Millions Of PC Users May Still Be Running Windows 7

Most people don't care at all what version of Windows their PC is running as long as the PC works. This is a problem Microsoft faces in trying to get people to update their operating system when new versions of Windows cost so much. Microsoft officially ended support for Windows 7 about a year ago, but lots of PC users worldwide have continued on with the operating system.

Exactly how many Windows 7 users are still on the operating system is hard to know. One report says that when Windows 7 reached the end of support last year, about 200 million PCs globally would continue running the operating system. Consulting figures available in data from the US government's Digital Analytics Program, the report says that as of December 2019, 18.9 percent of Windows PCs were on Windows 7.

At the end of 2020, metrics show that about 8.5 percent of Windows computers are still on Windows 7. That's a significant decline in Windows 7 users over the year but would still indicate a considerable number of people remain on Windows 7. Coming up with a hard figure for the number of PCs still running Windows 7 is difficult to do.

However, what is clear is that a huge number of people and businesses continue with the unsupported operating system. At the end of 2020, NetMarketShare showed Windows 7 machines accounted for about 21.7 percent of the market. Global Stats shows that the Windows 7 PC population is somewhere around 17.7 percent of the market.

While we can't come up with a firm number, these metrics would indicate there is likely a minimum of at least 100 million PCs still on Windows 7 around the globe, and the number could be significantly higher. Microsoft is allowing some users to pay for extended security updates. It's expected that the number of Windows 7 PCs will decline significantly throughout 2021.