It took two years, but Microsoft has finally managed to convince a (slim) majority of Windows users that the newest version might just be better than the one that is nearly a decade old.

That’s the word from StatCounter ^[1], which now shows Windows 7 at just over 40 percent ^[2] of the global operating system market, while XP is just under 39 percent. In China, however, XP still dominates solidly. (And, as ZDNet notes, no other source has corroborated the crossover.)

Win 7′s long-awaited rise to prominence is good news for Microsoft, but the fact that it’s been this gradual isn’t really a testament to how wonderful XP is. Instead, it speaks of lost trust between a tech behemoth and its customers. An old magazine article recommended upgrading just because it’s always best to be on the most recent version of Windows. That seems quaint now–Windows Vista utterly shattered the presumption that newer is better when it comes to Windows. These numbers tell us that’s a lesson the buying public won’t soon forget.

Speaking of Vista, StatCounter showed it at less than 25 percent of the operating system market in October of 2009, sinking to around 9 percent today.

Read more at ZDNet ^[2].