Windows 10 installations surpass Windows XP

It’s become something of a mantra that Microsoft wants to get a billion machines running Windows 10 as soon as they can, and we’re looking forward to the day when we can use something other than “200+ million” as the current metric. A new chart from Statista, which is based on NetMarketShare data, is showing that Windows 10 continues to make progress toward both objectives and is now used on more PC’s than Windows XP.

The results should come as no surprise. Microsoft continues to very visibly push users into upgrading to Windows 10, for example recently moving the update from optional to recommended.

For comparison sake, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 did not pass Windows XP in the market until three years after Windows 8 was released. Windows XP was first released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001 and was released to the public on October 25, 2001.  Extended support for Windows XP ended on April 8, 2014.

Clearly, Windows 10 remains on a strong upward trajectory and we imagine we’ll get revised numbers from Microsoft sooner rather than later that will show the strategic OS as ever-closer to accomplishing the company’s objectives. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on when the next Windows 10 milestone is passed.