Microsoft: Vista sells nearly 40 million licenses in first 100 days

In case you're keeping track, nearly 40 million Microsoft Vista licenses have been sold in its first 100 days. According to Billy G, 78% of all sales made since the January 30th launch had been for the software's premium versions. Not bad, in fact, pretty damn impressive leaving little doubt that this is Microsoft's most successful OS (measure by rate of sale) ever with record profits sure to follow.

[danny rho @ May 16th 2007 5:12AM]

Gotta love complete monopoly.

They sure know how to make money.

If they have consulting(MMA and etc.) subsidiary,

they would do very well.

Not that they need one since they are making

shit load of money already.

[anonymouspimp @ May 16th 2007 12:12PM]

Monopoly? How so?

If you don't like it... go buy a Mac.

use Linux... use whatever.

Just don't post nonsense... there may be impressionable young minds reading this site, and we don't need people like you making them retarded.

[Dave @ May 16th 2007 5:16AM]

Well duh! Every new computer has Vista installed on it when you buy it, 90% of the world use Windows and if (like me) you are reinstalling XP for the umteenth time due to hardware failure or virus/spyware attack you run out of activations. When I called MS to have my XP reactivated they refused advising me to upgrade to Vista instead. Yeah, great way to inflate your sales record Microshaft!

[LordFarkward @ May 16th 2007 6:13AM]

wrong use of term there, i'd say... to 'inflate' a figure in accounting terms u'd have to use dodgy account methods to make a number to look much better than it really is... and i think '40 million licenses' means just that, that there were '40 million licenses' sold/distributed

anyways, heard of this term called 'consumer's choice'? no one forced u to buy a PC that came with windows installed... and before u go 'well i could only get vista with dell/hp cuz they're cheaper', u could also have a 'choice' to build ur own pc from scratch and install xp or any other OS of ur choice...

and regarding them refusing to reactivate xp? i'd say good for them since that means this indicates that they're putting more efforts and concentration into making vista better, which makes sense to me.

[Bert @ May 16th 2007 5:17AM]

40 million served... 0 satisfied.

[Jeff Lewis @ May 16th 2007 1:30PM]

Actually, I've been running Vista since the home versions shipped in Jan and I'm quite pleased with it. I know more than a few other people who are also quite happy with it.

So - sour grapes? :)

[Homeboy @ May 16th 2007 5:24AM]

Bert:
I'm satisfied. What I have found out the latest months is that all the Vista haters are people who haven't tried Vista or people who have installed it on the barely capable computers, which even lack proper Vista drivers. Then we have the Apple fan boy groupies who jump on the "I hate Vista"-Wagon and claim that the only difference between XP and Vista is the visuals.

Vista is a big step up from XP and features some very handy features. I will personally never go back to XP.

[andrew harrison @ May 16th 2007 6:06AM]

Homeboy:

I've tried it too. On a brand new computer that was shipped with it, with all the drivers and everything. I've been using it part time [my full time computer is a mac] since early February.

You know what? I'm not satisfied. There are a lot of things about it that are good, but there are just as many that are not. The things that are good are not much better than XP, not nearly enough to earn my recommendation.

[The Grand Master @ May 16th 2007 6:24AM]

I had my first experience with Vista the other day, it was a fairly pleasant one.
I was using a computer at my friend's house, running Vista and Aero and everything, and it ran well enough.

Whilst it was pretty nice to use, it did kind of just feel like a well skinned XP. I'm a pretty average user, all I was doing was surfing the internet and printing some stuff off (and having a click around to test it out), and it did seem like quite a nice operating system.

But I wasn't blown away. The shiny black start menu looked really cool, as did the Start Menu, and the shiny effects on the open windows was pretty cool too. I used Office 2007 for the first time, and in my short experience with it, it just looked like they had rearranged the top menu, for the sake of making it look different. It wasn't bad at all, but there seemed to be no net benefit.

I also tried the newly Vistafied Windows Explorer, and found there to be very little in there, that was different from my XP PC at home. The arrows on an open folder now point diagonally instead of where they used to, and the symbol for MP3 was different.

