Despite Microsoft’s push to get customers onto Windows 11, growth in the market share of the software giant’s latest operating system has stalled, while Windows 10 has made modest gains, according to fresh figures from Statcounter.
This is not the news Microsoft wanted to hear. After half a year of growth, the line for Windows 11 global desktop market share has taken a slight downturn, according to the website usage monitor, going from 35.6 percent in October to 34.9 percent in November. Windows 10, on the other hand, managed to grow its share of that market by just under a percentage point to 61.8 percent.
The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade. The stats also revealed a small drop in the market share of its Edge browser, despite relentlessly plugging the application in the operating system.
Seriously, stop using Windows. If you set up a new computer, use Linux. Compared to everything we had in the 1990’s when we all decided to buy a computer and connect to the internet, modern Linux is fucking awesome, so think of it like prestiging in Call of Duty. You go back to the 90’s and start over, but it’s not nearly as bad, and it’s for a good cause.
Family need a new computer? Linux, Mac OS. Work need services deployed? Linux, FreeBSD.
Stop using Windows. Please. I stopped in 2013 and I’ve never been happier, it’s not been easy but I’m better now because of it and when I have to see Windows I fucking cringe and wonder how people can do it.
Break your addiction to the GUI, it’s not better than CLI, it augments it. Break your addiction to download and double click .exe to install applications. Break your addition video games that require Windows, you can run anything in Steam now (sans VR 😿). Break your addiction to your OS stopping you to apply “updates” and breaking your shit and blue screen frown face and moving your
startwindows logo button from the far left where it’s been for decades to the middle and showing you ads and introducing spy features and forcing their browser on you and their search engine and promising you good changes and good software just to deploy a half-baked product and begging you to “just wait it’ll get better”, to have it die in your arms and have ms just walk up rip it out of your arms and replace it with more half-baked software and promises, over and over. Break your addiction to MS telling you this is the last OS that you will ever buy every fucking release, having features taken from you and placed behind a pay wall, having simple applications like notepad which might have been fine in 1993 but then just remain the same for literally 20 fucking years, just to be overhauled to have tabs, something that notepad++ (which is free) has had since the beginning. Break your addiction to the abuse, this company is buying nuclear power plants to run datacenters to process data about you, that they basically are forcing you to be okay with, so that they can further increase their profit margins, and or enable governments to survey the public for whatever reason they deem necessary.Windows 10 no longer being updated by Microsoft is it’s biggest selling point
If Microsoft really wants people to switch to Windows 11 they need to retain many of the already few remaining customization options from Windows 10. Trackpad gesture support is worse, the only useful button in the new right click menu is the show more one which brings back the old menu but requires an extra click, and the file explore somehow got even more buggy. I hate every time I need to interact with a computer using Windows 11.
Luckily there’s been an initiative within my company recently to support Linux, so I’m hoping that all the network related issues are fully worked out before Windows 11 is forced on us so I can just jump ship to Ubuntu.
I wonder if the stats will rise considerably during 2025 with all the business and enterprise environment switching after delaying the upgrade for a few years. We certainly have to do that at work.
When games work so well on Linux these days, it seems to me that there is absolutely no reason for Windows to exist anymore. Why does anyone use it?
Adobe Premiere, Vegas, and my Pioneer DDJ equipment.
Hardware support is still an issue. I recently tried to use Linux on my laptop, it didn’t work out primarily because not all of the hardware was supported. I thought it was when I bought the laptop but the documentation of what actually works and doesn’t work isn’t clear or accurate so I ended up with a laptop that can technically run Linux but has various hardware in it will not function and likely never will.
Just switched from win 10 to Linux mint today. Feels good, games running faster than before even. The only thing that doesn’t work is the invasive anti cheat shit for multiplayer games. But I get merked every time in multiplayer so screw it
Main reason would be “why not?” windows is also working great for most common use cases. Actually there is not much difference nowadays between OSes. Another reason would be specific software like Excel. Why would you switch your OS adlnd most of the software you use if you don’t gain much from it.
I’ve a Linux OS for coding, OSX for work and Windows for gaming. There are absolutely no problems with any of them. Windows worked great last 4 years, no virusesor performance issues without anti-virus or tweaking. Linux drivers needed work at the start but now there is no issues, Mac is similar. Only issue is when I try to code with Windows it feels annoying but it is mostly because I’m doing things with CLI where I should have used GUI.
Btw, anyone got Reshade 5+ working in wine/proton?
Never had a problem with Reshade. You could use steamtinkerlaunch to do it more easily or just config Wine to overwrite the .dll needed for Reshade(I think is the dxgi.dll).
