Windows 8 vies with Vista, but Windows 7 gains

Windows 8 vies with Vista, but Windows 7 gains

Oops, Windows 7 gains in May, though Windows 8 makes headway against Vista.

Windows 8 is making slow but steady gains.

Pop the champagne. Windows 8 may be on the verge of claiming installation share victory over Vista.

The latest figures from Net Applications show Windows 8 with a 4.27 percent share of PCs installed worldwide in May versus 4.51 percent for Vista.

Vista, one of Microsoft's least popular OSes, was introduced in November of 2006.

Then again, maybe we're popping the champagne too soon. Windows 7 still leads by a long shot at 44.85 percent and it actually made gains in May, up from 44.72 percent in April.

And Vista was up in Steam's rankings to 7.25 percent in May from 7.06 percent in April.

Windows XP installations were down in May to 37.74 percent from 38.31 percent in April.