Basically, Vista is nice, its a logical progression from XP, and brings it up to spec with all the other OSes out there today, but I'm really glad I didn't pay £400 just to install it on my computer, and until DX10 becomes the de-facto standard, I doubt that I will.

[Somedude @ May 16th 2007 7:16AM]

It features some very handy features?

Does it feature a thesaurus?

[bleeka @ May 16th 2007 9:07AM]

It seems like there are Microsoft planted cheerleaders on this blog.
I wonder how much I could get to go from blog to blog posting how wonderful Vista & the Zune are?
Where do I apple for that? Or do I just promise my already tainted soul to Billy G for that gig?
The people that make these posts seem more scripted than sincere.
It sounds far fetched, but this certainly wouldn't be beneath Microsoft!

I sure would like to find a way to expose them...

[M.Olivier @ May 16th 2007 12:10PM]

Being one of those guys sitting comfortably on the "I hate Vistas" wagon by default (I run Macs out of love, PCs because work won't get with it), I would have to say the new Vista seems great...I mean it must be, Apple built the same thing years ago...and it worked, still works, and keeps getting better. Up next, "Hi, I'm a PC...and I'm a rock."

[Hoops @ May 17th 2007 4:32AM]

I'm sorry but Keef is talking through your hat!!! At least XP works!! The real world is that I purchased a top of the line HP notebook with VISTA and OFFICE 2007 installed and I can't forward emails!!! I am not alone check out http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1328538&SiteID=17

VISTA is rubbish and MICTOSOFT could not care less about the pain & suffering they cause by their shipping junk software that is untested and does not work. Sorry to be so blunt but after 4 months of suffering and MICROSOFT & HP could care less - it becomes personal!!

[Scooter @ May 16th 2007 5:26AM]

looks like those (fat, white, ugly) guys are dancing for joy, poking fingers at 'consumers'. About time ordinary folk (and corporate buyers) learned that Linux has more mojo.

[ShaleX @ May 16th 2007 5:32AM]

Actually I was quite satasfied wih my purchase of Vista.

[LongshotX @ May 16th 2007 11:40AM]

I don't see the problem with Vista. Can someone explain to this experienced user why you don't like Vista?

[Ted Brown @ May 16th 2007 5:33AM]

Wait I thought Vista was supposed to be the demise of Microsoft.

This post is made from a computer that has been happily running Vista since November. Whenever I boot back into XP I start to miss Vista and have to go back. Stop getting your Vista impressions from Apple commercials and try it out for yourself. Assuming your computer is somewhat recent you should notice a performance increase from the same computer running XP. Also make sure to install the latest drivers for your devices.

If UAC annoys you, turn it off. It's actually beneficial to leave it on but as long as you use common since it's fine to turn it off.

[Andy @ May 16th 2007 5:47AM]

My prediction is that you'll see a massive drop-off in sales per month, because you can only stuff the supply channel so full before it's full.

[Vanillacide @ May 16th 2007 5:51AM]

Vista went on sale in November for corporate customers so those figures are included in 40m, plus all the Vista free upgrade numbers; these are a lot of sales outside the 2.5 months Microsoft is harping on about.

Of course the figures do not include new PCs where hard drives were reformatted and WinXP installed (i.e. many of the corporate ones), which should count as a minus Vista.

PCs now come with Vista installed, sales for 2007 should be about 240-245 million units. Therefore Microsoft should be selling 20 million Vista per month, for 2.5 months (what Microsoft is counting for this PR), minus 5% (for those actively avoiding Vista, or Dell customer requestion XP), plus 10% for all the other non-bundled sales combined makes it (20 million by 2.5 by 1.05 = 52.5) around 50 million units sold.

But Microsoft's only sold 40 million units, is it really a success?

Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39636

[treetrunk @ May 16th 2007 7:10AM]

Um, right. I got as far as where he says:

"the only part that floored me was the antagonistic licensing, crushing DRM, and borderline malware embedded"

and stopped reading. As for the "I reckon they should have sold 50 million", he's just arbitrarily making numbers up!

