Windows 7 Usage Rises among Steam Users, AMD Processors Lose Traction

[Tsing]

Image: Microsoft



Despite the ubiquity of Windows 10, there appears to still be a considerable faction of PC gamers who refuse to give up Microsoft’s nearly 12-year-old and out-of-support legacy operating system, Windows 7. This is according to Steam’s latest hardware and software survey, which reveals that Windows 7 usage managed to increase by 2.91 percent in the month of June, lifting its overall adoption rate to 4.88 percent among Steam users who opted to submit their configurations to Valve for disclosure. Albeit relatively minor, the sudden boost of interest in Windows 7 seems especially curious now that even Windows 10’s successor, Windows 11, is technically out and available for users to try in the form of insider builds. Steam’s hardware and software survey for June also revealed that processor usage went down for AMD; Intel CPU market share gained by 1.72 percent...

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[MadMummy76]

Windows 7 seems especially curious now that even Windows 10’s successor, Windows 11, is technically out and available for users to try in the form of insider builds

No, it's not curious at all. With Windows 11 looming over the horizon that is expected to be an even bigger PITA for enthusiasts than W10, no wonder people are exploring their options. Even I was considering W7 as an option if all else fails. At the least I'd be able to use my scanner/printer properly again.

 

[Denpepe]

Can't use what you can't buy (case of hardware anyways)

 

[Brian_B]

I wonder if it’s just not “float” in the dataset - some people turning on old computers, the random variation on who replies to the survey, etc

 

[Burticus]

I wonder if the sudden rise of Win 7 on Steam survey is actually VMs running off linux boxes... if you just want to play games then Win 7 is a quick and easy install without all the bloat of 10.

Edit - and one assumes all of them are unactivated or using the trial rotation trick

 

[Dogsofjune]

I wonder if the sudden rise of Win 7 on Steam survey is actually VMs running off linux boxes... if you just want to play games then Win 7 is a quick and easy install without all the bloat of 10.

Edit - and one assumes all of them are unactivated or using the trial rotation trick

I have yet to activate windows in VM under linux, are you supposed to?

 

[Auer]

I forget where I read it, but it's been mentioned that in China during the crypto boom many gaming internet cafe's switched to mining.
Now that it's largely illegal to mine they have returned to gaming etc and that's what were seeing.
Chinese intel boxes running Win7...?

 

[Brian_B]

I have yet to activate windows in VM under linux, are you supposed to?

Wouldn't matter if it were activated or not - if it's running Steam and you say "Yes" to the survey when it pops up, you'd get picked up.

 

[Dogsofjune]

Wouldn't matter if it were activated or not - if it's running Steam and you say "Yes" to the survey when it pops up, you'd get picked up.

Oh yeah, I get that. It was a legitimate question tho, in a VM, does Windows have to be activated? I'm curious really

 

[Brian_B]

Oh yeah, I get that. It was a legitimate question tho, in a VM, does Windows have to be activated? I'm curious really

A single VM is no different than a physical computer with respect to licensing.

The pseudo-caveat to that is you could have multiple copies of an identical VM - of which, if the Activation server sees more than one copy running at the same time, it will flag that as invalid and kick it out of activation -- just like you if had activated Windows on a computer, cloned the drive, and ran it on multiple physical machines.

 

[Dogsofjune]

I see

 

[Burticus]

Oh yeah, I get that. It was a legitimate question tho, in a VM, does Windows have to be activated? I'm curious really

Not really. The default trial period is like 30 days, and can be extended by various methods. During the trial period it is fully functional. If they are VM test boxes, I wouldn't bother either