If that doesn’t work you can pass a argument on steam/gog/lutris/heroic/whatever to replace the .dll. I’m linking a guide to mod Cyberpunk 2077 on linux but the instructions works for any game and any .dll just change the name.
I am used to it. I don’t like the app store of Ubuntu and manually installing software on Linux is vastly different.
But Win11 is forcing me to Ubuntu. It’s the same but with commercials.
Go to Mint, Ubuntu is owned by Canonical and they’re doing ad shit too
Why do you need an app store?
Ease of installing I would say. Most people do not need nor want to learn how to install stuff using terminal. An app store is necessary for your regular Joe using the Operating system.
There are decent GUI installers for most, if not all, major Linux distros. They may not be as full-featured as the CLI versions, but they are sufficient for average users.
You don’t always need the terminal. If the software is available in a deb package, you just double click it and hit Install. But, you’re right, most people don’t want to learn apt or any other command, and I get that.
Edit: Autocorrect
I don’t want an app store. But I don’t want to jump through too many hoops when installing Software. I like the “Installer” concept.
Especially for buisnesses its hard to switch. A lot of specialised software is not supported on Linux and often there isn’t any form of good replacement.
Still needed for VR games.
Not needed, many VR games work fine under Proton. Unlike desktop though, not “plug and play”. If you’re ready to spend time troubleshooting, give Linux VR a try with SteamVR or Monado through Envision. If you just want to play VR, stick to Windows for now.
Yes, you can technically get some games working. If you use the right VR headset (meaning Valve Index or Vive), use the right distro, with the right compositor and right GPU, spend a lot of time troubleshooting, then you can maybe get a few games to start. Camera passthrough won’t work, power management won’t work (no control for base stations), Bluetooth won’t work, tracking won’t be as good, you will experience weird bugs and crashes of both the games and SteamVR, and you will get less FPS than on Windows. And even with that inferior experience, most games still won’t run.
I spent a lot of time trying despite this being the experience for most people online, and I only confirmed that it’s the case. Windows is absolutely needed if you want a good experience. Hopefully Valve changes that in the future, but that’s the case today.
Not entirely. SteamVR on Linux is almost that bad, yes. With ALVR you can try to use standalones on SteamVR, but it’s not very stable. Most games will “run” under SteamVR and modern proton, I’ve only encountered a few situations where they don’t, once again caused by kernel level anticheat. SteamVR does have major issues with stability and reprojection, which makes the VR experience much worse overall.
However, Monado and WiVRN (+ OpenComposite) are great when using Envision. Not all games run, and some have input issues, but it’s significantly better than SteamVR. With a couple overlays, you can get most functions working as expected, like desktop view, camera passthrough, etc.
As for “power management” and “bluetooth”, the only thing the Valve Index uses bluetooth for is power management. That doesn’t work in the drivers on Linux, but there are scripts you can use if you have a separate bluetooth dongle. It’s not a full fix, but not as painful as using an Android app or unplugging the basestations.
As we both noted, it requires setup and troubleshooting, and as someone who uses Linux for VR gaming too, I can’t recommend it to the average person. That does not make Windows a “requirement”, just much easier and the better plug and play experience.
Sure, as I said “Windows is absolutely needed if you want a good experience”. Yes, it’s not required to get something working if you try hard enough, but it is required if you want everything to work well.
I keep a Windows virtual machine with GPU passthrough for VR and don’t see myself ditching it any time soon. At least I don’t need to boot into Windows.
Aw shit! Thought there was nothing left that would keep me from completely ditching windows (htpc, pihole, homelab … everything but my workstation is Linux already). I recently got a headset tho and quite enjoy it… What a bummer :(
What… How is that even possible? Are new machines being sold with 10 instead of 11?
My guess is either people are downgrading, or enough people are dropping Windows entirely after previously using Windows 11 (whether by switching to Mac or Linux, or by deciding that they don’t need laptops at all and can get by with just an iPad or something) to affect the percentages.
Ah… Yeah, I’d wager the bulk is going to phones and tablets, and that should be extremely telling for anyone at Microsoft trying to enshittify 11.
I’d love if it were Linux but its probably macs, mostly due to their superior battery life (compared to Windows).
I literally just remembered that ChromeOS is a thing. I bet a big chunk is people seeing that they’re cheaper and deciding to switch to those. So, in a way, it kind of is Linux.
They’re cheaper, and they seem to have been pushed heavily to kids in school though loaner laptops. Some decent percentage of new college students already know how to use ChromeOS and they’re broke college students…
Apple kinda did something similar when I was a kid, they gave a bunch of iMacs to my elementary school, and because they came from families that could afford it, they just kept using Apple products.
