Windows 8 vies with Vista, but Windows 7 gains

Oops, Windows 7 gains in May, though Windows 8 makes headway against Vista.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor

Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.

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Brooke Crothers

June 1, 2013 5:21 p.m. PT

Windows 8 is making slow but steady gains. Net Applications

Pop open the champagne. Windows 8 may be on the verge of claiming installation share victory over Vista.

The latest figures from Net Applications show Windows 8 with a 4.27 percent share of PCs installed worldwide in May (up from 3.84 percent in April) versus 4.51 percent for Vista.

Vista, one of Microsoft's least popular OSes, was introduced in November of 2006.

Then again, maybe we're breaking out the champagne too soon. Windows 7 still leads by a long shot at 44.85 percent and it actually made gains in May, up from 44.72 percent in April.

And Vista was up in Steam's rankings to 7.25 percent in May from 7.06 percent in April.

Windows XP installations were down in May to 37.74 percent from 38.31 percent in April.

(Via Neowin)