clearly there are still lots of windows 8 driver bugs, so if people could stop saying it doesn't have any driver problems that would be great.

[Detection]

Btw win8 does have driver problems, my laptop showed the yellow exclamation sign in system-devices, couldn't figure out which driver i was missing. Nvidia's latest graphics drivers has a lengthy changelog fixing win8 bugs so clearly there are still lots of windows 8 driver bugs, so if people could stop saying it doesn't have any driver problems that would be great.

My laptop seems fine driver wise, but my desktop had all kinds of problems with 8, drivers, metro, everything, it was a glitchy POS on here

[Noir Angel]

What percentage of PC sales do these shops represent? I'm willing to bet it's very small.

This is totally anecdotal but I was talking to someone at work today who has to buy his wife a laptop and was saying that it's impossible to get one without Windows 8. I think it's pretty safe to say that most PCs sold in the UK come with Win8.

He's right. When new versions of windows get released shops have a tendency to try and clear the stock of old ones pretty quickly so they can push new stuff out the door more quickly. I can't say for certain but I'd wager the companies receive some kind of commission.

That's been a feature since Windows XP 64bit, nothing new with Windows 8.

If a driver or program works with Windows 7, it will work with Windows 8. That's been my experience with Windows 8, not sure what the article really talking about. You will only need to worry about stuff like AV or Firewall (which I don't use and have no experience). I have upgraded my wife's late 2009 vaio laptop, my own mid-2011 custom built PC and a friend's early 2010 vaio laptop to Windows 8. All of them work just fine out of the box and have no compatibility issues with either drivers or apps.

Avast is unfortunately still a bit buggy. It makes media centre crash on Windows 8 if you don't exclude it from the behaviour shield, and it makes Outlook 2013 crash on 7 and 8 when you send outbound mail. Hopefully that will be fixed.

My laptop seems fine driver wise, but my desktop had all kinds of problems with 8, drivers, metro, everything, it was a glitchy POS on here

Same here. Initially worked fine, then my USB devices just started to malfunction for no reason. Even failed when I switched USB 3.0 off. Never had those issues with Windows 7. I still get the feeling personally that they rushed somewhat.

[Silver47]

What percentage of PC sales do these shops represent? I'm willing to bet it's very small.

This is totally anecdotal but I was talking to someone at work today who has to buy his wife a laptop and was saying that it's impossible to get one without Windows 8. I think it's pretty safe to say that most PCs sold in the UK come with Win8.

Yep, only these online stores think sell them still. Would it still be easy to get Windows 7 Licences? If not, they how long will this last?