Yep. I work in the edtech industry, actually, and ChromeOS has something like an 80% market share. It’s an incredibly dominant platform in K12.
I don’t think many people are changing OSs on their laptops, but you may be right about them ditching laptops altogether. 15 years everybody had a computer, now many people just get by with a phone.
Yeah I bet people are just getting by with a phone. There’s an entire generation that uses phones for 95% of their computer needs.
I’m using a phone app right now haha.
Yeah, probably the switches that are making any meaningful impact to the statistics are Windows 11 users buying a Mac (edit: or a Chromebook). I don’t doubt that there is a higher than usual number of Windows users switching to Linux because of Microsoft’s latest nonsense, but you’re right that it’s probably not the biggest part of this stat.
Yes, there are Win 10 machines still being sold, and because they aren’t eligible to upgrade to 11, they’re dirt cheap. I suspect this is the main driver behind Win 10 growing market share.
Again, this is awesome but probably not the main factor, as most people dont know how to install an OS.
Step one is to run format C,
Then shits broke and the automatic repair likely won’t be able to make heads or tails of it, doubt sfc or dism will help to much… so they will open Google on their phone and realize they should have created a recovery drive before formatting the C drive.
But now they know!
I mean, if you even have to go into the bios or dip into the mechanics of drive letters and formatting, you have already lost most people.
Im just tired of driving 50 miles each way to work again. If I can get more people to fuck up their computers locally maybe I can start a local job 🤷
I work at an MSP and a lot of our clients have to follow specific security compliance standards. Because Windows 10 is eol soon, we’ve been slowly upgrading folks to 11. I die a little each time I do an upgrade. People, including my coworkers and I, are not happy with it overall, but nobody can do anything because ✨compliance standards✨
thank goodness for bsd/mac/linux
I know executives don’t tend to go for it but you could always get in a ESU for 3 years past the EoL date. That was semi popular with Windows 7.
That involves money and clients don’t want to do that lol. It’s like pulling teeth to get them to replace shit
Is Ubuntu compliant?
In the corporate world ? Generally not, because IT can’t force group policy out using AD.
One of the biggest hurdles, and one of the only reasons Windows is still alive. Linux doesn’t have a decent AD alternative.
I think I heard some very large governments, maybe Germany, was going to completely abandon Windows soon. This will generate a ton of demand for an AD alternative so I’m excited to see what happens.
Until then you have ansible, or salt may be more suitable for workstations 🤷
Oh there is policy, telemetry and lockdown software for Linux. My BYOD archlinux worked fine until a company I contract for rolled out their zero trust bollocks. They wanted me to install Ubuntu, Redhat or SLES and their spyware.
They now sent me a corporate Win11 laptop for remote access.
I am 21 and have been a windows user since I was 6. Windows 10 was the last windows OS I ever used and after that used linux for a while and eventually switched to Mac, and I am glad I did. Windows 11 has a bunch of visual upgrades which just ruin the experience and makes it difficult to navigate around. Also the fact that I need to purchase a new laptop to be able to use it when my old one is perfectly fine.
Didn’t you need new laptop for MacOS as well?
I did, and about an year ago my laptop broke and my brother had been using a Macbook Pro from 2017, which still works just great, which hasn’t been the case for most windows laptops which are just as old in my experience.
Microsoft was doing a somewhat ok job at windows with windows7. Then they decided to do stuff like remove media center and remove support for TV tuners and pump up the tracking and assorted idiocies
People found out about the Win10 IoT LTSC version, which Microsoft alleges to be supporting for 10 more years.
It comes with basically zero of the M$ bloat that everyone hates, as well. It’s just Windows.
I just installed it on my father’s new (old) laptop, because he is not ready for Linux yet – possibly ever.
It has no:
- Cortana
- Copilot
- Windows Media Player
- OneDrive
- Office 365 Nag
- Candy crush, Solitaire collection, etc.
- Ads and nags on the lock screen
- “Finish setting up your device and create a Microsoft Account!!!” nag every X number of bootups
- Xbox Game Bar
- Microsoft Store
- Etc.
It does come with Edge.
Because it does not have the Microsoft Store you have to manually install anything that comes as a store app from the command line. I was taken by surprise that the Duckduckgo browser is packaged this way. But you can still do it. Normal programs install just fine.
Yes, you can use it for gaming.
I am sure Microsoft will take this to heart and stop the bloat shit and not kill off Windows 10 for good.
