Windows XP Surprise: The latest operating system market share statistics from NetMarketShare reveal a very surprising rise last month.
Windows XP, the operating system that launched about 16 years ago and no longer receives updates since April 2014, improved its market share by 1.28%, even though everyone advises users not to use it. 
Windows XP was one of the targets of the WannaCry ransomware that started in May, and Microsoft decided to release an emergency update to protect users of the ancient operating system.
In conclusion, it turned out that Windows 7 was much more vulnerable than Windows XP to the WannaCry attacks. But everything shows that despite all the risks involved in sticking with a 16-year-old operating system, users are not interested in upgrading.
Data published by NetMarketShare reveals that Windows XP improved its share from 5.66% to 6.94% last month, making it the third most used PC operating system worldwide, after Windows 7 and Windows 10.
Windows 8.1 was very close with a share of 6.40%.
What's most surprising is that Windows XP had been in decline for several months, which is completely normal given that it is no longer supported by Microsoft. For example, in August 2016, Windows XP was running on 9.36% of computers worldwide. In May, the percentage dropped from 7.04% to 5.66%.
Without a doubt, it will take longer than expected for Windows XP to disappear from the market, despite Microsoft's warnings.
Maybe Microsoft will finally be able to read the message (if it hasn't already) that there is a large percentage of the market that is more interested in protecting their privacy than the new features of Windows 10.