Whatever way you look at it, 40 million is a lot. Since everyone loves to compare to OS X, note that this is nearly double the estimated OS X user base already, which has been around since 2001! (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/03/02/mac_install_base_estimated_at_22_million_pre_leopard.html)

[Rich @ May 16th 2007 8:03AM]

I wonder how many of those 40 million have been installed. Anyone on one of the myriad Microsoft bulk License schemes will have a license to now run Vista. Anyone know any corporates who've moved to Vista yet? Have MS Even rolled out Vista to their PCs?

I've actually been using Vista for a while on a PC that's now just a media centre PC. It's alright. The UAC is a right royal pain in the arse. It looks prettier, and the Media Centre component is much improved. But really, is it that much better? Does it allow me to do more, or do things more easily, or do things faster. Well no. It looks nice.

I've left XP on my laptop, and I think I'll stick with it. I've never had a virus or anything through being sensible, rather than being pestered by UAC.

Disclaimer: I am not, nor ever have beem an Apple user. My MP3 player isn't even an iPod. I might get a MacBook Pro next though...

[Bert @ May 16th 2007 5:54AM]

Sorry,

Make that 40 million served... 3 satisfied.

De Nile ain't just a river in Egypt.

[Josh McGrath @ May 16th 2007 5:25PM]

yes it is.

[The Grand Master @ May 16th 2007 6:16AM]

Ok, this isn't me trying to take MS down a peg, this is me trying to understand how they couunt this stuff.

When it says '40 million licenses' that doesn't refer to every business PC bought does it? They get group licensing right?

Does this number indicated how many people have bough Vista off the shelves, or had it shipped to them on a new PC, or both?

40 Million does sound very impressive, but I'll wait for it to pass muster with someone other than MS, before I join the celebrations.

[BrianC @ May 16th 2007 6:17AM]

Well I'm satisfied too with Vista. And I am not afraid to admit that.

[Mischa Lockton @ May 16th 2007 6:26AM]

However they count it, it is selling better than XP, therefore a success. Dell does still offer XP so it isn't exactly forced and new PC's with it pre-installed certainly count in my book.

[Keef @ May 16th 2007 6:29AM]

Im extremely satisfied with Vista, and if you do not think its better that XP, then you must be a complete moron.

its hell of alot better than XP in everyway.

[Chris @ May 16th 2007 6:44AM]

I don't think Microsoft care what all the haters say. They can't here you from way up there.

[C0rwyn @ May 16th 2007 6:45AM]

I've been using Vista at work and home. While I do believe that Vista is a step up from XP, I'm annoyed that they didn't fix some blatant issues that have been plaguing Windows for years. I heard that Vista was going to be better threaded to make it more responsive, but instead they added lots of eye candy. You wanna bring Vista to it's knees? Just try to access a network resource that doesn't exist. Why don't they let you cancel? Wanna delete a lot of files? You get a prettier but still annoying dialog telling you how many minutes remaining.. Why can't it delete on a background thread? Sure it looks nice, and it does perform better than XP but it's still a disappointment considering what they could have fixed. Changing the busy cursor from an hour glass to a circle doesn't make it any less frustrating to look at.

[Chris @ May 16th 2007 6:45AM]

I don't think Microsoft care what all the haters say. They can't hear you from way up there.

[Alex @ May 16th 2007 6:47AM]

I like my Vista. The only reason I use both XP and Vista is because some programs don't work on Vista just yet. And I believe they will. I can wait.

Installation of Vista was much easier and faster than any older Windows I've installed. Most software I use work just fine. Are people just complaining because some other companies haven't wrote appropriate drivers or applications that will work on the new OS? Whose fault is it actually?

