Win 10 slows down, Win 7 gains users.

[Geek-9pm]

Computer world Reporter Gregg Keizer on April 2 :
Windows by the numbers: It’s a topsy-turvy world, with Windows 10 down, 7 up

Migration watch: There were unexpected gyrations in the market in March, with Windows 7 gaining strength and Windows 10 falling back.

Is this news? Thank about it.
Few companies sell PCs now with Windows 7, so how can it move ip?

According to analytics vendor Net Applications, Windows 10 lost eight-tenths of a percentage point in user share — an estimate of the portion of all PCs powered by that operating system — during March, ending the month on 33.3% of the world’s PCs and 37.4% of all systems running a Microsoft edition. (The second number is larger than the first because Windows accounted for 88.9% of all operating systems, not 100%.)
The downturn was the largest ever for Windows 10, which has been trending up since its mid-2015 debut. That movement has not been a straight line, as March’s dip showed, but it has been impressive, averaging more than eight-tenths of a point monthly.

Oh. He means the rate of growth is down. But it is still growing.
And Windows 7? How is it up?

First, if accurate — and there’s no guarantee any third-party measurement is — then Windows 7 will retain a larger number of users than earlier anticipated when it slips off the support list in 21 months. Using the 12-month average of Windows 7’s share movements, Computerworld now forecasts that the 2009 OS will account for about 38% of all active Windows editions in January 2020. At that time, Windows 10 should power approximately 56% of all Windows laptop and desktop PCs.

Still, that does not sound right. The Computerized reporter  admits sit.

And third, the large jump in user share for Windows 7 immediately raises suspicion that the measurement was flawed, perhaps because fraudulent bot traffic — scoured by Net Applications from its data last year — has returned with a vengeance. If so, it would call into question the entirety of Net Applications’ user share estimates.

Spruce for all quotes above:
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3199373/windows-pcs/windows-by-the-numbers-its-a-topsy-turvy-world-with-windows-10-down-7-up.html

Question: How can can you get a new PC with Windows 7? Can you? 

[BC_Programmer]

The net Applications measurement is a measurement of browser user-agent information. It records this information on Net Applications customers sites (whoever they are?). the browser tells the server the OS it is running and that is stored and collated. It relies on that information being accurate, which makes it useless- because it's not.

If any of my Windows 10 computers visited one of their "customers" and was part of the survey, they would have been recorded as Windows 7 computers.

The reason is because I've had a feature called "resist fingerprinting" configured in Firefox for some time. This uses as generic a user agent as possible- in this case, that includes reporting Windows 7.

Considering recent events regarding data privacy, tracking, and user data concerns, the tiny shift in user agents being reported to those websites could be explained quite reasonably by users turning on features like that in response to the Facebook stuff.

[Geek-9pm]

BC_Programmer,
Good pint! 
Because of user privacy actions, some such market reports are near worthless?!
That seems to be what was said last year  about Facebook. New privacy rules are eating into the profit of Facebook and other user profile sensitive companies.
The link below was published in San Francisco on March August 3, 2017
https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2018-03-19/privacy-issues-emerge-as-major-business-risk-for-facebook

SAN FRANCISCO/ FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Facebook faces substantial business risks from new European Union privacy rules set to take effect in May, a looming reality that came into stark relief over the weekend with revelations that a controversial political consulting firm had improperly obtained personal data on 50 million Facebook users.

Privacy experts said the disclosure that a researcher had sold Facebook data collected via a personality quiz to the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica is a prime example of the kinds of practices that the new General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, is supposed to prevent or punish.

The new General Data Protection Regulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation
The Wikipedia has over 20 references to this EU law.

[BC_Programmer]

Because of user privacy actions, some such market reports are near worthless?!

IMO, They've always been worthless. Aside from having a possibly undisclosed sampling bias based on whoever "Net applications" customers actually are, since it relies on the User Agent being accurate- which often isn't, it's altogether unreliable.

Aside from the flag I mentioned, It also relies on the browser being able to get that information from the OS reliably, too. Which ALSO is not guaranteed. With Windows 10, for compatibility reasons, the Version API will effectively pretend it is an earlier version of Windows unless the software explicitly declares support for it in it's application Manifest. Right now, this is the case, however future changes could cause a change in the "survey" results. For example a new major Windows 10 release could add a new "SupportedOS" GUID that needs to be supported. Articles could be written like "New release of Windows 10 is slow to catch on, according to survey results"- but it tells you nothing because unless browsers are updated to actually list it as a supportedOS, user agents wouldn't indicate they were running that release.

[patio]

And here i thought it was all those downgrades i've done since 6 months into Win 10...

[Mcmanama]

I'm not sure if I am old fashion or not but I have been on Win 7 and never upgraded to 8 or 10. I have been using the 7 Os for a long time even as a blogger with multiple websites.

[JackMcConnick]

I love Win 10 and all, but seriously, do you really use Cortana?

[Mcmanama]

I'm not sure if I am old fashion or not but I have been on Win 7 and never upgraded to 8 or 10. I have been using the 7 Os for a long time even as a blogger with multiple websites.

Now I'm not old fashion...haha. I now have windows 10 installed.