Windows Vista may yet prove to be an unstoppable juggernaut, but statistics released today by a market research firm show that the new operating system hasn’t even licked its nine-year old ancestor.

Vista was being used on less than 1% of PCs tracked in February by Aliso Viejo-based Net Applications Inc., making it the sixth most-popular operating system. That puts it behind Windows 98, which is still used on 1.5% of computers.
Vista’s exact share was 0.93%. Windows XP continued to lead, with 84.3%, followed by Windows 2000, with 4.8%. Mac OS X on PowerPC machines had 4.3%, while newer Intel-based PCs running OS X had 2.1%. Net Applications collects its data from the browsers of visitors to its network of more than 40,000 Web sites.

Vista’s February share of PCs connected to the Internet — a month after its consumer release and three months after its release to businesses — represents a big leap over January, when it was used by just 0.2% of PCs. At the time, it lagged behind Windows ME, the 13-year-old Windows NT and various flavors of Linux.