Microsoft's strategy of offering a free upgrade to Windows 10 for Windows 7 and 8.1 owners seems to be paying off. Already, 2.3% of Valve's Steam PC gaming service are already using Windows 10 just a few days after its launch.
Those are the numbers from Valve's hardware survey of its tens of millions of Steam PC users. The survey results are updated monthly and the recently released stats for the month of July 2015 show that the 64-bit version of Windows 10 is used by 2.21% of Steam customers, while just 0.09% have the 32-bit version of Windows 10.
Since the OS officially launched on July 29, that means quite a few Steam owners are already using Windows 10, and in fact its share is already higher than any of the stand alone Mac or Linux operating systems. It's likely that when the hardware survey results are released in August, Windows 10's share could be higher than all Mac or Linux users combined.
The hardware survey also seems to suggest that the majority of Windows 10 upgrades from Steam users came from Windows 7. It's combined (32-bit and 64-bit) share went down in the survey by 1.45% in July while the combined share of Windows 10 went up by 1.2%.
Source: Steam
Reader comments
Windows 10 is already used by more Steam gamers than any Mac or Linux OS
Is this...is this news?? I am having a hard time understanding why this is supposed to mean anything.
Did we not all know that Linux is not as popular as Windows for Steam gaming? Kind of obvious since availability of popular Steam games on Linux barely starting. Most Steam users came from Windows originally, being the platform available.
In other words you are really just telling us that 2.3% of your steam users opted for an upgrade by some time in August-ish. oook. yeah.. good..job? Honestly I'm somewhat shocked that a good 20%-60% of your userbase doesn't switch when you offer your first free version upgrade, normally costing a new computer. (honestly, what home users buys windows ? maybe a few when you had that upgrade button in the start menu)
Anyway this is rather non-impressive and not very comparative to data in a relevant arena of context.
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Dear person on the windows team who can actually influence choices,
Below this section are instructions on getting the linux market share if you really want it. Caution, you actually do have to "really, really" want it.
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As a developer I run only Linux for personal projects or internal projects at organizations; I would exclusively use it if not for PC gaming. However I could equally say that I'd exclusively be won over by Windows if you folks heard the things we want. There's really two things I see being a real, major issue despite philosophical extremities.
(1) Easy Sandbox, Easy Customization. Why is there no 'near to bare medal' mode where we can switch into using only the most absolutely essential services for our current task(s)? Do you have any idea how great that would be for both gaming and servers? Why Windows? Why?
(2) Freaking Open Standards. C'mon guys, don't you want that WebGL they let into IE to work nicely, do the DirectX guys miss ActiveX that badly? How about a driver update for OpenGL (or Vulkan ^_^; haha..ah...ha....yeah right)
Look, just go to khronos.org, apache.org, look up common tools. Take all best ingredients and bake them into the operating system. Make a folder like.. C:\Windows\POSIX\ where you use one of the common folder schemes and give MSYS2 a glance over we can make a suitable package manager for the rest. Bam. you just won at operating systems. end.
And gah how much of the above comes down to just pthreads, a couple network libraries and the folder scheme. Then we can easily take the majority of the linux system into windows natively and automate really great ports of anything we need. Linux distros could come out for Windows. Imagine that, an Apache licensed Microsoft Linux as an app in the Windows Store. Oh the humanity!
I may as well be asking you to go and take DirectX and just marry SPIR-V/Vulkan and get all buddy-buddy with Khrnoos but hey, a guy can dream. Even so, if you did you wouldn't lose money on it on any front. In fact if you did both of these things to a reasonable, respectable degree you'd win more than just desktop operating systems and PC gaming. You'd make it so easy to port console games omg. Don't even get me started on how fast and thrify servers would be. mmmm boy.
Look I am a huge linux fan, but honestly I am still a developer too. At the end of the day what I want is more accessible toys that I can create with and a machine that is focused on that creation. You get that and you're good with a very stubborn portion of the Linux crowd.
