Microsoft has recently signed a deal with the Chinese government to install Windows 10 on state computers, hoping that such an initiative will also boost the adoption of the operating system among consumers.

But a quick look at the current OS market share stats in China makes it obvious that, for the moment, local computer users have no plan to give up on Windows 7 or Windows XP for a new operating system. And the reason could be just one: both are very easy to crack, so why pay for Windows 10 when the “free” Windows XP and 7 work like a charm?

As you can see in this chart generated by StatCounter, Windows XP had an odd performance in 2015 in China, with the operating system first losing market share, but then recovering towards the end of the year. And this could happen because of those users who tried Windows 10 but then returned to XP.

Going down and then going back up

The lowest market share of Windows XP this year was recorded in August, Windows 10’s first full month on the market, when the 16-year-old OS dropped to 23.78 percent.

But XP quickly recovered in the next two months and even reached a record share of 29.87 percent in October, which is almost the same market share it had in March - 30.52 percent. In just a few months, Windows XP dropped to the lowest market share of the year, but then quickly jumped back to one of the highest of 2015.

Windows 7, on the other hand, had a somewhat linear performance until May 2015, when it was installed on 57.67 percent of the PCs in China, but then improved to 61.09 percent in July. It eventually started dropping in the next months to reach 53.56 percent in October.

Windows 10 improved slightly improved its share during this whole time and is currently at 5.22 percent.