Windows 7 share climbs again

Continuing its fast adoption pace, Windows 7 made up more than 10 percent of devices accessing the Web for all of March, according to new figures from NetMarketShare.

The operating system topped 10 percent usage on a weekend day in February, but March marked the first full month where its use cracked that milestone. For March, Windows 7 made up 10.2 percent of Net-accessing devices, up from an 8.9 percent share in February.

However, that gain came from a drop in older versions of Windows, not from users switching from the Mac. Windows XP usage declined a full percentage point, from 65.5 percent to 64.5 percent of the market, while Vista's share dropped half a percentage point, to 16 percent.

Indeed, despite its popular acclaim, Windows 7 has yet to help Microsoft gain market share against rivals like the Mac and Linux. Windows actually lost market share in March, falling to 91.6 percent from 92.1 percent in February. The Mac, meanwhile, went from 5 percent to 5.3 percent share, while Linux topped 1 percent of share.

Within a month on the market, Windows 7 had topped 4 percent market share, a figure it took Vista seven months to reach.