It's great you have all these frameworks and whatnot but I want to pick which parts are running down to the class or function level. On linux I accept being able to do it down to the process level plus some context and architecture to whittle it down. If you can do better then my clients will benefit from the compute resources being saved. A cloud node can crank out that many more transactions, a game that many more FPS.
not able to play any game in full screen while using windows 10. the display drivers doesn't seem to work properly when trying to play games.
Windows 10 runs just as fast and smooth on my $100 chinese tablet as it does on my gaming rig how did they manage that
I meant to say 44.91% for Windows 7 64 bit. Typographical error and editing is locked for my original post.
But my point is that the only Windows OS beating out Linux (collectively) are Windows Vista 32 bit, Windows 8.1 (32 and 64 bit), Windows 7 (32 and 64), Windows 8 64 bit, Windows XP 32 bit, and Windows 10 64 bit. Windows 10 32 bit, Windows 8 32 bit, and Windows Vista 64 bit are still below Linux.
And what about Windows XP 64 bit; is Steam not available for that platform? Odd that it is missing.
The only thing I can take away from this is that Windows 7 and Windows XP are by far the preferred distributions of choice for Steam. Windows 8.1 holds its own. Windows Vista is split, as people prefer the 32 bit version. Windows 10 is showing promise, but it has a very long way to go, though it is clear that it will overtake Linux before it overtakes Mac OS X.
You really aren't thinking clearly. Windows 10 ALREADY overtook Mac and Linux. News flash, 2.21% is higher than both 1.10% (highest Mac) and 0.25% (highest Linux)!
editing isnt locked. just refresh the page and edit
.09% is less than .25%.
By that screen shot Ubuntu 14 has Windows 10 beat. Ubuntu 15 is higher as well. And the Mac OS 10.7.x - 10.9.x are all higher than Windows 10.
The reason why Windows 10 reads higher than Mac OS X and Linux is beacuse Windows still has the highest share, and Windows 10 is the lowest of all of the shares within Windows. But if you go to the next one down, the highest in the Mac OS X catagory, the highest Mac OS (Mac OS 10.10.3 64 bit) is still higher than the lowest in the Windows catagory, which is Windows 10.
For example
Windows 95.79%
Mac OS X 3.23%
Linux 0.84%
But if you look at that spread Win 7 64 bit is 44,91%, at the top, with Win 10 .09% at the bottom. Then for Mac, Mac 0S 10.10.3 64 bit is at the top with 1.10%, and Mac OS 10.6.8 64 bit is at the bottom with .07%.
Windows 10 64-bit is 2.21%, so I have no idea what you're talking about.
That isn't the same thing. If you look at the versions of Windows that are beating Linux, both the 32 bit and 64 bit iterations of those versions are beating Linux.
It should be clear, and upfront. And it isn't. People should not have to differentiate. Its like saying that Enterprise version of Windows 10 runs a greater percentage of Steam than Linux. It is misleading.
I expect this from TechCrunch or the Register. Not Windows Central.
Man go to sleep, you must be a Windows non supporter, just saying. Face it man, Windows 10 is on more than the others. Plain and simple; so deal with it.
It isn't plain and simple. And I am a Windows supporter. But I'm not a fan boy or an apologist. Windows Central is better than this.
oops! maybe it's a mistake because by some people Windows 10 is the worst thing, even if it uses less ram and feels smoother than any other indows ever, smoother than windows 3.1. 95. 98. 2000. xp. vista, 7 and 8.
Edge works really nice and smooth, can't wait for extensions but not having them is not a reason to stop. if people doesn't want ads they could pay adguard, maybe others can offer the same without charging.
And while I don't use Steam because I don't like it, it feels really so much better. can't wait to see what Microsoft adds soon, and the games they will release like Fable and Gigantic. and other games that will come, not f2p but Microsoft can beat Steam if they wanted to, but they need to give the best games on Win Store.
