Early Windows 7 Sales Beat Vista By 234%

Author	Gordon Kelly
Published	6th Nov 2009

Early Windows 7 Sales Beat Vista By 234%

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Given that Windows 7 pre-order sales out grossed Harry Potter this shouldn't come as much of a surprise - but it isn't all smooth sailing...

According to the NPD Group, Windows 7's first days of sale witnessed a stonking 234 per cent increase compared to Vista, though pre-sale offers meant total revenue was just 82 per cent higher.

Of course a major factor in all this is - as a populace - we tend to own more PCs than ever before, especially in the age of the netbook so there was a bigger market to pitch to. "A combination of factors impacted Windows 7 PC sales at the outset, but the trajectory of overall PC sales is very strong leading into the holiday season," said Stephen Baker at NPD.

It isn't all rosy for Redmond though since security specialist Sophos claims that even with the OS's User Account Control (UAC) protective software on Windows 7 remains worryingly ineffective in combating virus and malware threats without dedicated anti-virus software. No less than eight out of 10 virus, malware and trojan threats that Sophos threw at the OS got through with Sophos senior security engineer Chester Wisniewski commenting: "User Account Control did block one sample; however, its failure to block anything else just reinforces my warning prior to the Windows 7 launch that UAC's default configuration is not effective at protecting a PC from modern malware."

The lesson we all learn from this? Sophos Anti-virus can protect you from this for £133 for a five user licence... or you can get Microsoft Security Essentials (which I have found to be excellent) completely free. Yep, I'm sure that's the message Sophos was trying to get across.

In related news long time Microsoft target Yahoo! has followed Google's lead and announced its own music search (I stress, not my screen grab). An expansion to the existing Yahoo! Video search, this new functionality will intelligently extract the most popular albums and songs for artist or band queries. The integration looks excellent though with the Bing search deal signed, sealed and delivered it seems something of a wasted effort, surely?

Links:
Windows 7 Team Blog
Sophos Blog
Yahoo! Video Search music announcement

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Jay said on 10th November 2009

@Timek: you sure?

gdawg304 said on 10th November 2009

Yep, that's right actually, I misread the headline. I read it as W7 sales were 234% of Vista sales, not a 234% increase. It had been a busy day.

Thanks for pointing ... more

Terry said on 11th November 2009

... as I said it's meaningless and doesn't make sense. 234 IS a number but 234% is not... there's no accounting for that misunderstanding!It seems that basically Gordon should rewr... more

Timek said on 12th November 2009

Terry - if somebody told you that their house price had gone up over 100% in the last 5 years would you tell them that this information was meaningless? According to you, no - you'... more

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