Windows 7 still appears to be running on at least 100 million machines, despite Microsoft ending support for the operating system a year ago. ZDNet has analyzed the proportion of PCs that still run Windows 7 in several analytical reports. While each data source fixes Windows 7 at different percentages of market share, most agree that the operating system still accounts for about 20% of PCs.
Microsoft has said for years that there are 1.5 billion Windows users in various versions worldwide. It is difficult to get an exact number of Windows 7 users due to the different methods used by analytics companies, but it is at least 100 million. If you reduce Microsoft’s estimate of 1.5 billion Windows users to just 1 billion (there are 1 billion active Windows 10 users), Windows 7 will still be on a huge number of PCs. In reality, it can still be used by more than 200 million devices worldwide.
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Support for Windows 7 ended in January 2020, almost 11 years after the operating system was launched with its “I’m a PC, and Windows 7 was my idea” marketing campaign. It quickly became an extremely popular version of Windows, especially among companies. It was clear, looking at the market share of the operating system last year, that it would take a year or two to bring Windows 7 firmly below 10% of the market.
It may take even more time for Windows 7 to finally disappear, especially after a year when many chose PCs for remote work and home teaching. Microsoft has reported an increase in PC demand and usage due to the pandemic. It is likely that part of that PC usage also came from families dusting off old PCs and laptops that they didn’t use often, and some of these devices may still be running Windows 7.
Of course, the pandemic also influenced the PC market last year. We are still waiting for PC estimates from Gartner and IDC, but some analysts believe that we could have seen almost 300 million PCs sold in 2020 alone. That would be a significant change for the PC market, after PCs saw a first year of growth since 2011 during 2019. This growth was driven by the end of support for Windows 7, and most analysts did not expect the market to grow yet. more over 2020.