While Microsoft ended support for the operating system a year ago, Windows 7 still continues to run on at least 100 million computers.
In various analytics papers, ZDNet has evaluated the proportion of PCs still running Windows 7. Although Windows 7 is pegged at varying ratios of market share by each data source, most accept that the OS still accounts for about 20 percent of PCs.
For years, Microsoft has said that there are 1.5 billion Windows users spanning various versions worldwide. Due to the various approaches used by analytics firms, it is hard to get an exact number of Windows 7 users, but it is at least 100 million.
If you reduce the Microsoft estimation of 1.5 billion Windows users to just one billion (1 billion Windows 10 users are active), then Windows 7 is still on a vast number of PCs. In fact, more than 200 million devices worldwide may still be in use.
Windows 7 support ended in January 2020, nearly 11 years after the first launch of the OS with its ad campaign “I’m a PC, and Windows 7 was my idea”.
It quickly became a hugely popular version of Windows, especially with companies. Last year, it was evident from looking at the operating system’s market share that it would take a year or two to bring Windows 7 firmly below 10% of the market share.
For Windows 7, it may take a lot longer to finally vanish, especially after a year when most have turned to remote work and homeschooling PCs.
A rise in PC demand and use due to the pandemic was stated by Microsoft. It is possible that part of the use of that PC also came from households dusting off old PCs and laptops that they haven’t used often, and Windows 7 may still be running some of these machines.