Windows 11 is now installed on 30 percent of all PCs

Daniel Sims

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The big picture: Windows 11 suffered a worrying market share dip in the spring, according to Statcounter, but Microsoft's latest operating system might have recovered to a new all-time peak. Although Windows 10 remains overwhelmingly dominant, Microsoft's enforced end-of-life date for the OS is approaching, and new hardware could drive the growth of its successor.

New figures from Statcounter show Windows 11 adoption scraping up against 30 percent of all Windows users. The report indicates a reversal after the OS's concerning dip in April.

After recently returning to 70 percent market share, Windows 10 has fallen to 66 percent while its successor has reached an all-time high of 29.71 percent. Since its debut in October 2021, Windows 11 has experienced slow growth compared to earlier editions.

Confusing CPU requirements became an early controversy for Microsoft's latest OS owing to its requirement for TPM 2.0 security, which many mature but still popular CPUs lack. Furthermore, virtually all Windows hardware and software still supports Windows 10, causing some users to view upgrading as unnecessary.

However, new products are shipping with Windows 11 pre-installed, and the emerging AI PC trend aims to push the OS into more homes and businesses. The new Arm-based Copilot+ PCs running on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X SoCs offer a preview of the latest major update – 24H2 – which introduces numerous onboard generative AI features.

Microsoft paused the release of 24H2's most ambitious feature – Recall – following serious security concerns. Recall records virtually everything users do on a PC to give the Copilot generative AI assistant a sort of "memory," but research suggests that information can be easily stolen.

AMD's AI PC SoC, Strix Point, looks to end Windows 10 support when it arrives soon. The OS's official end-of-support date is October 14, 2025, and businesses must pay a high premium to receive Extended Security Updates afterward. Third-party security updates will be available through 0patch until 2030.

Gaming might be another driver behind Windows 11 adoption. Steam's monthly hardware & software survey has always shown more optimistic numbers for the OS than Statcounter. In June, Windows 11 reached 46.63 percent adoption – an increase of half a percent – as Windows 10 dips just below half of all users. No Windows 11-exclusive game is known to exist, but gamers building new rigs are likely installing the OS, which is currently on sale for $22.

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Not surprising to see it rise but with the recent changes that MicroSludge is making it will probably take another tumble, especially since there is a 3rd party that announced they will continue to support Windows 10.
 
I can almost guarantee that almost half of that 30% are installs on unsupported hardware. It is quite interesting how Microsoft is unwilling to share those statistics, I would surely be interested in knowing.
 
Haters gonna hate
and that's a fact

the rest is the unsupported hw that runs it
I can assure you that is the main driver
I can almost guarantee that almost half of that 30% are installs on unsupported hardware. It is quite interesting how Microsoft is unwilling to share those statistics, I would surely be interested in knowing.
thats it
 
I can almost guarantee that almost half of that 30% are installs on unsupported hardware. It is quite interesting how Microsoft is unwilling to share those statistics, I would surely be interested in knowing.

VDI installs :|

Not a single person I know has win11 running.
 
It won't be on my personal computer. Windows 10 iot LTSC 2021 will be supported until 2032.
Linux has gotten really good at running windows applications and games. Steam / Proton and Bottles (front end for WINE) do a really good job of making it easy.
 
I'm very not satisfied with Win 11's performance and stability.
Just installed Win 10 to a desktop. I should replace 11 with 10 on a gamer laptop. And make a work laptop dual boot with Linux, just to confirm that Linux is a good daily driver.
All the bloatware features and forcing me to login to cloud accounts dropped me off of Win 11
 
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