14 DAY TRIAL // One of Microsoft’s biggest challenges these days is to move users from Windows XP to a newer platform, be it Windows 7 or Windows 8, both of which are supposed to provide superior security and stability.
At the same time, consumers are slowly giving up on Windows Vista, most likely in an attempt to get better performance and new features already available in a newer version of the operating system.
But according to market researcher Net Applications, both Windows XP and Vista are slowly dying, with more and more users jumping ship these days.
As far as September 2013 is concerned, Windows XP dropped to a market share of 31.38 percent, down from 33.66 percent in August. Windows Vista, on the other hand, lost 0.22 percent of its users before eventually stopping at 3.89 percent.
If the same trend is maintained in the next months, Windows XP might indeed lose users a lot faster than Vista, but I’m pretty sure that many people will stick to the ancient OS beyond its retirement date.
As a result, Vista is slowly but surely going dark, even though Microsoft isn’t yet planning to discontinue it. Extended support for Windows Vista is set to end on April 11, 2017 and mainstream support is no longer offered.