I can't wait to see the Windows 10 users after weekend. even I upgraded two machines on weekend. I am sure most people did, and other don't even get Win10 yet. so there will be more millions of general users and steam users soon.
They tried that with the GFWL store and failed miserably. They could never compete with Steam, simply because they don't know how to discount/have sales. Steam prices are much better than retail, but MS keep them at or above retail pricing. They only discount by woeful amounts, when retail stores already have the games in the bargain bins.
Any AMD Steam users out there? Has AMD Catalyst drivers Windows Update issue been fixed yet?
I rolled back to Windows 8.1 until AMD updates the drivers in Microsoft Update process so my machine doesn't get blue-screen of death with INTERNAL POWER ERROR issue every 2 minutes and restarts.
I upgaded my desktop and downloaded the Win 10 64bit drivers direct from AMD and have not experienced any issues like that.
You have a desktop GPU, I have a mobile GPU hence the difference in the issue, my card is a AMD Radeon R7 M270 running on a Dell laptop with Intel Core i7 5500 (Broadwell). I've read that users that disable AMD devices, only get Intel crappy graphics, which is not what I want, I want to be able to keep playing my games when I upgrade to WIndows 10.
Windows 8 users have experienced best play to and one drive integration. Maybe thats why they are not upgrading like windows 7 users.
Couple of humorous things.
Windows 8 obviously isn't as reviled as is claimed, as it's the #2 most used system on the list.
OS X 10.7 is used more than 10.8... I guess it's not surprising. 10.7 is the highest supported system for many Macs built before 2010 or so.
Let's laugh it up, y'all!! Hahahaha!!
PS: It isn't necessary to say "OS" in the headline. By saying Linux, or using "Mac" in this context, when comparing to Windows 10, it is understood that you mean operating systems.
Misleading article. Sad...sad... Windows Central
How is it misleading? It's true.
They are just reaching for something that's not there.
"64-bit version of Windows 10 is used by 2.21% of Steam customers, while just 0.09% have the 32-bit version of Windows 10."
now tell me which other OS has more than 2.21%? if we combined OSX it has 3.23% while Win10 only 2.3%, or 2.21 the 64 bits version, but if we combine OSs then... we would combine all windows which is obviously more than others.
so how it this article misleading? you have to use combined numbers of OSX new or old versions and all/any linux distributions. but on windows you have to use each individual Windows version? well it doesn't make sense or sounds logical or fair, only because Windows have obviously way more marketshare on desktop than the others.
anyway this is not surprising since it's less than a week and it already have almost beats XP and windows 8.0 64bits.
I would be careful following the market share for OSX and Linux that way. Often times they will use WINE to get access to the Windows exclusive games which would cause Steam to report then as Windows users. I actually use the Windows version on my PCBSD setup, but since there isn't even A FreeBSD version of steam available I have to appear as a Windows user. Though it is a little more accurate in showing share between Windows versions, at least for gaming.
Let's think about this, Linux marketshare is already small compared to Windows, not suprising of course. So a smaller number use Steam/are gamers, a tiny small. But then, how many of those steam linux users actually use Wine to run games exclusive to Windows? (which doesn't make sense why use something if the other works too, but anyway. to each its own but still doesn't make sense, becuase Wine is not the best thing from time to time) I am sure is way smaller.
so I bet this small number of users using Wine will not change much the numbers here, (if you are right about being counted as Windows user, I don't know, I am pretending you are right about it) especially when it comes to Windows 10, because I bet Wine won't be counted as Win10. so it doesn't affect Windows 10 numbers.
No need to report, you should already know that we have won the PC and next is mobile. Windows10
I am one of them :-)
Awesome.. Why is it called Steam OS when it runs on windows??
SteamOS doesn't run Windows.
Posted via the Windows Central App for Android
Stream OS is Linux.
Probably you're a console gamer so you don't know about Steam.
You are confusing Steam software with Steam OS.
