Windows by the numbers: Sanity returns as Windows 7 sheds user share
A kind of sanity returned to Windows' status in May as the outgoing Windows 7 finally dropped some significant user share while Windows 10 padded its tally.
According to U.S.-based analytics vendor Net Applications, Windows 7 sloughed off 1.8 percentage points last month, accounting for 41.8% of the user share of all personal computers and 47.3% of all those running Windows in May. (The second number is larger than the first because Windows powered 88.4% of all PCs, not 100%.)
May's decline was the largest in nearly two years, excepting a late-2017 reset when Net Applications purged its data of criminal bot traffic.
The change from past months was dramatic: In both March and April, Windows 7 gained ground, exactly the opposite of what Microsoft wants to see as it pushes customers to adopt Windows 10 and rid themselves of the older Windows 7.