Home windows 11 has by no means been extra standard – and, effectively, that’s not saying all that a lot, however in equity, it appears the working system might lastly be reaching a turning level the place adoption may velocity up meaningfully.
The query is: why would possibly this be taking place? We’ll come again to debate that, however first off let’s dive into the precise statistics for Home windows market share (of all variations of Microsoft’s OS) as put collectively by Statcounter.
The figures for September present that Home windows 11 is on 33.37%, which remains to be a great way behind Home windows 10 at 62.79%.
Nonetheless, Home windows 11 is up from a market share of 30.83% in July, in order that’s a soar of simply over 2.5% in two months (and the OS went up a share level from June to July, too).
Lately, then, Home windows 11 has been seeing significantly greater good points going by Statcounter’s figures – taking into account that it took 16 months to achieve 10% when going from 20% adoption to 30%, sluggish progress of about 0.6% per thirty days, in comparison with double that charge of progress now.
Additionally, we’re seeing Home windows 11 get extra standard with PC avid gamers too, the place final month, on Steam, the working system lastly turned extra standard than Home windows 10, a very essential milestone for Microsoft little doubt.
As for the third-place working system in Microsoft’s desktop ecosystem, that’s, in fact, Home windows 7, which is retaining a persistent consumer base of round 3% all through this yr (it’s at the moment on 2.85%).
Evaluation: Lastly compelled into the BIOS to find that TPM setting
So, again to that key query: why is Home windows 11 instantly gaining extra favor, and does this characterize the working system turning a nook by way of constructing significant adoption going ahead?
The obvious motive for these latest good points should be the truth that Home windows 10 is coming to its Finish of Life slowly, however very certainly. Assist for Home windows 10 attracts to a detailed in October 2025, which is simply a yr away now, and maybe that timeline is feeling extra pressing consequently, so holdouts are wanting extra severely at upgrading to Home windows 11.
We envisage people which were pushing aside enabling TPM (it might be off by default on their PC) diving into their BIOS to search out the setting, lastly, and prep the bottom for his or her massive Home windows 11 improve (TPM is a requirement for Home windows 11’s higher safety). They’re dealing with the chilly, onerous actuality that it’s about time to take motion in the event that they wish to preserve an working system that has updates (versus paying for Home windows 10 updates after October 2025, which would be the solely different possibility – apart from switching OS completely that’s, to possibly one of many greatest Linux distros, however that’s a complete different ballgame).
We must also keep in mind that Home windows 11 has acquired a good few options that it didn’t have at launch by now – some primary performance in lots of instances – and that would assist its trigger, too. In any case, Home windows 11 is three years previous now, and it has expanded a superb deal because the OS was launched again in October 2021.
Would possibly Copilot+ PCs determine within the equation right here? It’s in all probability too early for that, and the opposite components we’ve talked about – primarily the top of assist for Home windows 10 – are going to be the most important contributing components to Home windows 11’s progress right here.
That stated, the brand new AI-powered laptops might be chargeable for a small quantity of Home windows 11 adoption, as large issues are predicted for Copilot+ laptops going ahead – we imply enormous gross sales. In order that’s positively one thing on the horizon, probably, however take the concept with some seasoning. And in addition, by the point we get there, Home windows 12 – or no matter next-gen Home windows shall be referred to as – is prone to be imminent, or certainly to have arrived (full with next-gen nag screens to improve, little doubt).
As for the Home windows 7 consumer base that is still, what’s happening there? That is most definitely a small core of enterprise customers who’ve previous PCs working even older software program, and so they can’t be upgraded attributable to thorny issues with these legacy apps. Such corporations will have to be working in the direction of an answer, however in some instances, migrating complicated programs might be a severely troublesome and extremely fraught activity, which is certain to be progressing slowly.
After all, it’s additionally value taking into account that there are in all probability fairly just a few Home windows 7 PCs on the market that aren’t related to the web in any respect – to maintain them safe – and as such, received’t present up for stats crunching corporations to rely.