A friend asked me to find out if anyone know how many people used some version of Windows. He is writing a research paper on the differences between Linux and Windows and just wanted an estimate on the number of Windows users out there, ie. a percentage of total users or a number. If anyone could help me with this I would be delighted, he called Microsoft and they gave him the compleate run-a-round then hung up on him, he also tryed e-mailing them and they haven't responded. So any help would be great. Thanks.

isnt it something obscene like about 95% of all PCs (not macs) use windows as their main OS?

Thats not an accurate figure, i doubt anyone could give you a very acurate figure as nobody knows just how many PC's are out there or what users do with them once they get them home. Not all machines ship with Windows dont forget, companies tend to buy them ready built but no Os installed.

thats kind of what i was thinking, but my friend wanted anther opinion, so i asked, thanks