Well, its not official yet, but Microsoft's Windows 7 has now become the most widely used operating system. The user share of Windows 7 just surpassed that of Windows XP recently for the first time since it was first launched in October 2009. This is really a good news for Microsoft as the company has been trying really hard to encourage consumers to switch from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Talking about the numbers, Windows 7 now has a strong 40.21% share of all desktop operating systems around the world whereas, the usage share of Windows XP has slipped to 38.64%. All this happened a couple of days back (in October). The rise in usage of Windows 7 and the drop in usage of Windows XP has been consistent since the time Windows 7 was first launched. Checkout this graph below which compares market shares of all operating systems.

Windows 7 is now the worlds most widely used OS

Last year in August, we had told you that Windows XP Service Pack 3 had a strong market share of 53% and within one year Windows 7 has removed it from the top position.

Windows Vista was kind of a disaster for Microsoft as many users straight away downgraded to Windows XP after using Vista for the first time and in fact even I was one of them. But with Windows 7, Microsoft has won back all its disappointed users who gradually started making the switch from Windows XP to Windows 7.

via WinRumors, Source StatCounter