Windows XP's OS share in October down slightly; Windows 8.1 rises up slowly

With just over five months to go before Windows XP reaches its support cut date of April 8th, 2014, the latest operating system data from Net Applications shows that Microsoft's quest to get people to ditch the 12-year old OS stalled in October.

The research firm's newest numbers show Windows XP in second place with 31.24 percent. which is down just slightly from September's 31.41 percent. That's a big slowdown compared to July and August, where Net Applications showed Windows XP's share dipped nearly six percent in those two months.

In a recent security report, Microsoft claimed that 21 percent of PCs worldwide still had Windows XP installed. Even if Microsoft's percentages differ from Net Applications, the truth is that it is going to take a lot to get the remaining Windows XP holdouts to upgrade to a newer version of Windows before Microsoft pulls the plug on support.

Net Applications' data for October shows that Windows 7 is still number one in OS with 46.42 percent, down slightly from 46.43 percent in September. Windows 8 is third with 7.52 percent, down compared to 8.02 percent in September.

Windows 8.1, which was made available as a preview version in June and officially launched in mid-October, is listed at holding 1.72 percent in October compared to .87 percent in September. Those numbers indicate that there are still a lot of Windows 8 users who have yet to make the change to Windows 8.1. Microsoft has already said support for Windows 8 will end in October 2015 in favor of Windows 8.1.

One other notable data point from Net Applications is the release of OS X 10.9 for Macs. Apple made a big deal of the fact that 10.9, also known as Mavericks, was being released for free and could be used to upgrade Macs that had OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and higher installed. Yet, Net Application's numbers for October show OS X 10.9 with just 0.84 percent of the OS market, behind 10.6., 10.7 and 10.8. In fact, it is behind Windows 8.1 at this point.

Source: Net Applications | Image via Net Applications