I still remember complaining about Windows XP when it first came out. I couldn't find stuff. They moved it around. Same thing with Vista, but this time I will learn it (I already did and it was a no -brainer). It always takes time to get used to new environments. I think that's why most people complain: they are not used to it. It's too new. Maybe you just "heard" that Vista sucks? Who told you that? and who told them that? How many of the complainers actually use it on a daily basis?

When someone gets rich, there will be people hating them. That's why those haters don't get rich. If you hate Vista, don't use it. Whining on a forum is useless.

[Frikkie @ May 16th 2007 6:56AM]

I installed Vista on a very capable machine when the business release came out ... i ran it for a month and bought myself an imac and a macbook ... never looked back !!

[Piter @ May 16th 2007 6:58AM]

In my company some vista laptops came, and where soon reinstalled with XP by the owners themselves, because not only they could not access network resources, but they also broke networking on otherwise working XP pcs. Seems like that vistas were taking server tasks without first asking.

So what? Maybe I should "upgrade" all my pcs and servers to vista??
Buying half of them new because the current ones do not support it??

I don't think vista can be considered a success if some major pc vendors selling only vista pcs were forced to offer XP again because of customer complaints.

[Vasilis @ May 16th 2007 7:08AM]

I am not all that happy with Vista, I only use it to play games anyway...

1. I was playing a game, automatic updates are switched off, my game closes am dropped on the desktop and a message saying that Vista has installed updates and it is restarting. No prompt whatsoever!!!

2. On a C2D 6400, 2GB RAM and a 150GB 10000rpm drive it needs about 15 - 20 seconds more to boot than OS X on my Mac Mini with a 80GB 5400rpm Core Duo 1.66GHz 1GB RAM.

3. I have a hardware firewall so the Vista one is switched off. Every time I boot I am told that my computer is unsafe and I should use a firewall that message cannot be disabled... On top of that a couple of times Firefox just wont get on the internet... why? cause the Vista firewall - the switched off one - has blocked access!!!

These are just what I can remember from the top of my head, there are other incidents where vista seems unpolished and is irritating.

I am glad they selling well good on them, am glad some of you like it a lot, but from my point of view it is an unfinished OS that only sells well because in more ways than one it is the ONLY choice.

[treetrunk @ May 16th 2007 7:31AM]

1. I've never experienced so can't comment.

2. I'm quite surprised by. I've got a single core athlon 3200 and it takes about 40 seconds to get from power on to the logon screen. A dual core 6400 I'd expect to be much faster. Are you sure all your hardware is working properly? I've got a pre-vista external HD which I find causes it to hang for 30 seconds or so when starting up if I leave it plugged in (I've read its a BIOS issue but haven't got round to updating).

3. You should be able to turn them off by clicking "change the way security center alerts me" on the left hand pane in security center. (according to F1 - 'security alerts') I haven't tried this so don't know if it fixes the problem you're having.

[Vanillacide @ May 16th 2007 7:25AM]

Simple fact is Vista has sold more than XP did in same time because there are more PCs sold per month these days (with Windows preinstalled), not because people are going out in droves and buying it.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ May 22nd 2007 11:35PM]

QUOTE:
"Simple fact is Vista has sold more than XP did in same time because there are more PCs sold per month these days (with Windows preinstalled), not because people are going out in droves and buying it."


Corret, people are not rushing out to in droves to buy Vista the like they did when Windows 95 came out.

[cgarison @ May 16th 2007 7:27AM]

I already have too many licenses of Vista to count. Not true, but I have 3 Home Premium, 10 Business and 1 Ultimate. And I will not say that Vista is "BAD," but it is filled with quirks like nothing that I have not seen to date. It bluescreens like mad. It has strange quirks that are difficult to understand like the inability to change the color of apps like Office 2003 from the basic blue that is surrounded by AeroGlass transparent frames. (Yes, I know I can change the color of the 2007 Office apps to silver and black from blue, but I am not comfortable of using it to complete work for clients using compatibility mode.)

That said, I have a every machine running Vista setup on dual boot with XP also available. If anything, Seagate has made out very well because I have added another hard drive to my desktops to accomodate the Vista partitions while keeping a complete XP setup.

