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Vista's Market Share Is Rapidly Decreasing!


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Windows Vista's Market Share was at 0.59% in july of 2019 however, it's market share is rapidly decreasing! It went from 0.59% in July to 0.42% in August and then to 0.33% in September. Two weeks later, it just sits at 0.31%. I hate to say this but.......... Windows Vista Is Doomed. 

i've tried to encourage people create Vista Vms on YouTube but with no luck.

link to my youtube channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJlntSljsta9FzC2YJeA0NA

 

Picture1 vista.png

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On 9/27/2019 at 4:23 PM, Windows Vista said:

Windows Vista's Market Share was at 0.59% in july of 2019 however, it's market share is rapidly decreasing! It went from 0.59% in July to 0.42% in August and then to 0.33% in September. Two weeks later, it just sits at 0.31%. I hate to say this but.......... Windows Vista Is Doomed.

It sounds like you didn't reach this conclusion until Vista's market share slipped below 0.5%? The avatar I selected upon joining MSFN in January 2017 almost seems outdated now: Average users have abandoned ship, and all that remains are a few enthusiasts singing hymns on the main deck. Do we still have more market share than Windows 2000? :unsure:

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My Vista drive was removed from my machine over a year ago. The reason is very simple; no more browser support.

The web browser is the point of entry of all things malicious and the most important software suite on any machine, from a security perspective.

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20 hours ago, Vistapocalypse said:

Do we still have more market share than Windows 2000? :unsure:

Yes; Windows 2000 went down from 0.01 to 0.00% on netmarketshare in August. :(

All of the web-browsing 2000 users I know (including myself) also use XP-10/Linux (even BWC posted about his new win10 laptop on his blog) as well, and even when using 2000 I sometimes spoof the OS version or the user agent.

I still think 2000-Vista are still good for web browsing as updated browsing options remain available from at least two sources, and a third if 360 Extreme Explorer hasn't dropped support.

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2 hours ago, Luxman said:

My Vista drive was removed from my machine over a year ago. The reason is very simple; no more browser support.

The web browser is the point of entry of all things malicious and the most important software suite on any machine, from a security perspective.

I think for me what was the final nail in the coffin was that older applications (I used an older but more reliable version of u Torrent) stopped loading and unloading reliably once I update Vista past March 2018.  So either skipping Spectre and Meltdown patches, or whatever else, simply made Vista run much worse.

At this point, if I were to ever go back to an older system, it seems that Windows XP x64 Edition works more reliably.  The Roytam1 browser choices are pretty much equal.

But in truth, a modified Windows 8 installation (Metro and Start Screen disabled, Classic Shell installed, and Server 2012 patches) runs RINGS around a Vista x64 installation, especially in terms of reliability and performance.  I may have started the "Server 2008 Updates on Windows Vista Thread", but I got off the ship now.  That's OK.  We change.  That's all part of growth.

 

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14 hours ago, Luxman said:

My Vista drive was removed from my machine over a year ago. The reason is very simple; no more browser support.

The web browser is the point of entry of all things malicious and the most important software suite on any machine, from a security perspective.

Yes, it was the end of support by major browsers more than anything else that drove users away - not that Vista ever had a market share comparable to XP or Windows 7 in the first place. It sounds like Firefox 52.9.0 (released in June 2018) must have been the last straw for you. Devotees of Firefox and related browsers might forget that Chrome is by far the most popular browser, and it's been 3.5 years now since Chrome ended support for Vista and XP (and almost as long since Opera 36 was updated). Oddly enough, IE9 is still supported due to Server 2008 SP2 being supported until January 2020; but this support for Vista's "official" browser is of limited value because IE9 is obsolete.

There is a school of thought here at MSFN that online security is reasonably good as long as a developer is making modifications to one or more Firefox forks that can be used on Vista or XP, but I never embraced that idea myself. It seems to me that only Google, Microsoft and Mozilla are in the business of updating browser code for the sake of security, and not even the Chinese have managed to backport Firefox Quantum AFAIK. There is now also an alarming scarcity of non-Chinese antivirus products that fully and officially support Vista and XP. Frankly, I had only rarely used Vista for web browsing myself since early 2017; but have lately been emboldened by installation of Sandboxie 5.22, which I'm using in combination with Avast 18.8. (Both are legacy versions, but both were free.) Sandboxing your browser might very well be the best security solution.

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I think another problem is hardware support. Vista cannot be installed on anything following Intel's Ivy-Bridge. Some users have luck with AMD's Ryzen, but most people still have Intel systems. It may seem odd (and it is), that Vista doesn't install on anything after Ivy-Bridge, considering a lot of Windows 7 drivers actually work on Vista. This is further exemplified with Windows XP, which is left with scarce NT5.x drivers on newer hardware, but yet, actually can install with proper SATA drivers. I'm sure there are a few members here that would install Vista on second partition if it were practical.

Security and FUD certainly play a role in the declining market-share. Although most FUD was centered around XP,  Windows 7's "your computer will explode if you use the internet" day is coming quickly. Some people who have Vista probably see Windows 7's EOL as a reminder or something of the sort.

Most of all however, is browser support. Roytam1's Pale Moon and Firefox 56(?) back-ports are excellent, but the average user is only going to think about Chrome and Firefox which are both no longer updated.

