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Topic: Operating Systems

Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

Summary: Microsoft officials said on April 22 that the company has sold 350 million Windows 7 licenses in the 18 months the product has been available.

Mary Jo Foley

By for All About Microsoft |

Microsoft officials said on April 22 that the company has sold 350 million Windows 7 licenses in the 18 months the product has been available.

(Other recent milestones from Microsoft on Windows 7 include 240 million sold in its first year of availability, and 300 million licenses sold as of late January 2011.)

Microsoft doesn't break out in its numbers how many of those licenses are preinstalled on new PCs, sold as upgrades or sold to volume licensees.

Microsoft unveiled in the UK this week a new way to try to help the company sell more Windows PCs to consumers. Microsoft is picking certain models to highlight as being best in category.

The "Windows Collection" subsite on Microsoft's Windows Web page organizes PC by primary function -- "mobile companion," "professional," "gaming," etc. -- and lists several different models at different price points from various vendors. Microsoft officials said the idea is to reduce the emphasis on speeds and feeds, and highlight the differences in design and form factors. Microsoft has been doing something similar for a while with Windows 7, but "The Collection" is an updated presentation of the grouping by function concept.

Topics: Operating Systems, Microsoft, Software, Windows

About

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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  • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

    I have to say I'm not the least bit surprised by this. Win 7 is the best operating system to date released by the strongest software company in the world.

    The only problem Microsoft has created for themselves, is the hard job they have ahead of them improving on Windows 7.
    SonofaSailor
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

      @SonofaSailor <br>LOL, Windows is not the best operating system. In fact it's the worst operating system out there. They are just trying to play catch up with both OS X and Linux but will never succeed in even catching up with them. The only reason they are still selling so many copies is because people are forced to buy Windows when purchasing new computer. Many have never heard of Linux and OS X or used them. An average user will always choose OS X over Windows if they enough money and know about it. Developers love Linux because it's open source. Dude try Linux and OS X before saying that again. PC gaming is dying so the need to use Windows is slowly declining. Am a developer and the only reason I use Windows crap is because of Windows specific crap applications we use at work (Visual C++, 3ds Max). BTW Microsoft will finally implement virtual desktop and a copycat feature of Expose in Windows 8. Enjoy
      shellcodes_coder
      Reply Vote

      • LMAO!!!

        @shellcodes_coder

        Thanks for the good laugh!

        [i]"Developers love Linux because it's open source."[/i]

        Yeah, Dev's love wasting their time on writing software for an operating system that enjoys, what, 1-3% of the market share?

        Um, how's that working out for them?

        Even if you add Mac o/s, you're still talking 10% o/s market share max... I hope y'all charge alot by the copy, because I'm betting you won't sell that many copies.

        As far as "PC gaming is dying"... I'm not so sure, but I'm not a gamer so I coulnd't tell you.

        But, one thing I [i][b]DO[/i][/b] know is... Windows dominates the work environment, and will continue to. As business begin their o/s refresh cycles, they won't be switching to linux or unix, they will upgrade to Windows 7.

        You said it yourself: "Windows specific applications we use at work"
        SonofaSailor
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

        @shellcodes_coder
        "In fact it's the WORLD operating system out there".
        Freudian slip??
        percykidpester_z
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

        @shellcodes_coder Linux has become more like windows over the last ten years so it can be easier to use for the average user. Mac OSX is just a gui over the freebsd kernal and for all you mac fans apple didnt create the freebsd kernal. Most everyone I know that has a mac doesnt even use it for anything more than email or surfing the web, what a waste of dollars to do just that. everyone complains about windows instability, I have not seen a blue screen in years and the install of xp on this machine is 4 years old. Most people that get blue screens on windows have so much crap software installed on the pc's it is only a matter of time before it crashes and that is not windows fault, but the users. I could go on but I have said enough
        busterblack
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

        @shellcodes_coder ...What planet do you live on, that all this takes place?
        Feldwebel Wolfenstool
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

        @SonofaSailor
        It depends what you're doing. On the server side, almost everything at work is *nix. On the client side, almost everything is Windows. If not for Exchange and a few other apps, many of the developers would likely switch to *nix.
        notsofast
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

        @ busterblack<br>You don't know what you are talking about.<br><br>"Mac OSX is just a gui over the freebsd kernal and for all you mac fans apple didnt create the freebsd kernal [sic]."<br><br>Where did you hear THAT? First, the kernel is not freeBSD, it is MACH, with BSD additions, and second, the VAST majority of the current freeBSD code base was written by Apple. You are just flat out wrong.<br><br>"Most everyone I know that has a mac doesnt even use it for anything more than email or surfing the web, what a waste of dollars to do just that."<br><br>Most people who own ANY computer just use it for that. What is your point?Apparently, you don't work in physics, bioengineering, pharmaceutical design, cryptography, or any of the other fields where macs abound.<br><br>"everyone complains about windows instability, I have not seen a blue screen in years and the install of xp on this machine is 4 years old. Most people that get blue screens on windows have so much crap software installed on the pc's it is only a matter of time before it crashes and that is not windows fault, but the users."<br><br>In a proper multitasking system, it most certainly is NOT the users fault. Not that that even matters, as Win 7 handles it just fine. It is your understanding that is at issue, here, not the OS. And why on earth do you have an apostrophe after "PC"?<br><br>"I could go on but I have said enough"<br><br>Indeed.
        DeusXMachina
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

        @shellcodes_coder
        Good luck. OSx is the Worst GUI I have seen in my life - scrollbars won't show up sometimes, keyboard shortcuts won't work some times....and the list can pile up. Windows 3.1 had better GUI than what OSx has today. Why people fall for APPLE? because of their h/w design. Allow DELL, HP, SMASUNG have MAC in their laptops/desktops and then see how many OSx APPLE manages to sell. Only advantage I see with OSx is startup & shutdown time and less crapware (reason already stated). In fact Ubuntu is 1000 times better than Mac OSX. I was a follower of Ubuntu until 11.04. Latest version sucks. GUI issues, driver issues.....I have never experienced as many problems wuth Ubuntu in the last 3 years.

