Windows 8 sales in Australia and overseas are below expectations, with one US expert describing its user interface as "a monster that terrorises poor office workers and strangles their productivity".

In Australia, IDC market analyst Amy Cheah, who has spoken to local retailers, vendors and channel partners as part of her work compiling sales numbers, said Windows 8 take-up was "not as strong as Microsoft would like it to be".

Gerry Harvey poses with a touch-screen desktop Windows 8 computer at the launch in October.

"Actual sales to date is not matching the hype, but the momentum is picking up in November," she said.

Backing up this qualitative information is data from internet monitoring company Net Applications, which found that Windows 8 was used by just over 1 per cent of visitors to the sites it monitors, compared to 46 per cent for Windows 7 and 39 per cent for Windows XP.