Curious to learn who’s still keeping the Vista spirt alive in the world, Pingdom took a look at the global market share of operating systems to find out who exactly still uses this OS (and then troll those parts of the world unforgivably) (actually, the Pingdom people didn’t troll anybody for their OS choices). After looking at data for 216 countries, Windows Vista was found to still be in use among 10.5% of all desktop operative systems. Windows 7 commanded the greatest portion of desktop OS market shares with 44% and Windows XP claimed 35% of all market shares.

And in case you’e wondering which country out there is still using Vista the most: Ireland. Oddly, the country with the lowest percentage of Windows Vista usage was Cuba. As much as I want to tease out conclusions from these findings, I wouldn’t go too far in extrapolating conclusions about the cultural climate of either country based on their Vista usage (or lack thereof), but simply smile, say an amused “Humh,” and enjoy the new piece of tech trivia. And really, the world seems to still love it some Vista: out of all 216 countries included in Pingdom’s survey, 182 of them – that’s 84.2% – Windows Vista is the third most commonly used OS.

One piece of trivia I do enjoy, however, and that does have some small validity to it: Windows Vista is still more popular worldwide than Mac OS X. In fact, only 16 countries in the world use Mac OS X more than Vista. And surprisingly, 2 countries out there can say that more PCs use Linux than Vista.

So if you’re one of the many out there still rocking the Windows Vista, I invite you to share with us in the comments why you’ve remained attached to this particular OS system over the years.

Microsoft announced this morning that they have filed suit against Comet, a British retailer that specializes in electronics and appliances. The suit accuses Comet of “creating and selling more than 94,000 sets of counterfeit Windows Vista and Windows XP recovery CDs.” The recovery discs were sold to customers who bought Windows PCs. In years past, Microsoft supplied such discs itself, but has stopped doing so.

In their statement, Microsoft insists that “Comet’s actions were unfair to customers,” and emphasized their concern to “ensure people get what they pay for,” and to shield customers from pirated versions of their software.

Meanwhile, Comet have issued a statement of their own. In it they insist that they are the ones who acting in the consumers’ best interests, based on their belief that “customers had been adversely affected by the decision to stop supplying recovery discs with each new Microsoft Operating System based computer.” Comet also asserted that their actions do not constitute infringement, and stated their intention to defend against the suit “vigorously.”

A request for comment from Microsoft has not yet been answered. This situation presents an interesting problem, in that both companies claim to be acting in the best interest of consumers. Moreover, Comet does not appear to be selling the discs to consumers independently. The only way to get them is to purchase a Windows-based PC from Comet. Which means that in effect, Comet’s customers are only receiving a product that they have already paid for. This is definitely a story worth watching. Check back for updates as it unfolds.

What do you think? Should Comet be allowed to make Windows recovery discs for customers who have bought Windows computers? Let us know in the comments.

[Sources: Microsoft Press Release; Comet Statement]

Which has the better OS: Apple or PC - Tell us what you think.

In the ad, which is entitled Broken Promises, the PC flashes back to previous versions of Windows and with each OS promises "it’s not going to have any of the problems my last operating system had. Trust me." Also you’ll notice that with each flashback their clothing styles change, and I use the term "style" very loosely there. Check out the ad for yourself below.

What did you think of the ad? Did it go to far? Let us know.

Yahoo has introduced a new Pingbox widget to Yahoo Messenger that makes it more social. The Pingbox application allows social networking users, Web site administrators, and bloggers to chat in real time once its embedded into a site.

Visitors to a site with Pingbox embedded can communicate anonymously or they can identify themselves. The end user can also be anonymous.

Other new features to Yahoo Messenger include three new skins (Silver, Ruby Red, Mystic Black) bringing the total number of skins to 12.

Yahoo has also introduced more spam control to its messenger application. An updated offline message window displays which messages are likely spam and allows users to report these messages from the offline message window.

Yahoo Messenger now updates a user’s status with their recent activity on Yahoo Buzz, Avatars, 360, or MyBlogLog.

Yahoo has also gotten rid of the larger emoticons on messenger and reintroduced the smaller original design. For users not familiar with Yahoo Messenger 9.0 while it was in beta, there are also six new emoticons created by Yahoo users in a contest over the summer. They include a thumps up, thumbs down, "It wasn’t me!," hurry up, rock on! and "Don’t want to see!!"
 

It doesn’t involve probes or Area 51 or shock treatment. The Mojave Experiment involves a simple switcharoo scheme where Vista is replaced by Microsoft’s "new" new operating system, called Mojave. You can probably see where this is going already: Mojave is a trick; it’s still Vista.

At the Windows Vista Blog, Chris Flores writes about Microsoft’s concern about the gap between Vista perception and Vista reality. Their hunch was that people would like Vista if they got to know it and that they only thought they hated it, likely because everybody told them it sucked.

So, Microsoft pull aside 120 respondents who used other operating systems like Linux, or OSX, or were still stuck on XP, asked them what they thought about Vista. The video shows reviews weren’t very good, and when asked to rate the system on a scale of one to ten, these same people who’d never used it before rated Vista an average of 4.4.

