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Millions of users still haven't updated from Windows 7

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If reports are to be believed, several million Windows 7 users haven’t upgraded their machines to a newer version, even after almost a year of Microsoft retiring the decade old operating system.

Microsoft stopped delivering security updates to WIndows 7 installations on January 14, 2020. The move was quickly followed by many third-party vendors, who dropped support for the OS soon after Microsoft’s announcement.

Now, as we approach the first anniversary of the end-of-support, prolific Windows author Ed Bott wrangled up some data to deduce that while the number of Windows 7 installations have certainly gone down in the past twelve months, there are still over 100 million PCs that are still running Windows 7. More worryingly Bott thinks “that [the actual] number could be significantly higher.” 

Not simple maths

Last year Bott consulted some analytics experts and came to the conclusion that roughly 200 million PCs worldwide would continue running Windows 7 even after Microsoft stopped sending security updates.

His latest estimate builds on top of that data, after analyzing various metrics, such as the United States Government Digital Analytics program. One of the parameters tracked by the program is the number of visits from Windows PCs. 

Comparing the figures between December 2019 and December 2020, Bott notes that the number of machines running Windows 7 has gone down from 18.9% to 8.5%. The numbers from NetMarketShare, which tracks web usage, show a similar drop with Windows 7 usage down from 31.2% to 21.7%.

Bott agrees that while “turning those percentages into whole numbers isn't a matter of simple division”, his 100 million estimate is the result of correlation between the number of Windows 7 machines still accessing the Internet and his earlier calculations.

While some of these machines could be enrolled with the Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, a majority are unprotected installations that are exposing themselves to all kinds of dangerous lurking on the Internet.

Via: ZDNet

Date

01 Jan 2021

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    As usual, we're going to be spoiling today's Wordle answer if you read on - so make sure you've solved it first before scrolling on.

    Is this the hardest week in Wordle history? If you look at Google Trends this week, with people searching for the Wordle answer, you might think that it's been almost impossibly difficult:

    Today's trends data on white background

    WATCH, CATER and MOVIE have all seen huge spikes of interest in the Wordle answer. (Image credit: TechRadar / Google)

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    "Today's word [MOVIE] is definitely giving people some challenge. By and far, 56% of people have figured out that the word ends in 'IE' but are struggling to think of words that fit. 

    "Following that, about 15% of people have figured out there's at least an O in the word. It seems like the "V" is the most difficult letter to determine! 

    "We aren't even seeing too many people looking for "OVIE" or "MO_IE," so it seems many are getting 2-3 letters but getting four is a struggle.

    "Our page on '5 letter words' ending in IE' was the most trafficked post this morning - a lot of people like to get ideas but, perhaps, not just get to the answer immediately, so these types of posts help clear away some fog."

    So it's clear that today's Wordle was, perhaps, one of the hardest in a while, even if it's not had the same number of players desperately searching for the answer online.

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    The hardest Wordle week ever?

    Wordle guess rages

    (Image credit: New York Times)

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    "From our data, this week has been harder than the earlier weeks in March, though, with a good mix of reasons. _ATCH just had a lot of options and people quickly maxed out on guesses," added Savage.

    "Words like TODAY, FOCUS and SMELT all had slightly less popular letters in them; SMELT is also not a commonly used word so the 'SM' and 'LT' combinations may have been tricky.

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