I bought an i7 NUC to use as HTPC some years ago. It has W10 IoT on it. Handles 4K, Atmos etc like a dream
holy fuck that sounds absolutely awesome. why wasn’t I on this version to begin with hahah
No Candy Crush? Non-starter.
Yeah what do you do on a computer without Candy Crush. Could it even connect to the Internet?
I thought Candy Crush was a dependency for File Explorer, TIL
Unable to verify Minecraft account. Please check your Internet connection or your billing status.
Retry
Use PowerShell Lite instead
Windows Media Player
What do you have against it? The original was better I grant you that.
It doesn’t do anything VLC doesn’t do except try to steal your file extensions all the damn time.
VLC is better but a basic media player has been part of Windows for decades now. Any decent OS will come with one. The default on most Linux distros isn’t much better.
Just adding that 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC is also super solid and great for gaming, no bullshit installed, just Edge + Defender. I disable Edge- instead of uninstalling- with a tool that just breaks it, since Edge always gets installed again eventually.
I got it from that same site, been problem free for months now. I only went with 11since my 5800X3D is still fairly new.
Nah, when my Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC (non-IoT) runs out in 2027 it will be the last Windows version I ever use.
Ok.
Perhaps even Cool.
Does this version of Windows 11 feel as snappy as normal Windows 10? And do the fans randomly flare up like on my installation of normal Windows 11?
Maybe it’s all in my head, but I tried it a while back and it felt less snappy than clean windows 10 but more snappy than stock windows 11. It also retains a lot of the annoyances of stock windows 11.
Unfortunately I can’t use it because I have a WMR VR headset and it’s unsupported on the IoT and LTSC.
There’s a YouTube channel called memories tech tips and he’s developing a script that you can add to your ISO that will have a similar effect to the LTSC. That in combination with Chris Titus techs ultimate windows utility after first boot makes setting things up much easier.
Unsupported hardware
Arcane incantations to get your system to look like a system
Still bloated
At this point, I’m assuming you don’t like yourself very much.
Well, I would like to switch to Linux but my the VR headset is holding me back. Linux does have its own annoyances. I would probably still have to virtualize windows because of productivity software I need.
I also use an engineering sample CPU so uhhh… I’ve learned to stop worrying and love the jank.
Fair enough. You can keep your partition and run your VM from there, btw.
This sounds nice, thanks for that information.
How do you know stuff is particularly “unsupported” on a same os but different build? Other then errors of course?
In my head it is the same os just different blend so wonder why it wouldnt work. Reckon maybe some missing system components. Though can copy those over?
Anyway was curious if you knew! Thanks
It’s basically just Microsoft being shit heads on their development of the Windows Mixed reality drivers that creates that specific edge case. Hopefully the open source monado drivers will be a good replacement eventually. Most everything else should work fine.
I only know because I had windows 10 LTSC when I bought my headset and tried to get it working and found reddit threads with the same issue. I tested the windows 11 IoT when it came out because I hoped it would support my headset then I found out they are dropping support next year.
There needs to be a class action lawsuit about this to either open-source the drivers or to refund all those who purchased WMR devices.
no bullshit installed
Edge
Pick one
Edge isn’t that bad. You need something to download Firefox with.
The bullshit is when every windows link insists on opening in edge rather then your default browser.
You need something to download Firefox with.
winget install Mozilla.Firefox
Winget makes fresh Windows installs much less painful!
Just incase it helps anyone: For the 11 IoT LTSC, to use winget you first have to install 2 packages via power shell. First: VCLibs.x64.14.00.Desktop.appx Then: DesktopAppInstaller_********.msixbundle
Huh, maybe I’ll consider replacing my current Win10 install that I never use with this. And maybe I’ll see about replacing my SO’s install with it as well.
Sounds like Linux but worse. Got my dad on Mint and all he ever uses is a browser and mail program (2nd one is optional)
Believe it or not my pops is readonably tech savvy. He was an engineer and does industrial control automation, and there are a lot of software suites for that which are firmly Windows only. Hardware license dongles and the whole bit. Our chances of getting that to run in Wine are below zero.
VM with one dedicated usb hub passed thru?
All my mom does is browser and Office365. I tried to get her into LibreOffice and I saw her suffering through it for some time and decided to put her out of her misery by MAS’ing her Office.
Is that because he can’t figure out how to do fuck all in Linux?
Me too
Just download Steam, it’ll do the rest.
Linux: Cause you’re just gonna use an Internet browser anyway.
Didn’t they got rid of the Cortana branding?
Yeah I believe they’re just calling it copilot now
Honestly that was the one positive thing about it for me.
