Windows 7 234% better than Vista at launch

WIndows 7 - owning Vista left, right and centre
WIndows 7 - owning Vista left, right and centre

In its first few days of sales, Windows 7 has obliterated the number managed by the previous version of the OS, Vista.

Admittedly it's only sales in the US, but in the first few days of being made available to the public Windows 7 has sold 234 per cent more copies than Vista managed in the similar period.

According to NPD, the tracking service for such things, a number of factors contributed to the high volume of OS sales, but pointed that it bodes well for the future of the new release.

Plus de power

There are a number of reasons why Windows 7 has been a bigger hit with consumers than Vista, and not only because many were sorely disappointed with the earlier OS and couldn't wait to upgrade.

PC development cycles are likely to have played a huge part, with user willing to buy a new PC (or upgrade the OS) in order to take advantage of the leap in hardware power.

It's also a much more netbook friendly option, giving it a wider reach for new customers, although this is unlikely to have affected the early sales of software units as it's not available on USB stick yet.

But any way you look at it, Microsoft appears to have gone some way towards banishing the demons of a poor public perception of Vista.

Via Windows Team Blog

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.