Windows 8 sells 40 million

if it can play all my shooters.... i'll take it

Just turn that Metro crap off and you're left with what's pretty much a better Windows 7.

Well this article surprised me! :|

Be sure as hell interesting to see the sales breakdown though?

my sister just bought a laptop with win-8, right off the bat, if you just messed around with it real quick you will hate it to the core, but after doing a few google searches on "how to" ( yeah have to look it up) you can get your way around the OS, and you can turn off the metro so thats ok, really its a new OS that you just have to learn, for normal casual users yeah its meant for them for PC guys, just have to learn the ins and outs of it. in end its not that bad of a OS.

My laptop still has Windows 7, buy my moms just recently got Windows 8 installed. I always get excited for new Windows, but for this one I wasn't expecting much...until I eventually tried it, that is!

This windows is amazingly fast. My moms laptop is a piece of s*** compared to mine, yet windows 8 made her laptop ALOT faster than mine booting and shutting down. It's astonishing to me how fast this new OS is, Microsoft did an amazing job with this one.

The new UI can be a pain at first, but once you get used to it you'll realize it's quicker and more convenient. I think that's the reason why its selling so much, because it's alot easier to learn for people who don't know much about computers (like my mom).

I can only imagine how fast mine will be with Windows 8 =O

Should have jumped on the $50 Black Friday special, what percentage did this make up of total licenses?

How many of those sales are towards companys and businessess and not towards the average consumer is what I want to know. They could have sold many to the corporate companys and businessess, but that does not matter when the average consumer is not buying the product, consumer out weights the corporate market. 

Vista sold better than most people realized too. I happen to love Windows 7 and have no reason to upgrade anytime soon.

Compared to windows 7 , windows 8 is not very good. it keeps giving weird errors and slows down the internet for no reason... then some games don't work very well on this...

I'm gonna stick to win 7 at least for another year....theres really no reason to uninstall it ..., yet.

A laptop or a desktop is a serious machine meant for doing various tasks quickly, working, playing a real game. Why would they force a touch-pad-like OS on everybody? The whole world is not made up of young people with rich parents who just need to open FB, twitter, skype and PDF files... And that part of the world has the tablets and the all the macs. 

Tablets and desktops will never be equal in terms of work or play. You're more immersed sitting in front of a stationary object in a comfortable chair and that helps whether you're working or playing a game. Everything you do with a regular tablet is casual by default - you're on the move, the screen is not stable, small and speed of performing tasks with touch is massively slower. It's by design meant for casual operations: chatting, googling something, playing Angry Birds or opening a PDF at best. So why why why would they force this casual nature on machines that are meant for immersible work and play?..

They could at least have made a go back to 'I've got no time for this shit' mode option. Nope... You have to get 3rd party applications for that?..

I just got Windows 7 a few days ago, made the jump from XP. Never gonna get Windows 8. Bring on 9.

There is life in Microsoft, yet. I would hate to see Android and Pad technology take over fully, but this is an increasingly dumbed down world that we live in.

how is 40mil dissappointing to me 40mil sound pretty awesome

Windows 8 is forcing the computer hardware industry to put touch screens onto everything. They're a cheap addition anyway. Microsoft is taking big risks again and that's far from a negative in my book. 

People need to stop whining about the metro UI, it is 1000000% optional. If you dont have a touchscreen you dont use it, plain and simple. Also, if you use the OS for more than a day you would realize that the new start menu is significantly faster at finding and opening programs. There are also many little shortcuts such as right clicking on the start menu button which brings up a ton of stuff. 

They should have called Windows Touch and developed it separately to windows 8. Windows 8 should have been a true successor to 7.

Damage control for the investors. 

I really don't see why you wouldn't upgrade to Windows 8. I guess you could stick with Windows 7 for a while, but it's only like $15 to upgrade. Plus the whole OS is just faster and more efficient.... there's no real reason not to upgrade.

That's microsoft quality for you. If sony made this it would probably sell as poorly as the vita and ps all stars.

Guys, PC gamers are a minority. Most "normal" people are not into games, and if they do play them, they play on a console or some indie game like Angry Birds. It doesn't suprise me that Windows 8 sells well.

I have been hearing the same crying since MS brought out DOS 2.0, after 20 years of being a Systems Analyst designing and implementing business networks I can tell you Windows 8 is a good OS and anyone crying about it are those that like to whine about everything in general to make themselves feel better. Some people just have a hard time adapting to change initially.       

The whole thing looks ghastly to me, too, but friends of mine who have been using it for several weeks seem to like it.  I guess it's possible to configure that desktop in such a way that it is actually a good thing.

Personally, I'm in no rush.  Even if the interface was exactly the same as Win7, the new features just aren't worth the price to me.

im sticking with windows 7

Why is anyone buying an OS designed for phones and tablets? Making people pay for basic navigation features like the start bar should be more than enough to turn people away from this horrible OS.

I've already used windows 8 and I don't care if it's faster, The interface is complete crap.