        Windows on the otherhand is easy to use and tons of functionalities in the market that are still not aviailable or that will not run in osX. Here's the biggest plus, if I need to change my RAM, HDD, I don't take it to MAC store I do it myself and save a lot more than you'd do.

        If I want to run Windows on MAC, I can, but the reverse will crash my PC. I can;t imagine an OS that's so much tied to hardware. Looks like APPLE does not have good OO programmers. May be they should hire some.

        OSx is the worst OS on earth. They are money swindlers. Follow them if you have a lot of money to waste. Alternatively, I'll buy MS/LINUX products and donate some to needy instead of buying over-hyped OSx/APPLE products.
        krishnansriram
        Reply Vote

      • Message has been deleted.

        DeusXMachina
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

        @DeusXMachina I work in the Pharmaceutical industry with some bioengineering in the mix and I can tell you right now we didn't even introduce Mac's into the system until March of this year and only a few Executives are Testinf them.
        slickjim
        Reply Vote

    • Group psychology

      @athynz<br><br>I find this fascinating. Vista was "crap" and Windows 7 is "the best", yet the differences between them are slight. Windows 7 is still annoying in many ways similar to Vista (like asking for administrative privileges when logged in as administrator).<br><br>This is a perfect example of group psychology at work. When "conventional wisdom" (the greatest oxymoron of all time) says that Vista is crap, few people choose to utter a different opinion, and when "conventional wisdom" is that Windows 7 is great, people buy into it like mindless sheep.<br><br>As much as I don't care for MS a great deal, this kind of unquestioning, unthinking group mentality actually makes me feel a bit sorry for MS.
      Economister
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

      @athynz ...Vista merely needed some extra RAM.
      Feldwebel Wolfenstool
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

        @Feldwebel Wolfenstool No, that wasn't the issue at all, Vista used 3D acceleration in the GUI and that sapped the Graphics Card's capabilities... More RAM may help but shutting off Aero was the best way to get some performance back.
        slickjim
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

      Economister is correct there's not a HUGE difference. Most of the bugs in Vista were fixed by June of 2007 (though they were hotfixes, so most didn't get them till SP1). By the time 7 Came out, if you had a recent PC, there was virtually no performance difference between 7 and Vista (or XP for that matter). Frankly, I never noticed a difference between XP and Vista, but I built my PC in 2005 and I didn't have a POS intel graphics solution.
      notsofast
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

      @economister: SERIOUSLY? Do you REALLY <b>STILL</b> not grok that UAC == SUDO?

      With UAC enabled (the default), when you run as an admin, your account runs without the admin bits flags set on your security ID. When you need to run something that requires elevated rights, you're then prompted to approve the elevation. This lets you prevent, for example, miscellaneous 3rd party applications (which may contain malware) from being elevated and having full-rights to make system-wide changes to your machine.

      If you run a non-admin account, then, when prompted by UAC, you have to enter the login credentials of an admin account in order to elevate.

      Running as admin is definitely more convenient if you're regularly having to elevate apps, but otherwise most users should be running as standard user and will be protected from running code that can take over their entire machine.

      UAC in Windows is a more user-friendly version of SUDO in *N*X where you have to drop to the terminal and type "SUDO someapp -wsstyh0236" in order to elevate.
      bitcrazed
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

      @SonofaSailor Take the number of UBUNTU and other Linux downloads, add the number of XP machines (since you can't really buy them that way), and then add at least several to that for the dozen or so people I personally know have rolled back to XP after struggling with some basic/home edition of the OS. Then take that number and subtract it from the total number of sales of Windows 7. Then you'll have the actual number of sales minus OEM forced installs that are uninstalled/unwanted by so many users.
      Socratesfoot
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

      @athynz
      and
      @bitcrazed
      <br>Theoretically speaking, the running of applications (even under an administrator account) with limited priviliges is a good idea, as Joe Smith probably only has 1 account on his PC, and that is an administrator account by default. Otherwise all applications would be given administrative priviliges on a typical user's PC.<br><br>The problem is that at the default UAC (level 3) on Windows 7 with on a default installation with 1 administrative account, UAC does almost nothing to stop malware. There is a POC (proof of concept) available on the internet, that has a nice webpage and UI + sourecode, which Microsoft has been aware of for ages. Apparently the issue is "by design". You can mitigate it by running as a limited user or setting UAC up to level 4. <br><br>Search "Windows 7 UAC whitelist" for more info...
      xnederlandx
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

      @SonofaSailor u agree but i have some leaks of windows on my blog ... and they look decent .... the only issue it might have is the errors and virus and getting stuck all the time :S

      windows 8 leak:
      http://itechnewsonline.blogspot.com/2011/04/windows-8-leaked-video.html
      malee006
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft: 350 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in 18 months

    240M in ~12 mos ~ 7.6 / sec
    300M in ~15 mos ~ 7.6 / sec
    350M in ~18 mos ~ 7.3 / sec

    Simply amazing.
    Rich Miles
    Reply Vote
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