[German]Microsoft's operating system Windows XP, which has long since fallen out of support, continues to run on millions of PCs. These are the new figures from NetmarketShare from August 2020. Here is a quick look at the situation.
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In 2018 I had reported in the German article Windows XP: Nicht tot zu kriegen about the phenomenon that the Microsoft operating system Windows XP, which was released at the turn of the millennium, won't die – even though it no longer receives support. Worldwide, there are still many systems running and in 2018 the share of Windows XP even increased.
What is the situation in August 2020?
In the article OS /Windows/Browser Share (August 2020) I had spread the latest figures on the distribution of desktop operating systems at the end of August 2020. Windows 10 runs on 60.57% of desktop systems as operating system.
(OS Share 8-2020, Source: netmarketshare.com)
I had ignored the figures for Windows XP when I wrote the article. The following tweet brought me back to the topic.
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Techradar had a closer look at the numbers and wrote that Windows XP still runs on 1.26% of the systems. But this is not quite true, as the NetMarketShare value is averaged over the period 8.2019 to 8.2020. From July 2020 to August 2020, NetMarketShare for Windows XP has a value of only 0.80%. However, Windows 8 has a 0.53% share, while Chrome OS sails at 0.38%. Windows Vista is still listed at 0.08%.
Windows XP still runs on millions of desktop systems
However, it can be concluded that Windows XP still runs on millions of desktop systems, although Microsoft has discontinued support as of April 14, 2014. Only companies could buy extended support – and there were probably embedded versions of the operating system that were still being supported until recently. The operating system was released for distribution in 2001.
One year ago, in August 2019, in the German article Windows XP-Systeme bei 1/3 der Firmen im Einsatz I had taken up the topic. At that time we were facing the end of support for Windows 7 on January 14, 2020. A Spiceworks report The Future of Network, which deals with (missing) security aspects in companies, stated at that time that 32% of companies still have Windows XP installed on at least one device in their network.
(Windows OS penetration rates, Source: Spiceworks)
The British Army also still uses Windows XP on its submarines (see Britische Armee nutzt Windows XP? Ja, und Windows ME).