Yes, Vista is pretty. Yes, Vista recovers from hibernating quickly. It works well. And it has very few compatibility issues. But it is a PITA with all the blanking of screen and halting operations fro 10 seconds to ask me if I can access another HD on my PC or to launch an application from the web.

[Vasilis @ May 16th 2007 7:55AM]

to treetrunk:

Thanks for your help although admittedly I have started getting used to all its quirks and I just ignore them since I only use the PC for games.

The worse part with my Vista is that some times when I try to run a game while Vista is still loading the tray and desktop, it throws me on a blue screen telling me that it has experienced some sort of problem and it has to restart.

As for the suggestion that something with my hardware might be wrong I really dont think so since XP SP2 booted in less than half the time than Vista does and I have changed the 2GB of memory once because I thought the problem I mentioned above with the blue screen could have to do with the memory but no joy really.

Also yes I have changed that setting back and forth trying to make it stop but it just won't do it. And even if I could fix that I still have the issue of FF been blocked by a disabled firewall.

All that after reinstalling Vista from scratch twice...

[Brandon @ May 16th 2007 8:03AM]

I installed Vista Business on my Macbook (white Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM). The fresh OS, with no programs installed, saw a boot time of 40 seconds to the login screen, 16 seconds from login until it was loaded (hard drive stopped most activity), and shutdown time of around 40 seconds.

Compared to a 5-month old Mac OS X installation on the same machine, with many programs installed, which saw a boot time of about 15 seconds to the login screen, 18 seconds from login until loaded, and shutdown time of 12 seconds.

[Vista man! @ May 16th 2007 7:34AM]

40 million frustrated users.

[Shaun @ May 16th 2007 7:38AM]

How many copies of XP did they sell in the 100 days prior to Vista ? I'd suspect it'd not be far off 40 million too.

[Bee Hatch @ May 16th 2007 7:52AM]

Waiting 15 thousand years between OS releases might have helped a little.

[reticulate @ May 16th 2007 8:06AM]

I was actually expecting more hate.

Colour me shocked.

Also, Vista is a decent OS, albeit showing some of its XP roots a little to obviously at times. The only thing that really pisses me off is that they decided tabs were apparently a bad thing, and scattered previously grouped items all over the shop.

(The display options area is only the most famous - try setting up a wireless network with WPA2 certificates if you've dropped into Vista cold)

[david @ May 16th 2007 8:16AM]

omg all you guys do is complain. look at every os that comes out, there are always problems. and there will be.

when windows 95 came it it had tons of problems and it was hard for people to learn. but it become a huge step in the windows os. look at xp pro, everyone was like im not touching that, its too hard, then they end up trying it and it turned out being the biggest os in history.

its the same with everything, when it first comes out you get people moaning about it saying it sucks. ms if a huge company, they would not make their biggest os suck. and if they did i bet they would change it pretty quickly. my gf has it on her laptop and there were a few little glitches but nothing that i have not seen befor. it runs nicer then xp, looks nicer and you can do a lot more. i really like the wireless conection and the fact that she did not have one hardware software or virus program problem. and i highly doubt she will

in regards to macs getting viruses. why would someone spend a very large amount of time coding and cripting software applications to ruin a mac if only 20% if the population. when they can atack that other 80. its like attacking a houes that has a really nice paint job but noone in the house, opposed attacking a house with a nice paintjob will a lot of valubles.

[FrankTheCrank @ May 16th 2007 8:26AM]

Your telling me that a combination of 40 million new computers and boxed OS's shipped or sold?

I just don't believe this.

I smell an ENRON. Can you say PUMP AND DUMP??

[Schwinn @ May 16th 2007 8:35AM]

Well, I purchased Vista... but I haven't installed it. Why? Because I have already experienced Vista on my machine and on my customer's brand new systems.

There are so many stupid little issues that its clearly a bug-filled mess of crap that I don't want to deal with. For example, why is it that Microsoft's own Office 2003 doesn't "just work" and continues to ask for your acceptance of the EULA each and every time it's installed? Sure, there's a workaround solution for it, but come in, it's an f-ing MS product and they didn't notice?!

