LOS ANGELES–Microsoft has sold nearly 40 million copies of Windows Vista so far, Bill Gates told a crowd of hardware developers Tuesday.
That’s more than the total install base of Windows’ largest competitors, Gates quipped as he began his keynote at the Windows Hardware and Engineering Conference (WinHEC) here.
“As of last week, we’ve (sold) nearly 40 million copies,” Gates said. “That’s twice as fast as the adoption of Windows XP, the last major release we had.”
Wow, I had no idea. I guess this is accurate… from Bill
himself.
And most of them are the $1 chinese versions.
he shouldn’t could all the pirated versions
BS! How is it, almost everyone I know who has tried it or bought it went back to XP after a few weeks because it was one problem after another. I find this number TOOO HARD to believe!
Besides the Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese copies, the rest were foisted on unsuspecting consumers of new machines who will not be pleased. Don’t get grandma a replacement PC now. Buy a new one for yourself, and suffer the slings and arrows of vista personally, while you donate that older XP machine to grandma or mom or even your spouse.
And I told everyone YEARS ago that Windows Update would be a vector for malware. It has begun. Watch yer bits!
Grins,
RW
#2 – What?!
#5, I think he woulda coulda the pirated versions
so far, millions of users have started up their trusty webcams, workhorse printers and/or critical pro apps, said “WTF?”, wasted time on the phone or cussing and reinstalled XP
Let’s please not make Vista out to be so awful. I was an early adopter, and while it certainly isn’t mind-blowing, its also not as problematic as written by some of you. The only problems I encountered were compatibility issues with things such as MATLAB and other electrical engineering software. I simply use Ubuntu when I need to use this kind of software. The average user doesn’t even need this type of software. Also, MS Office ’07 is far superior to anything you can run on XP or Linux, in my own personal opinion. Don’t get the idea that I’m some sort of MS fanboy, thats certainly not the case. But some of you tend to exaggerate when putting down MS.
If you look at this in marketing terms comparable to the introduction of XP, Vista is a flop! Number of upgrades vs. installed base vs. today’s level of normal Windows desktop/laptop sales – you’re all reacting to the spin – not today’s reality.
Bill knows that. Ballmer knows that. More important, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, a whole boatload of Bill’s peers know that.
Bill is telling the truth… 100,000 legal copies were sold and 39,900,000 were sold on the black markets in China, Malaysia etc….
units sold != units in use. I have free (msdnaa) copies of vista lying about, still sticking with the xp.
I use Vista on my one year old Dell E1505, and it works fine. It never, and I mean never crashes. I have flirted with returning to XP (I am weird about installing OS’s–have tried SUSE and the latest Ubuntu’s over and over) but am back at Vista. I really have no complaints except that I like to change my visual style a lot. In many ways it is much better than XP, which was fine for me.
Look, MS will make money on this. Is it the best OS–no, maybe not. But until I can easily get linux installed (and Ubuntu will not install, and SUSE still has some issues) then Vista it will be.
#10 hit the nail on the head….they probably have shipped 40 million copies, but that does not mean there are 40 million satisfied users out there. It does not mean there are many people who even noticed what they were getting…they went and bought a new PC and the salesperson said ‘it comes preinstalled with Vista’, and so be it. Personally, I haven’t worked with Vista enough to find it horrible, but my experience supporting it at work so far has been lukewarm. I’m not terribly impressed, and I haven’t seen anything substantial enough in it for me to switch my own machines. I’ll stick with an XP machine, and my Ubuntu machine…and my trusty Commodore 64 as well…lol.
We won’t be switching any important systems to it anytime soon, as most of our mission critical software either doesn’t work at all with it or ‘might’ work. I work in broadcasting….so we won’t be switching anything until we know for sure.
*shakes head*
You’re not supposed to upgrade for at least 1 yr after the release date – why pay to be part of the open beta (aka M$ selling products that dont exactly qualify as “finished”, then patching the hell out of them)
#7
Sorry but I had to buy my daughter a replacement pc and spend hours figuring out Vista when it would have been easy to set her up in XP. M$ made stupid changes where it didn’t need to . Why keep changing icons and making it impossible to get rid of the freebe software you don’t want. It was as frustrating as having to use ME.