When I still had a Windows 11 install, it was running under an Enterprise License. Apparently, Enterprise and Education are the only editions left that allow you to deactivate all those unwanted components via the Group Policy Editor. Also the only editions that allow you to turn off telemetry.
At some point, I managed to get all the stuff I needed running seamlessly on Linux, and I plan on never going back to MS.
I’m still using Windows 10 on my personal work laptop, and I’ve got to say that what you’ve described sounds pretty appealing. Windows 10 with most of the crapware removed, and extended support. That sounds like a good deal…
But on the flip side, I think it’s a bad idea to get an OS from a piracy site. Maybe it’s all genuine and tickety-boo, but being a reputable 3rd party source is a fairly high bar. I certainly wouldn’t trust a site I’ve never heard of to give me a legitimate copy of a better-than-standard version of Windows. Their offer to verify their own files is less than convincing. I think I’d need to be an active part of the scene to be able to trust something like that - because it certainly smells like an easy way to get back-doored.
I agree. I need to trust where the OS (or any software) comes from. I’d rather get a legitimate windows copy and then debloat it and turn off telemetry and other BS myself. Then I know I’m good on both counts. But apparently the IoT LTSC version is legit, not a cracked copy. This is the first I’ve ever heard of it.
You install windows as standard (from MS directly), selecting the IoT version during setup. Afaik it’s on GH so you can view the scripts, copy/paste if you don’t trust the downloaded .ps1, etc.
I ran the OS for a couple months on a system and had no issues. No funky activity reported (no more than usual) with snort, no alerts from sophos. I didn’t extensively verify it, but I don’t have any suspicions to report.
If the LTSC was the actual Windows then they wouldn’t be losing any market share. That shit is crazy nice
Yeah, well. They make most of their money off of advertising revenue and the spyware bullshit. License sales are one and done per user, so there’s no recurring revenue there. And probably even less than that because everyone – individual users at least – just pirates Windows anyway.
I know I sure as hell do. And I’m not recommending anyone else not do so, either…
lol
lmao even
I’ll uh … be over here continuing to use an OS that doesn’t <checks notes> show me a full-screen ad.
All I have ever seen is a single sentence on the login screen promoting MS products. Do none of you still use Windows? Are you saying stuff like this based on memes?
I’ve seen the full screen ad on windows 10. It’s not just memes.
Promoting MS products on the login screen of the OS you paid for is an ad.
Microsoft is adware
I use W10 and I’ve gotten two full-screen ads for W11 in the last two weeks.
No, this is absolutely a thing that happens now. It came through in the last couple of updates. Sporadically it pops up a screen in your face like this:
I just got one on the little pseudo-netbook we use to run one of the barcode scanners at work the other day, despite this machine not even being “eligible” to run Windows 10.
This hasn’t happened to me but probably because my computer doesn’t support Windows 11 (it doesn’t support TPM)
Apparently there’s ads for upgrading your computer to be able to run W11. I haven’t run into them myself.
Same here, but I did occasionally get a similar full screen reminding me of that fact and urging me to buy a new PC. I installed Mint instead.
i think the ads are a US thing only
They’re not. I got one last week, the one about ‘buy a new computer with Windows 11’. And I’m in the Netherlands.
I’ll uh … be over here continuing to use an OS that doesn’t <checks notes> show me an ad when I am logging in.
🤷♂️
Does it start with an A?
AIX?
Alma Linux does not have ads
I was pondering over Amiga Workbench, but Alma is nice too
The market share for Win 11 has dropped because people are “downgrading” to Win 10, holding on to that for another year before support runs out.
The Windows computers in our house never upgraded to Win 11.
No surprise there.
Some people are also jumping ship to Linux, fed up of Windows BS all together.
I am skeptical of this because the majority of people do not know how to install an OS.
I think its people not using Windows at all. Colloquially, I know young people that basically only know how to use mobile interfaces and tablets.
Not going to change unless Microsoft does a complete 180 on how they’re handling Win11 which I don’t think they will do because it’s just not in their corporate strategy at the moment. I imagine most people are just going to keep using Win10 after the support period ends.
Microsoft seriously needs an upper management shakeup. They have been dropping the ball badly in numerous areas and have their heads lodged too far up their own asses to see it.
That was my plan until MS installed copilot on my system without asking. A month later I installed Linux and haven’t looked back. I did dual boot just in case I needed it, but I actually haven’t had to boot into windows for the last 4 months. It’s gone so well I’m currently planning to do the same to my wife’s computer in a few months when I give it its hardware refresh.
I don’t like all the changes in Windows 11, but by and large it’s been fine for me.