Not so hot.

Then, using a regular old HP Pavilion DV2500 with 2GB of RAM and Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz, a salesperson gave them a guided demo of the brand new Microsoft Mojave operating system. After being shown why it rocked, respondents rated the new system 8.5, thus "proving" anybody who doesn’t like Vista is a technosheep and just full of it.

Maybe, like with H&R Block, Microsoft can set up Vista/Mojave outposts with more trained salespeople to demonstrate to the skeptics why Vista’s not as bad as they think it is.
 

SaveXP.com is exactly what it sounds like – a site established to keep Windows XP from being discontinued.  About 41 days remain until sales restrictions will take place, leaving Vista as many people’s (and businesses’) sole option.

 InfoWorld’s Windows XP Countdown

SaveXP.com seems to have made some progress, as even Steve Ballmer has admitted that Vista’s far from perfect.  The UK government and Gartner have likely helped, too, since both of them have said less than positive things about Microsoft’s newest operating system.

There’s still a ways to go, though.  "Microsoft has declined to meet with InfoWorld to receive the petition and discuss the concerns of its customers who have signed it," according to a new article.

One alternative to saving XP is hurrying up with Windows 7, the next-gen operating system.  But with over 200,000 signatures behind saving XP so far (and who knows how many more to come in the next month), the pressure’s building for Microsoft to make some sort of course correction.

 Gates Proud Of Vista

As billionaires go, Gates seems fairly down-to-earth.  He appears to understand how real people relate to money, and he’s certainly tech-savvy enough to have read all the online articles criticizing Vista.  Still, he claimed that 140 million Vista sales represents "a very rapid sales rate," according to Kenneth McCallum.

Never mind that a number of people have tried Vista only to "downgrade" to XP.  Or that both individuals and manufacturers have pleaded with Microsoft to keep XP available.  Or even that a branch of the UK government advised schools not to use the newer operating system.

Meh.  One explanation is that Gates is merely trying not to cripple Vista’s sales in any additional way.  Gates has previously been quoted as saying that Windows 7 will be presented "in the next year or so," and as that point draws closer, perhaps he’ll start admitting Vista’s problems.  In the meantime, such admissions would either serve no purpose or drive people to seek non-Microsoft alternatives.

Here’s hoping that the year-ish timeframe is correct, anyway.  Vista’s "very rapid sales rate" aside, Windows 7 could solve problems for both Microsoft and consumers.

The Yahoo Messenger blog noted this preview release sports an entirely new interface. This draws from the Windows Presentation Foundation, Microsoft’s graphics subsystem in use with Vista.

The user interface and core functionality represent the areas of focus Yahoo centered on in building the client. Tab organization, enhanced emoticons, and the ability to skin individual IM windows list among the features.

As with other versions of Yahoo Messenger, this client can IM Windows Live Messenger clients. People can drag and drop contacts from Yahoo Messenger to the Windows Sidebar gadget and track them from there.

Plenty of work remains for Yahoo to do with the Vista version of Messenger. 64-bit support is on the list of future developments, along with almost every multimedia and messaging feature that isn’t a direct IM to another IM client.

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That’s not to imply that Yvonne Genovese, a Gartner analyst, was out of line.  She used humor to her advantage, and generally voiced what hundreds of other people have said on blogs and in reviews.  Also, Ballmer didn’t exactly break down and cry.

Still, it sounds like an interesting exchange.  Patrick Thibodeau quoted both parties, and while at a conference and in front of a crowd, Genovese reportedly said, “I’m one of those early adopters of Vista.  My daughter comes in one day and says, ‘Hey Mom, my friend has Vista, and it has these neat little things called gadgets — I need those.’”

Ballmer replied, “I love your daughter.”

And to the crowd’s amusement, Genovese responded, “You’re not going to like her mom in about two minutes.”

Genovese then stated that she’d installed Vista, only to quickly reinstall XP – Vista didn’t live up to expectations.  Microsoft had a similar problem with its Live Search overhaul.  Plus, Steve Ballmer has been at the center of some controversy due to statements about Gmail and Facebook.  It seems like Redmond is getting knocked around a little more than usual these days.

Now that the consumer launch of Windows Vista is at hand, interest in the latest stop along the trail of Microsoft’s revenue stream has ramped up significantly, and should gain in the short term.

Hitwise analyst LeeAnn Prescott noted how interest began to spiral the week before Vista’s debut:

Altogether, the volume of queries Hitwise measured for ‘windows vista’ coming through search engines mostly saw visitors continue on for Microsoft, 58.6 percent of them eager to beam on to the Redmond Mothership. The next largest segment headed for Wikipedia, at 6.84 percent.

To LeeAnn, this means something when it comes to demographics:

Microsoft has been around for over 30 years, so that older group has literally aged alongside the company. They probably paid thousands of dollars for IBM PCs that ran DOS with about as much computing power then as one would find inside a high-end Crock Pot today.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.