Unlike Vista before it, Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system has been received with critical acclaim and sales success. The software, launched back in October 2009, became Amazon's highest-grossing pre-order of all time, claimed four per cent market share after just one month at retail and has now surpassed all versions of Apple's Mac OS X in terms of market share.
Given the positive reception from media and consumers alive, the above doesn't come as a surprise. However, Microsoft's bigger challenges have always been to convince two of its toughest customers; enterprise users and gamers.
The latter could be put off by the lack of DirectX 11 gaming titles, and with Windows Vista having struggled to oust Windows XP as the gaming platform of choice, Windows 7 might be up against it. Apparently not. According to the latest information from Steam - one of the world's largest PC gaming platforms - almost a quarter of its millions of users are now running Microsoft's latest OS.
The data, made available as part of Steam's December 2009 hardware survey, highlights that 23 per cent of Steam users are now running Windows 7. That's still less than the 30 per cent of users on Windows Vista, and almost half the 45 per cent figure attached to Windows XP, but it's an impressive slice of the pie considering 7's short run in the market.
What's interesting is that 7 is the first Windows operating system in Steam's hardware survey to feature more 64-bit users than 32-bit, with more than double the Windows 7 install base opting for 64-bit product editions. It's a solid start, but whether or not Windows 7 has the legs to usurp Windows XP as the number one choice among gamers remains to be seen.
Here's how the Steam Windows market share stands as of December 2009:
| Windows Version | Popularity |
|---|---|
| Windows XP 32 bit | (-3.20%) 44.77% |
| Windows Vista 32 bit | (-0.27%) 20.71% |
| Windows 7 64 bit | (+2.45%) 15.61% |
| Windows Vista 64 bit | (+0.81%) 10.00% |
| Windows 7 32 bit | (+0.02%) 7.45% |
| Windows XP 64 bit | (+0.19%) 0.64% |
| Windows 2003 64 bit | (+0.04%) 0.64% |
| Windows 2000 | (-0.01%) 0.10% |
| Other | (-0.03%) 0.08% |