In related news. Waste Management Corp. reported a surge in aggregate refuse around the Redmond metropolitan area.
I want to know if this blog’s webmasters can report back to us the version of O.S. everyone is using. I think that would be more telling than speculation based on personal experiences.
FWIW, I know lots of people who have tried Vista but only one who has decided to keep it — and he is running it as a virtual machine on his MacBook.
Wow, if this is correct, the tech bloggo-sphere is totally irrelevant, misinformed, and just simply out of touch. They have no clue, and by all appearances, haven’t had a clue in some time.
Once again, it appears slashdot and digg were totally wrong, and totally off base.
It is high time that the linux and apple fan boys stfu. You guys were wronger about Vista than George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were about WMD’s in Iraq.
I would get a kick out of the millions of brains splattered all over keyboards and monitors around the world if it wasn’t for the awful smell.
MMMM MMMM Yum, I love watching people eat the Crow stew. Have some sour grapes with that?
maybe it has outsold xp NOW but in the long run this wont be the case. out of everyone i know the only ppl who use vista is my mom because when she bought a new PC they would onyl sell it with Vista not xp. They have since changed this policy (dell). whenever she has comp trouble and i try to help her i cant because vista makes no freaking sense.
Where have I heard these complaints before? Oh, I remember, When DOS 4 came out then again with DOS 5 & 6, then Win95, 98 and all the others including XP. And in two or three or seven years from now when the next version of Windows comes out you will all be complaining about how horrible it is and why would anyone switch from Vista. I’m no MS fan boy — of the seven computers we have at home only one runs Windows. I am realistic though and in a year from now MS will still dominate and Vista will be the standard OS. I’m talking North America here, the rest of the world is much more progressive.
#18
Im guessing he isn’t gonna have WINE with his stew. But then again, what is WINE but more sour grapes?
If I have my way, subtract one. I doubt I’ll be sucessful in returning it but I’m trying. What crap.
I suspect that the pre-install lock-in of the PC manufacturers leads to lot size purchases of say 1 million licenses for volume deep discounts.
“Worldwide PC sales totalled 239 million units in 2006”
http://tinyurl.com/2c7hh5
ie 20 million new PCs per month.
So no need to think that users are volunteering to move from XP to Vista, and paying M$ for better value. The fix is in, sucker!
Yes, I too installed it and went back to XP. I wonder how many copies are actually still in use? That’s the real question. But I guess Microsoft is just happy you bought it. They don’t care if you actually use it.
I don’t care what he says. Vista has become a political issue for Microsoft, and therefore you can’t expect straight talk – or the truth – about it coming from MS.
As most here, I’m still recommending everyone to stick with XP – if it has Vista, downgrade! And a lot of people come to people like me for advice.
Maybe MS should get their act together and do something worthwhile? Like less buggy versions of XP and Office, simpler to use to novice users, easier to support by IT staffs?
And maybe come up with some new products… Don’t these guys surf the Internet?
Just a thought…
He’s probably also counting the copies that were “sold” to PC vendors, to put on PCs that have not yet been made.
I will switch to Apple with my next purchase.Screw M$ and the rest.
Microsoft seems desperate to trumpet Vista sales figures — doesn’t that speak volumes in itself? They seem awfully defensive on the whole subject of Vista adoption.
17. GregA. LOL I’m with you brother I’ve got three machines running it now. One new and 2 older (One Dell 4 years old) and it runs great, no problems. I think people who are having problems are trying to install it on their brother in laws basement built piece of crap. As far you whiners about compat problems, try compatibilty mode, ever heard of that?
The issues with Vista aren’t about it running well or not, they’re about ‘is it worth it?’ – the effort, the time spent to configure, learn, train users, the money? The answer to all the above is just NO. It might run cool on my old P4 1.8 with 512Kb RAM, but why should I care?
All of the powerbrokers use OS X now. Vista is for the serfs.