There has been a clear uptick in the adoption of Windows 11 as enterprises migrate PC fleets ahead of the end of support date for Windows 10.
The Statcounter market share figures confirm the OS – launched more than forty months ago – remains in second spot yet the direction of travel is obvious.
Windows 10 still accounts for 54.36 percent of the Windows operating systems running on PCs, while Windows 11 now stands at 41.99 percent.
The gap is narrowing, albeit not at the rate Microsoft would have wanted. Yet by the time support ends for most versions of Windows 10 on October 14, Windows 11 should account for the lion’s share of the desktop Windows market.
The question will then be how many Windows 10 devices are lingering, living on without the flow of fixes to which users have become accustomed.
Microsoft does not disclose the telemetry data it collects from customer devices worldwide. Statcounter’s figures come from more than 1.5 million sites and upwards of five billion page views, which gives an idea of how things are going.
Statcounter is not the only resource that gives an estimation of Windows 11 market share. Valve also releases the results of its Steam Hardware and Software Survey. While primarily a consumer measure tracking what gamers use, its February results will not make for happy reading in Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters. Windows 11 appears to be going backwards and now accounts for 44.1 percent of users, a decrease of 9.36 points. Devices running Windows 10, on the other hand, increased by 10.47 points to 53.34 percent.
With months to go until support ends for most versions of Windows 10, Windows 11 is not in an ideal place. User adoption will need to accelerate more quickly to prevent a situation where hundreds of millions of users are suddenly left without security updates.
We asked Microsoft’s Copilot how Windows 11 adoption could be increased. It suggested “simplifying” the hardware requirements, which currently require many Windows 10 users to ditch perfectly functional PCs to meet the needs of Windows 11. It also proposed “extending support for older hardware.”
Microsoft is famous for “eating its own dog food” – using its own products and services internally – and has rolled out Copilot for staff.
If the company cannot hear users’ complaints, perhaps it might pay attention to its own generative AI when contemplating why Windows 11 is still trailing Windows 10 after so many years. ®