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Pretty much what the others have said here. It's sad to say it's kinda hard thinking of a reason to use Vista over 7 other than appearance. I love Vista's interface far more than 7, but the artificial killing of Vista on hardware doesn't make this fantastic OS available. Other than maybe compatibility reasons, it's hard to justify why to stay with Vista, especially with the decline of modern software support.

On older pc's, I try to dual-boot old Windows and Linux. Linux is perfect for browsing and codec support on streaming sites. With this method, I can enjoy both worlds: the endless software library of Windows and the moderness of Linux. 9x can't stream or lacks native compatibility with a ton of modern things, so Linux can take care of that.

I'm dreading the day I get a new PC that's forced to run Windows 10. It's been a massive headache. Windows Vista is far superior to 10 in stability, ram usage, and CPU usage.

Edited by ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~
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On 10/1/2019 at 5:16 AM, win32 said:

Yes; Windows 2000 went down from 0.01 to 0.00% on netmarketshare in August. :(

All of the web-browsing 2000 users I know (including myself) also use XP-10/Linux (even BWC posted about his new win10 laptop on his blog) as well, and even when using 2000 I sometimes spoof the OS version or the user agent.

I still think 2000-Vista are still good for web browsing as updated browsing options remain available from at least two sources, and a third if 360 Extreme Explorer hasn't dropped support.

Unfortunately, as of right now, the latest version of 360 Extreme Explorer downloaded on a Windows 7 machine and transfered to an XP one, does not seem to work in any way.

I sincerely hope that a legacy build is on the way. Maybe it takes them a little longer to release new versions for Vista, XP, 2000? If not, then version 11.0.2216.0 (Based on Chromium 69) seems to be the last for XP x64 and probably Vista, XP x86 and 2000.

EDIT: After a quick test, it seems like the final version is still in fact 11.0.2216.0 (tested on Windows 10 machine) so we may still be good to go. I do not know why the 7 setup did not work back when I did that test so my apologies for the false information.

Edited by Windows 2000
Added some more info.
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3 hours ago, Windows 2000 said:

Unfortunately, as of right now, the latest version of 360 Extreme Explorer downloaded on a Windows 7 machine and transfered to an XP one, does not seem to work in any way.

I sincerely hope that a legacy build is on the way. Maybe it takes them a little longer to release new versions for Vista, XP, 2000? If not, then version 11.0.2216.0 (Based on Chromium 69) seems to be the last for XP x64 and probably Vista, XP x86 and 2000.

EDIT: After a quick test, it seems like the final version is still in fact 11.0.2216.0 (tested on Windows 10 machine) so we may still be good to go. I do not know why the 7 setup did not work back when I did that test so my apologies for the false information.

I believe sogou browser is based off Chrome 72 and can run on XP. It's not dead yet; Chinese developers have to backport and/or remove XP-incompatible code, so it's going to take a while.

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8 hours ago, ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~ said:

I believe sogou browser is based off Chrome 72 and can run on XP. It's not dead yet; Chinese developers have to backport and/or remove XP-incompatible code, so it's going to take a while.

After a quick test, it seems to actually be based on Chromium 65, rather than 72 unfortunately.

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On 10/1/2019 at 3:25 PM, broken120x120 said:

....Roytam1's Pale Moon and Firefox 56(?) back-ports are excellent, but the average user is only going to think about Chrome and Firefox which are both no longer updated.

I'm sure it was this final sentence that earned your post so much positive reaction (certainly not your very pertinent observation that Vista won't run on Intel processors produced within the last several years). One of the two Serpent browsers was derived from Moonchild's deprecated Basilisk Moebius, which in turn was forked from Firefox 55. However, Firefox 55 was not an extended support release, and its final update from Mozilla was actually months before Firefox 52.9.0 was released. At least some Firefox 52 ESR updates could not be applied due to milestone differences (pardon me for not searching through a 192-page thread in order to provide a citation, but it's in there somewhere). This browser is arguably less secure than those that are essentially Firefox 52 forks (the other Serpent, New Moon 28, and whatever the modified version of Borealis is called these days). Whether those Firefox 52 forks are more secure or less secure than Firefox 52.9.0 is anyone's guess. At least some components have been moving targets - but are any cybercriminals actually targeting such old Firefox code these days, considering that Windows XP's user base has also been declining precipitously?

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On 10/1/2019 at 5:25 PM, broken120x120 said:

[...] the average user is only going to think about Chrome and Firefox which are both no longer updated.

The average user is on Win 10 or gave up on desktops/notebooks altogether and just browses what'sapp mindlessly on his/her mobile, nowadays! :puke:

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  • 1 month later...

For me the reason for the excessive drop in Windows Vista quota is due to this image: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kiJU5ay7qJ440geLUw_yDwxCYgOdd0X7
We are all updating the outdated Chrome 49 or Firefox ESR 52.9.0 for New Moon since it is more updated, has more features, based on firefox 27 and works better in Windows XP for example.
But as you can see in the image, the useragent of the most popular pages is established in Windows NT 6.1 that is to say Windows 7, we are going to test if changing the useragent of all that to Windows NT 6.0 gives any result in the market share of Vista

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Most of those user agent overrides were preset to get around compatibility issues and/or force lighter versions of websites. These sites mostly check browser versions as opposed to OS versions so your idea shouldn't be hard to implement.

StatCounter claims that it tracks "over two million websites" so you should indeed change as many as possible.

There are a few websites however that will complain about the reported OS; but that has been mostly known to affect 95 and XP.

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