Windows, in its many and various forms, is installed on somewhere between 88 per cent and 93 per cent of the world's computers; to extrapolate that vague figure even more inaccurately, that's somewhere around a billion machines. Indeed, Windows is so hilariously dominant in the marketplace that discussions of the merits of relative minnows such as Macintosh, Linux or Google's emerging Android OS sometimes feels as niche as pondering Kettering Town's impressive start to the football season.

