Right on cue, Windows 10 has overtaken XP

Some of the Linux distros as well as the newer releases for others have been made to be simplified for Windows users in order to see more drawn into using the other OS there. Utilities like Wine for example can simplify things further as well as some now coming better prepared with options included to see various Linux apps downloaded and installed with only a few clicks! You won't need to unpack strange looking files and enter Bash commands at a "terminal" which would be the command prompt in Windows.

As far as OS usage live distros once found to be able to be seen as live rescue tools since you can still access MS partitions when any Windows install won't start up has taken on a more common place acceptance over the years and no longer considered to be just the "Linux Geek's OS". As far as 10 growing fast MS has had much to do with insuring people would be confronted with the upgrade option by how 10 has now become the "recommended update" at every turn. Plus following 7's success story people are now paying more attention to what is going on with each new version unlike what Vista and 8 had seen at first sight but what is happening since.

That's actually a bit of an understatement! Knowing someone who used Linux while in the military for 7yrs. when getting into the conversation about the other OS there the advice simply put: "Stay with Windows! Never mind Linux! I used for 7yrs...."! figuring I would be likely to get too frustrated as would others at learning how to do things which are still primarily based on the rather much outdated UNIX platform while the various distros have been reworked to simulate a closer working environment to how things are in Windows.

And many have no complaints as far as trying things out using the Wine app. In fact for using Linux on a Windows machine 10 carries over with it the updated form of the Hyper-V virtualization feature at least in the Pro likely Education and certainly Enterprise editions in order to run the other OSs as well as the programs for those on VMs! You can also learn about the other OS not by simply replacing Windows but by a few different options such as the VM, custom install for dual or multi booting purposes, or even custom installs if not simply seeing a live iso written to bootable media such as a usb flash drive or live dvd burn.

For most Linux is automatically a secondary and will continue on to be just that a secondary OS to toy with but not take seriously as an effective replacement for a good working Windows system! Likewise people are fussy with Windows as well when it boils down to which version will be the winning ticket for each at the individual level which MS seems to have forgotten about with how 10 had been brought in as the "You will change" type of pressured environment to upgrade many found to be going a bit too far! Here as with any previous version when first new becomes a second OS to be looked at without instantly being the 100% replacement until found to be the better choice! That wasn't found when 8 first came out!

The last two columns OSX 10.11 and other make interesting reading. At first it looks like Other is declining and OSX is increasing, but Other obviously includes earlier OSX versions.

The sum of the two is virtually constant.

This means clearly 3rd party OS's overall are not gaining any market share from the intoduction of Windows 10.

Apple and Linux are, and will always ever remain, niche players.

cereberus said:

The last two columns OSX 10.11 and other make interesting reading. At first it looks like Other is declining and OSX is increasing, but Other obviously includes earlier OSX versions.

Other also includes all other versions of Windows not shown on the graph (W8, Vista, W2K, etc.).

Data from NetMarketShare

It looks like everything with less market share than OS X 10.11 is grouped under Other in the line graph.

MAXIQ said:

I used linux, while running windows 7 in VMware, never had any problem, with windows 10 i do the opposite, running linux under vmware, that way i get the benefits of both world, will try also to install android x86 too in vmware under windows 10

Well for some that would be a different approach while I still haven't gotten around to running any Windows version on the Linux flavor of VMware quite yet. All I would need to do however is boot live from one of the flash drives where Linux was custom installed to and download the latest version of the Workstation 12.4 Player for Linux. Of course on the other hand I can't run VMware on 10 due to having the Hyper-V feature enabled where there's already a Linux distro on VM.

On 7 originally you might have seen the XP Mode back then first as a separate item from Virtual PC 2007 and later combined into a single download good for 90days. 7 could be tried out back then on the Portable VirtualBox app.

whs said:

What's wrong with Chrome in Linux. Did you ever really try it. Works perfectly.

Unless you have no internet connection.

Night Hawk said:

Well for some that would be a different approach while I still haven't gotten around to running any Windows version on the Linux flavor of VMware quite yet. All I would need to do however is boot live from one of the flash drives where Linux was custom installed to and download the latest version of the Workstation 12.4 Player for Linux. Of course on the other hand I can't run VMware on 10 due to having the Hyper-V feature enabled where there's already a Linux distro on VM.

On 7 originally you might have seen the XP Mode back then first as a separate item from Virtual PC 2007 and later combined into a single download good for 90days. 7 could be tried out back then on the Portable VirtualBox app.

Well you can run VMware if you disable Hyper-V. The issue is if you want to use both you would have to enable and disable each time you wanted to switch.