Even though Windows 9 is already on our radars and everyone is keeping an eye on technology websites these days to check out every new leak showing the upcoming operating system in action, others are still switching to Windows 8.1 and aren’t so interested in what comes next.

Living proof is the market share chart for the first 15 days of September 2014, which indicates that Windows 8.1 is growing bigger and bigger and is now very close to getting the same market share as Windows XP.

As most people know by now, Windows XP reached end of support in April 2014, so since then Microsoft is no longer rolling out updates and security patches for this particular operating system.

As a result, Redmond is recommending everyone to upgrade as soon as possible to a newer Windows version, and it turns out that many are actually following the company’s advice.

Windows 8.1 very close to Windows XP

Windows 8.1 has grown so much lately that it now holds almost the same market share as Windows XP, the unsupported operating system that still is the second most used desktop platform across the continent.

While Windows 7 is still leading the market with a share of 55.07 percent, Windows XP is losing users on a regular basis, dropping to 11.82 percent in the first two weeks of this month. Windows 8.1, on the other hand, has increased its share so much that it’s very close to overtaking XP, and if the same trend is maintained in the next couple of weeks, the switch of places could take place by October.

10.65 percent of the computers are now running Windows 8.1 alone, while Windows 8 is far behind with a market share of 5.99 percent.

Windows 8.1 thus has a big chance to become the second most used operating system on the desktop, overtaking Windows XP after years of domination in this particular side of the market.

Windows XP still survives

Windows XP, on the other hand, will still be around for a while, as many users aren’t yet ready to give up on it, especially because they’re still relying on old hardware configurations.

An update to Windows 8.1 or any other new OS would also involve hardware upgrades, which makes the whole process more expensive than what some people might think.

Windows 9, however, is expected to change this a little bit, as people close to the matter believe that Microsoft is making it in such a way that more users would like to update.

Windows 9 is projected to see daylight in April 2015, but the very first beta should arrive by the end of the month.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-8-1-Now-Has-Almost-as-Many-Users-as-Windows-XP-in-Europe-458866.shtml

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