Windows XP owns skinning

from WinCustomize Forums
65% of our users who responded to the OS in use poll answered that they use Windows XP.

16% said Windows 2000 giving the two a combined total of 81%!

Given that these two OSes are only in use by a minority of users in the general public, it is safe to assume that people who are into customizing their computers are much more likely to have Windows XP.

Now, what is the reason for this? I can think of two basic reasons:

1) People into customization simply tend to have the latest/greatest version of Windows. The only problem with this assumption is that our other poll on hardware showed that most people on this site don't have the latest/greatest hardware.

2) That people who try out customization software like WindowBlinds, DesktopX, Winamp, etc. tend to have a much better experience with it if they're running Windows 2000 or Windows XP. That is, people who run Windows 98/ME are much more likely to have these customizing programs perform less than optimal and hence they don't continue to use them whereas WinXP/2K users have good experiences with them and end up sticking to them.

Regardless of the reason, Windows XP really seems to have boosted the skinning movement. This month may be WinCustomize's best month ever in traffic (it's going to be very close).

10,400 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Cool, I can't wait untill I can stop having to wory about win9x Icons.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
"Given that these two OSes are only in use by a minority of users in the general public, it is safe to assume that people who are into customizing their computers are much more likely to have Windows XP."

Not at all. It is safe to assume, however, that the majority of likely respondents to the poll are Windows XP/2000 users who take an active interest in Wincustomize.com.

What you *can* prune from the results is that it is probably safe to assume that *your* users and subscribers are likely to be Windows hotrodders (in the sense that they like to tweak/work with their systems). To that end, it behooves you to 1) pursue the late version Windows market more aggressively, and 2) study the viability of pursuing the market for the older versions of Windows (9x).
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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My thought would be that most of the skinners(all the catagories) have XP. I had ME when I found this site. It was semi unstable before I used windowblinds but became really unstable after that. Hence XP.(Thats not the only reason for the upgrade). I went from 95 to ME. I would say that with in a year most of the people will be on XP.

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Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Well shiver my timbers but how many of them that use Xp are legal versions ?

I'm still on 98se but I am planning to switch to XP when i buy my next pc.


Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have Windows 2000 at work (we move slow in the federal government - we're just rolling out 2000 to all our users right now. We like to wait until things have been proven and established.)

When I bought a new computer this year I debated whether or not to get XP or 2000, but decided on XP for two reasons: computer games (I love RPGs) and customization.

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Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Entilza- It's almost impossible to get a warez copy of XP. Maybe later, when it's not so new.

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Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Almost impossilbe to get warez winxp (I have two legit copies, they came with my pc and laptop), you got to be kidding me. I assume you don't use mIRC....


-The King