Steam is just like a modern version of Games For Windows software.
Yes, just buy it
Is there anyway to get a copy of Win10 for vista
You can purchase it or join the Windows Insider program. Sadly they decided to leave Vista out of the update offer.
Get a Windows 7 ISO and use a tool to activate it (Microsoft Toolkit works). Then you can update with no problems. Or buy it...
Surf the web and find the Windows Seven ISO and install it (I suggest a clean install). Then use a tool/hack to activate it. Microsoft Toolkit works fine. Then enable Windows Update and wait!!
Heh I'm part of the 0.09%
Will be exciting to see what happens once the rollout queue opens the gates to even more people. In a month from now, we will probably see Steam Windows 7 users climb to 5 percent and then climb up to maybe 15 percent by the end of the year (just a guess). In February, I think Steam will most likely reach 35 percent Windows 10 market share, because of all the seasonal purchases people will do between December 24 and January 10.
While this is great news, but its packaged in an irrelevant manner.
As these shares are not competing, in addition that not all games on steam run on mac or Linux.
The numbers are good, the article title and content make no sense, except for the windows 7 part.
Yes, I agree. The article title is very misleading. This is about Windows 7 users making a big jump to Windows 10, while Windows 8 users aren't upgrading as quickly. This is VERY interesting, considering the general consensus says Windows 8 users are frustrated with the touch-focused UI, while Windows 7 users are reportedly "happy" about having a good desktop experience and everything.
You would in some ways expect Windows 8 percentages to go up by 25 % in just these few days of roll outs, while Windows 7 "happy users" would be expected to stay for a while, in a wait-and-see approach. No, to the contrary, Windows 7 users are upgrading while Windows 8 users aren't as of now.
Likely, there are tons of people that preferred to stay on Win 7 rather than move to 8. Now, they have 10, which has all of the under-the-hood improvements of Win8 and then some, but with a more familiar UI.
Not sure what's misleading about the title?
It's not as much a misleading title as it is a pointless title. It doesn't matter how Windows 10 compares to Mac and Linux, as practically every Windows 10 user is one less Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 user and not one less Mac or Linux user or even one new Windows user (at least not yet).
If you want to compare Mac and Linux usage on Steam compared to Windows fine, but particular Windows versions don't really matter in that comparison. If you want to compare the percentages of various Windows versions then again that's fine, but then Mac and Linux really don't matter in that comparison.
I thnk they were more just emphasizing how irrelevant those competing OS's are to Steam's actual bottom line.
Your point about games availability just puts Steam in a worse light, as they are trying to shove Linux down their Steambox users' throats.
Not sure what's confusing about the title or article.
That's not really a surprise... It was kind of a Duh Moment just waiting to happen..
Corporate penis measuring taking a toll on the general populace. The end is nigh, as Zack fucking Snyder would day.
Please don't comment if you don't have anything constructive to say
I'm one of those :D
Speaking of Windows 10 installs, apparently Windows Central was very wrong with the 67 million figure. Apparently, everyone else is reporting 18 million total. I'm disappointed.
That was a rumor not an official figure
"we now have a second confirmation"
Either way, everyone else is reporting a different, more accurate, rumor.
Disappointed? Get out there and start updating peoples PCs Johnny Appleseed.
Trust me, I have lol. Sometimes without people's knowledge.
I've upgrade most of my family's non-work related PCs, and a few SMBs who were on Windows 8 (after they asked, of course)
I'm not sure if many of those millions counted were false positives.
In my case, I updated to Windows 10 on July 30, but I got a Blue screen of Death wich restarted my PC in an infinite cycle every 2 minutes with error INTERNAL POWER ERROR. (This is an issue with AMD Radeon drivers on laptops which is not fixed), so I had to roll back to Windows 8.1.
Many AMD Radeon laptop users are now rolling back to Windows 8.1
AMD Mobility Radeon here, works fine...
