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The case for supporting Windows 7 in 2022

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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:


* Windows 10 64 bit - 83.38%
* Windows 11 64 bit - 8.28%
* Windows 7 64 bit - 3.34%
* Windows 8.1 64 bit - 0.74%
* Windows 7 - 0.21%
* Windows 10 - 0.09%
* Windows 8 64 bit - 0.05%
--- End quote ---

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. ;D

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. ;D
-Deozaan (December 06, 2021, 09:44 PM)
--- End quote ---

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. ;D
-Deozaan (December 06, 2021, 09:44 PM)
--- End quote ---

Same thing here. Not even really thinking about 11 yet.
-nickodemos (December 07, 2021, 12:00 AM)
--- End quote ---

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

The case for supporting Windows 7 in 2022

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

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