Microsoft Has Sold Over 600 Million Windows 7 Licenses You'd be forgiven for thinking that the world's now completely and utterly infatuated with Windows 8, but its little sister still appears to be doing just fine. Microsoft's Steve Guggenheimer announced at Computex that since selling 525 million Windows 7 licenses back in January, it's now hit the 600 million mark. Guggenheimer reckons that Windows 8 will be "the biggest launch time in Microsoft's history." And we're unlikely to argue -- the company does like to put on a show. Source : Microsoft has sold over 600 million Windows 7 licenses -- Engadget
Well it had too, coz Windows 7 is extremely good, fast and scalable to any level and with whatever hardware Congratulations to MS !!
It was the OS that should have come after the very successful XP, hopefully Windows 8 would defy Microsoft's trend of releasing a crap OS after every good one.
From what I have observed !!! it is mindblowingly fantastic !! and eons ahead of any normal thought process from anybody in the world !! Although, I miss my start ORB, but I have hacked it to have one .. it is people like us who are obstinate ( self professed geeks ) who will have to let go of that start button !! But I hate to see it go my son who works on Windows 8.. sees the start button as a hindrance now !! he says.. why do I have to click this when I have everything in my scope of commands !!
I still stick with my original concept. MS should sell licenses for windows xp at about 300 rs for home and 500 rs for professional. You simply go to a vendor, and like a mobile recharge buy a coupon to validate your ahem ahem installation. Trust me its not about the money, but the amount of legit users MS will gain and expand on. Similarly they can do the same for windows 7 once its about to be phased out. You eradicate piracy by bringing the prices down, and expanding your user base. What the customers get for 300-500 bucks are a legit copy, with whatever support was left ( supposedly was supposed to end June 2012 for xp ). However, now the percentage of people going for another legit version might / can go up as well! With over 85% of the software pirated, this can really help MS.
I do not use the Start button myself, if any of you have noticed my screenshots, you'll see a secondary bar on the top, with all my often used shortcuts right there, the rest in menus, also using launchy for direct search and launch. The bar is always right there, like the taskbar.