Windows 11 continues to creep up behind Windows 10
- Reference: 1730725396
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/11/04/windows_11_market_share/
- Source link:
Figures compiled by StatCounter show that Windows 11 [1]commanded a 35.55 percent share of the desktop Windows market in October. In comparison, the share of Windows 10 dropped to 60.97 percent, continuing a downward trend that began earlier this year – it was still at 69.9 percent in April.
Unless there is some marked acceleration, Windows 11 is unlikely to dominate the market by the time Microsoft pulls the plug on free updates for most of the Windows 10 world on October 14, 2025.
It's outrageous that Microsoft, while touting its environmental credentials, is planning to effectively trash 400 million working computers ...
Last week, Microsoft [2]put a price – $30 – on keeping security updates flowing for another year for Win 10 consumers. Enterprises can expect to pay $61 per device, while users in the education sector will only need to cough up $1 for the first year.
Although Microsoft will welcome the increase in Windows 11 market share, its determination that many Windows 10 installations will hit the end of support next year has attracted ire from campaigners. The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), which [3]delivered a petition to Microsoft in 2023 calling on the Windows giant to reconsider, said the plan to extend the life of the operating system, via extended support, "doesn't go far enough."
[4]
"It's outrageous that Microsoft, while touting its environmental credentials, is planning to effectively trash 400 million working computers," said Lucas Rockett Gutterman, PIRG's Designed to Last Campaign Director. "This isn't just environmentally harmful. It's a blatant disregard for consumers who are being forced to replace functional devices."
[5]Windows 10 given an extra year of supported life, for $30
[6]Microsoft teases latest Windows 10 build despite looming end
[7]Windows 11 24H2 disk space hoarding a 'reporting error'
[8]One-year countdown to 'biggest Ctrl-Alt-Delete in history' as Windows 10 approaches end of support
The Windows 11 experience has also not gone entirely to plan for users who do have hardware that is able to accept the update.
At the start of this year, then Windows Advertising and Web Services boss Mikhail Parakhin [9]agreed that parts of the Windows 11 experience were somewhat subpar and pledged to "make Start menu great again." Parakhin subsequently departed Microsoft and [10]is now CTO at Shopify .
[11]
Microsoft has continued to update Windows 11 as time has passed. The most recent release, 24H2, includes several changes such as Rust in the Windows kernel, support for SHA-3, and Sudo for Windows. However, it refuses to address the issue of older hardware being blocked from running the operating system.
In January 2019, a year before the end of support for Windows 7, Windows 10 was comfortably ahead in market share, at 53.18 percent versus 35.05 percent. Windows 11 still has some way to go before it reaches the same point. ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worldwide
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/31/microsoft_windows_10_support/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/27/microsoft_petitioned_to_keep_windows/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zyj9tv9jyF4FcyWCI7W0JQAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/31/microsoft_windows_10_support/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/15/microsot_windows_10_insider/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/15/windows_11_24h2_disk_space/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/14/final_year_windows_10/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/03/windows_11_start_great_again/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/29/mikhail_parakhin_shopify_cto/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zyj9tv9jyF4FcyWCI7W0JQAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Instead, think of all those lovely Linux capable machines flooding the market!
Old machines
No such luck. Remember, that for 99% of the laptop buying public, no Windows -> no sale, so the refurb houses would not be able to sell them. There may be a few on eBay, but the Linux boot-USB wielding public is a tiny proportion.
Worse, the inability of any old computer to be resold will ensure that they all are going into landfill.
All those £50 corporate Dell sub-minis you were buying as servers and stuff? All going. All the cheapie Dell 1U rackmounts, with loads of life left in them? Gone.
Donate-a-PC for developing countries' schools? No Windows, no good.
This is Not Good News. It's an environmental armageddon.
Re: Old machines
They won't, for the most part, be going anywhere.
Of those that are capable of being upgraded and are in the hands of businesses which care, some will have been upgraded and some will be being held off until the last minute because their users don't want W11 sooner than they have to have it.
The rest, which aren't capable of being upgraded, and which you see as landfill will be being used by those for whom the existing updates are a monthly nuisance and will be quite glad to see that stop. Their users are not going to spend good money to climb back onboard that bus once they've got off.
Unless Microsoft were to send out a bricking update - which I don't think even they would expect they could get away with - they will continue working. The only difference in their users' view is that they'll stop getting upgrades. Nothing else. Zilch. Nada. They continue to be PCs running W10 until their PSU caps bulge.
I take it that the $30 extended upgrade offer is a realisation by Microsoft that that's the situation but they can try to screw extra money out of some of the irreconcilables.
I love my brick in a sock!
I love my brick in a sock!
I love my brick in a sock!
A half brick is more traditional, surely?
Have you tried shoving a whole brick up a sock? You might have a bit more luck with a pair of panty hose but that might be perceived as being rather nancified.
At any rate you can't get a decent swing up, fast enough, with a full brick to maintain the element of surprise.
A half brick in a footy* sock - a pairing made in heaven.
* Rugby if you need to ask.
Well...
Microsoft does act like a creepy stalker these days...
I'd rather go back to using Windows 7 than "Upgrade" my laptop to Win11...
campaigners are warning that millions of perfectly good PCs could become landfill fodder
They won't go to landfill, but the glut of second hand PCs will mean that they will become a very cheap way of buying a good machine to put a better operating system on.
Re: campaigners are warning that millions of perfectly good PCs could become landfill fodder
Nicely worded :-)
Re: ... but the glut of second hand PCs
Either that, or a glut of now unpatched W10 PC's still in use (because of business lag, lack of upgrade money, etc) ... for the bad guys to have a much easier time of cracking. Yay.
needs a dose of Gov
Governments around the world need to step in and force MS to drop the restrictions else (as the article says) there will be masses of unnecessary WEEE.
I have been upgrading via rufus just to see what happens, but I suspect the better solution will be to image, install a free-for-commercial-use hypervisor and restore the image to a VM. That way it still complies with the licensing terms and run with that until the end of the life of the PC
Re: needs a dose of Gov
The most likely solution is that they'll just be kept running as is. They're not being used by the likes of elReg inhabitants. They're being used by people who think they're just PCs and will stay just PCs until the day they don't boot any more.
Their users don't care.
Millions of PCs won't become landfill. They'll just stop receiving updates along with, no doubt, somewhat fewer millions of PCs still running W7 also without receiving updates.