Windows 8 still has a long way to go to become mainstream

It appears that Windows 8 could be slowly carving out a slightly larger slice of the operating system market for today's personal computers.

However, at the pace that it's moving, it could take more time before some analysts call it 'mainstream'.

Microsoft's Windows 8 OS managed to capture about 3.17 percent of all desktop operating systems tracked by Net Applications in March. This was a small but respectable gain from the 2.67 percent share seen in the previous month.

Since its official debut in October 2012, Windows 8 has gradually risen up in the ranks, at least in Net Applications' Web traffic analyzis.

Starting with a 1.09 percent share gain in November, the OS carved out a 1.72 percent share in December. It then grabbed a 2.26 percent share in January, pushing it past Mac OS X 10.8 to take the fourth spot among operating systems.

Windows 7 remained ahead of Windows XP as the top operating system for March, though the respective shares of both barely nudged from their February numbers.

Windows 7 wrestled the top spot from XP last August, according to Net Applications. The unpopular Windows Vista stayed in third place with a small 5 percent share, a drop from the previous month.

Assuming Windows 8 keeps growing and Vista keeps falling, both at a consistent pace, Microsoft's new OS should steal third place sometime this summer.

On average, Windows' share of Net Applications' desktop OS traffic was a bit more than 91 percent, a number virtually unchanged over the past several months.

The share held by Mac OS X dipped slightly to 6.94 percent, while Linux came in third with about 1.27 percent.