Microsoft can take a deep breath. One of the darkest chapters of its history is winding down: Windows 7 has surpassed Windows Vista in market share, according to Net Applications. Not by much, but the trend is there, even if Windows 7 is far from touching the user base of Windows XP.

Windows Vista, which was labeled by Microsoft as the fastest selling operating system in history, was Microsoft’s first operating system that did not surpass its predecessor in market share. Vista topped out at 18.83% share in October 2009, the month of the release of Windows 7 and 35 months after its debut (Vista Business.) Since then, Vista has been on a decline and has fallen in July below the market share of its successor, Windows 7, for the first time.

Net Applications estimates Vista’s July share at 14.34%, while Windows 7 climbed to 14.46%. Windows XP is surrendering market share on a slightly faster pace than Windows Vista, but has still a base of 61.87% share. According to Net Application, XP loses users at a rate of about 0.5 points per month. Windows 7’s share of Windows 7 users is now at about 15.83%, according to Net Applications.  Microsoft recently said that it has sold more than 180 million licenses of Windows 7 since its launch in October 2009.

Microsoft may be able to stop talking about Vista, which almost brought the company down to its knees, entirely, but there is still the problem that Windows is losing market share over all. Since January 2009, the share has dropped from 93.66% to 91.32%.  It is not much, but it is a consistent leak and the trend is shows Windows is surrendering share. Surprisingly, it is not Mac OS X, which occasionally wins share and losses some share, but is somewhat flat at around 5% (July: 5.06%). Linux is also losing and has dropped below 1% to 0.93% and its lowest share since January 2009. The iPhone OS is the operating system that is hurting Windows in the OS market. Net Applications saw its share to climb to a new record of 0.70% in July.

In comparison, StatCounter estimates different market shares for operating systems than Net Applications, but also states that Windows 7 has now surpassed Windows Vista in market share. StatCounter estimates Vista’s share at 18.12%, 7’s share at 19.34% and XP’s share at 56.33%. MacOS X sands at 4.56% in StatCounter’s charts.  According to the market research firm, Windows 7 is seeing its strongest growth pace in North America and Europe, where it is listed with 22.46% and 22.56%, respectively. In Asia, Windows 7 is at 14.7%; in Africa, Windows 7 is at 15.86%, according to StatCounter.

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