The case for supporting Windows 7 in 2022

[publicdomain]

December 2021. It is again that time of the year to review current market-share trends and plan on what to support during the following 12 months.

There are not set rules. Some go by the actually-supported systems as per the companies' schedule, some go by installed user base numbers, some simply keep supporting whatever pays them as their only variable.

In my case, I tend to lean on the user side to choose. I've noticed a clear pattern of supporting Windows versions some years after their official end-of-life date due to the users' keenness to keep them installed.

My educated guess for W7: same as Windows XP and the others before it. After official EOL, a chunk of users cling to their installed system during some more years. They're reluctant to try the new one(s) until "peer pressure" (is it work/market pressure?) convinces them of upgrading their systems... or they simply acquire a new machine as a natural step of life

A short visit to the good ol' Statcounter site reveals the following:

Desktop Windows Version Market Share Worldwide - November 2021

• Win10 82.45%
• Win7 12.76%
• Win8.1 3.16%
• Win8 0.9%
• WinXP 0.5%
• WinVista 0.2%

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worldwide

Other sources like Statista have published a longer-term chart:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/993868/worldwide-windows-operating-system-market-share/

Very illustrative I must say. Has it at 14.77% (September).

12-14% is healthy enough to grant one more year!

So, I've decided to support Windows 7 for the whole 2022

Vic

[Deozaan]

Your post reminded me of the Steam hardware survey. Windows users make up 96.04% of all Steam users as of November 2021:

1. Windows 10 64 bit - 83.38%
2. Windows 11 64 bit - 8.28%
3. Windows 7 64 bit - 3.34%
4. Windows 8.1 64 bit - 0.74%
5. Windows 7 - 0.21%
6. Windows 10 - 0.09%
7. Windows 8 64 bit - 0.05%

I was surprised to see that nearly 10% of Windows users on Steam are already running Windows 11. But that's mostly because I forgot Windows 11 was even a thing.

[nickodemos]

I was surprised to see that nearly 10% of Windows users on Steam are already running Windows 11. But that's mostly because I forgot Windows 11 was even a thing.

Same thing here. Not even really thinking about 11 yet.

[allen]

I was surprised to see that nearly 10% of Windows users on Steam are already running Windows 11. But that's mostly because I forgot Windows 11 was even a thing.

Same thing here. Not even really thinking about 11 yet.

Pretty sure I upgraded to Win 11 last time I was there, but it's so rare I boot that partition it's hard to say for sure. Win 7 was a long time ago! I just can't imagine being so rooted in a version of anything I refrain from upgrading that long. If I really wanted something that just-worked without reinventing itself every cycle, I'd use Linux. As far as support goes, though, yup... meet your users where they are unless outdated software/APIs are holding back development.

[publicdomain]

Windows 7 market share still @ 5.39%:

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worldwide



That's higher than Windows 8 and 8.1 combined! We are supporting it for some more time...