Lucky! Did you updated AMD Catalyst drivers before the upgrade by going directly to AMD website? I think that was what I forgot to do before the upgrade, not sure if that would fix the issue.
My card is an AMD Radeon R7 M270 with 4GB of DDR3 memory running on a Dell laptop with Intel Core i7 (Broadwell).
Dude, they'd say anything just to give Microsoft Windows a bad look man, although 18 million is not a bad number. If all 18,000,000 people gave me a dollar, I'd be $18million dollar's richer...just saying. :)
Yeah, and if they gave you a cigarette butt you'd be buried.
Windows 10 will be on more then 90% of the devices just wait and watch!!! ;-)
i'm with you there, 6 months perhaps?
I think it'll be more than 6 months. A lot of companies still have to do testing and then roll it out. I'd say it'll be a year at least before it has a majority adoption rate.
but they dont have steam on company pc's right?
Oh you know what, I mis-understood the original comment. I thought he meant all PC's in general, not just PC's with steam. In that case, yeah, I can see I very high adoption rate very quickly. I've already seen improvements since I updated, so as soon as more word gets out that performance increases, adoption will increase like wildfire.
I can't speak for all companies, but I work for one in the top of the Fortune list and IT is going to begin roll out at the end of the year, issues not withstanding. I think corporate roll out will be faster for this version than any prior version. Probably because Windows 7 is already closing in on 6 years, plus all the added security features make it much safer for companies worried about information security (which is a lot).
W7 might be 6 years old but the company I work for only rolled it out last year. If W7 is working for people, why would they change?
And it only updates your stats is you let it do a scan. It doesn't automatically update your OS stats.
If by devices you mean pc, maybe. But mobile no way.
Yes I agree with you on your analogy
Most companies will wait until support ends for Windows 7 before they upgrade, just as they did with XP. And most average users will wait until they need a new PC f they ar ehappy wth the OS they have currently. Microsoft will be extremely lucky if they can get 50% of Windows users onto 10 within two years. They certainly have a lot of work to do on the touch side of things before they will get me to upgrade.
Nice! WORLD DOMINATION!!! :)
"The hardware survey also seems to suggest that the majority of Windows 10 upgrades from Steam users came from Windows 7. It's combined (32-bit and 64-bit) share went down in the survey by 1.45% in July while the combined share of Windows 10 went up by 1.2%."
This is great news! Microsoft is finally reaching out to Windows 7 users!
Indeed. I guess Start Menu + Faster OS + DirectX 12 + Xbox Live Integration + Free Upgrade has been most enticing to the Steam community. :)
Don't forget that free game recording tool(Win+G)
Game recording tool that doesn't work on exclusive full screen apps... (So nearly all AAA titles on steam). Hopefully we get support, but until it changes, it's a way of recording solitaire.
Lol you make it seem like AAA titles don't support windowed full screen or windowed mode if you wanted to record in the meantime. Wasn't long ago broadcasting software didn't have game hooks anyway, so recording in exclusive full screen was rare. Plus, I'm sure this will improve anyway, but it's definitely a lot better than "broken", which is what you're implying.
They'd be stupid not to upgrade to Windows 10.
Absolutely. Everything essential is included in Windows 10, thanks to Microsoft and Insiders giving feedback on what they wanted "the perfect OS" to be like.
Well... Almost everything. I know it's kinda died a death now but I'm still pissed that Windows Media Centre has been killed off. A fully integrated media system with the full backing of Microsoft could have been a force to be reckoned with by now.. especially with cheaper SSD's and small form factor PC's these days.
With Smart TVs, who needs a media centre any more? I can stream content to it from anywhere without having to attach a box or anything else.
Microsoft also built Windows 8 on user feedback and look how it turned out.
Everytime I grab my laptop (with W7) I want to install W10 but in the end decide "I should wait more"
I upgraded from Windows 7 on July 30th and have not experienced a single bug or glitch yet.
No need to wait go for it! :)