Windows 7 finally dethroned its older brother Windows XP as the number one desktop operating system in the United States. According to StatCounter, Windows 7 has a 31.71 percent market share in the United States. It has a very slight lead over Windows XP, which has a 31.56 percent market share.
In the global market, Windows XP still has a commendable lead with a 46.87 percent of the OS market. It is followed by Windows 7 and Windows Vista. It should be noted that a large percentage of the Windows XP in used are pirated copies.
Microsoft improved its anti-piracy features with the Windows 7, which makes it harder to counterfeit its latest OS. But the measures are not impossible to crack, as seen with the pirated copies spreading around the world.
StatCounter can’t differentiate between legal and pirated copies of the operating system from the data it gets from the visitors of the web sites that it monitors. This would be one of the reasons why Windows XP is still the top OS across the globe.
Windows 7 is now the top operating system in the United States and its popularity will grow every year as both consumers and businesses will migrate to the current OS. Hopefully Windows 7 can gain more share of the market before Windows 8 is launched.
