Windows 10 is now installed on over 200 million PCs - a figure that's been achieved since it's launch in July 2015 just eight months ago. In fact, that number is closer to 300 million, which is likely to be achieved in the not too distant future. However, it hit another major milestone last month with gamers - it's now top of the list in Valve's latest Steam Hardware Survey.
The company, which is behind the massively popular Steam gaming platform, uses the service to gather data about users' systems. As well as identifying the CPU type and graphics card manufacturer - even how many graphics cards are used in a system - the latest survey for March 2016 has revealed some pleasing news for Microsoft.
Windows 10 now tops the Steam Hardware Survey list of operating systems used by its millions of... [+]
For the first time, the OS stats in the figures show that Windows 10, specifically the 64-bit version, has overtaken Windows 7 64-bit as the most popular OS for gamers. Windows 10 64 bit's user base now accounts for just under 37% - more than a third - of Steam users. This is up 2.96% on February, with the 32-bit version accounting for an additional 1.31%. Second-placed Windows 7 64-bit use fell 1.22% in the same period, with falls for Windows 8.1 64-bit, Windows 7 32-bit and Windows XP too.
This isn't totally unexpected, though, as even in October last year, Windows 10 64-bit had leaped up the chart in the survey to second place with 23.99%. However, the gain that month was 7.6% - quite a bit higher than the 2.96% gain the survey reported last month.
Even so, this is a big scalp for Microsoft, even if it's only competing against itself in the numbers, with Windows-based operating systems accounting for over 95% of Steam users, despite OSX and Linux versions also being available . Windows 10 take up may be slowing but there are still signs that the OS is doing what's needed in the wild and that enough people are either buying new PCs or upgrading their existing ones.
If you haven't upgraded yet, you can see my full install guide here. Have you not upgraded yet? Do you prefer Windows 7 or Windows 8.1? Let me know in the comments, on Facebook or Twitter.