Secondly, an XP machine will have no problem accessing my customer's email account on Verizon, but a Vista box sitting right next to it will sometimes work, and sometimes won't be allowed access. WTF?

And let's not even talk about the customer who simply can't use Vista because their old software simply will not run on it... and it's no longer being updated, so they are screwed. Nice. She has decided to switch to a Mac with Parallels and XP, and I didn't even suggest it!

And, on top of it, machines that were fast, now run slowly because of it. What a waste.

So count me in as one of the 40-million unsatisfied Vista owners, with experience on Vista.

As for most users who say that Vista is fine... well it's easy to make an OS that just checks webmail, does some webbrowsing, and nothing more. Of course they'll be "fine" on Vista... they aren't really doing much with Vista! Most hardware review sites simply test Vista with games, and even they are running into problems... so clearly, it's not that Vista is "fine"...

[Jason @ May 16th 2007 8:50AM]

I have been running Vista since November and I use Photoshop CS2, CS3, 3D Modeling software trueSpace 6.6, 7.1, gameSpace 1.1, a slew of developer tools like VS, etc... and they have ALL worked fine since November...

Put Vista on hardware that supports it and their usually isn't a problem. Big software companies have all updated their software to work fine on Vista... If you are using freeware, or software made by smaller companies you are going to have problems... but if you have a good vendor selling you your software they should be recommending software that is going to be updated often and supported well...

Name something you are running that doesn't work in Vista!??

[Schwinn @ May 19th 2007 10:28AM]

Aside from the aforementioned Office 2003 issues...

My customers, as I said, are forced to run Vista. The first one, with the most issues, runs into problems with Windows Mail (sometimes it collects email from his Verizon account, sometimes it doesn't). Same with another Verizon customer. Maybe it's Verizon, but this never happened in XP.

These are BASIC computer functions, and should NOT be having such issues. Sure, your programming software works... as it should. I mean, without it, Vista wouldn't have a prayer. Also note these are on BRAND NEW machines with "Vista hardware" on them, so it's not a hardware issue.

Beyond that, I am sure that my day-job company's usage of ProE, Intralink, and Nastran/Patran will run into problems using Vista as well. And all of this is not even counting relatively simple software (written for Windows 3.1) that simply won't run at all. Sure, they should "upgrade"... but for what? Just to play on Vista?

The point is that TODAY, there is no benefit to Vista... in fact it's a problem. Eventually, I am sure it will work much better... but it's too early now, and that's the truth.

[Jason @ May 16th 2007 8:43AM]

Like it or not Dell, HP, etc all LOVE VISTA! Dell has been losing ground to the other companies because price isn't so much of an issue anymore... the pricing of PCs between the big PC companies is not that different anymore. Vista is what is selling new PCs. Part of the reason the OS requires better hardware is to drive PC sales.

And some of the other comments are right... many businesses have probably purchased licensing in very high numbers for Vista but haven't loaded it yet. MS usually allows you to load one version back of the software you are using... so you buy Office 2007 you can still legally load 2003 on your machines. That is good from a traning standpoint. But those are still companies who have purchased Vista licenses who are going to be installing it... still sales!

Also... don't forget that MS still owns XP... They are still making good money every time someone buys a license for a product that don't really do much work on anymore... Dell is doing it customers a dis-service by selling them PCs with outdated OSes... Maybe Dell should get all their hardware working with Vista so it isn't a problem.

Companies like HP make a lot of the PC components themselves and can make drivers for them in house... Dell usually buys components from other companies and has to rely on them for the drivers... that is how Dell was traditionally cheaper than other companies... they were always throwing the least expensive components they could find into the machines...

Oh and don't forget about the changes in Vista and the rollout side of it... This is the easiest version of Windows for IT groups to rollout and support... I know us home users don't care about that but for companies that are buying the bulk of the computers out there there are some real nice new things in Vista on that side of things.