Over 10 years after its launch, Windows XP continues to be the most used PC operating system worldwide. According to stats from Net Applications, Windows XP was used by 46.08 percent of all PC owners in April 2012, which is a slight dip compared to its 46.86 percent market share in March 2012. Windows 7 came in second in April with 38.67 percent of the PC OS market share, compared to 37.54 percent in March.
Microsoft has continued to send out warnings to Windows XP users, especially businesses, to upgrade their PCs to Windows 7 as soon as possible. This is due to the company"s plans to end its official support for Windows XP in less than two years.
Net Applications" statistics also claim that Windows Vista came in third in the PC OS market share race for April 2012 with 7.32 percent, followed by Mac OS X 10.6 at 2.71 percent and Mac OS X 10.7 coming in also at 2.71 percent. Linux is well behind at 0.98 percent. Users of the pre-release version of Windows 8 accounted for .12 percent of the PC OS market share in April 2012, a slight rise from its .11 percent market share in March 2012.