Microsoft declares 2025 'the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh'
- Reference: 1736199007
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/06/microsoft_2025_windows_refresh/
- Source link:
That declaration was made in a [1]blog post today by Microsoft EVP and consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi ahead of CES 2025, which opens tomorrow in Las Vegas. Mehdi focused on hyping up all the new [2]AI features that come with OS' updated hardware requirements, and how those specifications also enhance [3]security .
"We believe that Windows 11 is available at a time when the world needs it most – providing advanced AI capabilities and modern security benefits that customers expect in 2025 and beyond," Mehdi said. "As the world moves with us to Windows 11, we will welcome them with new features, enhanced security, improved functionality, and the familiar Windows experience they know and love."
[4]
Not that users have much of a choice to move with Microsoft to a Windows 11 world - support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025, after which date the then 10-year-old OS will stop receiving security or feature updates. Mehdi describes this as "helping customers stay protected by moving to modern new PCs," but the marketing speak doesn't necessarily line up with reality.
[5]
[6]
As we've noted several times in recent months, the adoption of Windows 11 is [7]severely lagging three years on from release. Windows 11's share of the PC OS market even [8]fell in recent months , [9]according to StatCounter, with Windows 10 still present on more than 60 percent of PCs as of the end of 2024.
Canalys analyst Kieren Jessop even told The Register in an earlier interview that it wasn't uncommon for enterprises to [10]"downgrade their newly procured Win11 devices to Win10" because the aging OS was more stable and had greater compatibility with other systems.
[11]
Microsoft, meanwhile, continues to tout its Copilot+ branded AI PCs as "the fastest, most intelligent" machines around that "set new benchmarks for speed, intelligence and security," but that hype doesn't match up with user experience, either.
[12]AI PCs flood the market. Their makers hope someone wants them
[13]Buying a PC for local AI? These are the specs that actually matter
[14]Whomp-whomp: AI PCs make users less productive
[15]If Dell's Qualcomm-powered Copilot+ PC is typical of the genre, other PCs are toast
Many Copilot+ PCs, designed to run AI workloads locally, have been reported to [16]underperform in video gaming . Microsoft Copilot's chatbot AI even [17]admitted when asked that Copilot+ PCs don't live up to the hype.
But none of that matters, apparently: Microsoft [18]doesn't appear willing to budge on the steep hardware requirements for Windows 11, and is prepared to consign lots of PCs to the recycling pile come October.
Even without responding to questions for this story, Redmond's position was made quite clear by Mehdi's blog post: The Windows shop is going to keep hyping Windows 11 and trying to sell the public on its AI OS vision, whether customers like it or not. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2025/01/06/ces-2025-the-year-of-the-windows-11-pc-refresh/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/ai_pc_gaming/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/04/microsoft_windows_11_tpm/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z3xgkO8-7pcEO11KTVUBdAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z3xgkO8-7pcEO11KTVUBdAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z3xgkO8-7pcEO11KTVUBdAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/windows_11_market_share/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/02/windows_11_market_share/
[9] https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-202312-202412
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/02/windows_10_grows/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z3xgkO8-7pcEO11KTVUBdAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/14/ai_pc_shipments/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/25/ai_pc_buying_guide/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/22/ai_pcs_productivity/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/07/dell_qualcomm_powered_copilot_pc/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/05/ai_pc_gaming/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/03/are_copilot_pcs_fastest_windows_boxes/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/19/windows_11_loophole_closed/
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Really?
I have it on my work laptop. I don't like it.
There is no reason for me to have it on my home kit.
I take solace in the fact my home kit is not deemed worthy enough for it.
Nothing wrong with Win10, payed with mattress scanners and decent anti virus, and common sense.
Re: Really?
"Nothing wrong with Win10, payed with mattress scanners"
Do bed bugs also pose a threat on your home kit?
Whatever happened
to unique selling points that made your product so much better than the competition that people would buy your product over the competition?
And the competition would respond with something that was better again?
I mean look at cars.... phones.... industrial production cells (just had a demo of a new machine with a software upgrade over our current stuff that makes producing widgets so much easier and better), every product out there from a chair to an aircraft, everyone tries to outdo each other
Not so m$
You will buy our product because we're scrapping our previous product and will refuse to support it (try that with cars and you'll be drowning in aftermarket parts before the end of the day), and it doesn't matter if our new product is any better than our previous efforts.
Re: Whatever happened
There are two types of marketing department. One works to find out what potential customers want and then goes to the designers to commission it. The other sits around in isolation, decides what it wants to sell, commissions it and then tells potential customers what they want. We're looking at the latter, resorting increasingly to FUD.
Re: Whatever happened
Actually Cars companies nowadays can and have wrecked cars software, no sure how legal it is but they do keep doing it.
Re: Whatever happened
"You will buy our product because we're scrapping our previous product and will refuse to support it (try that with cars ........."
What? Like "you'll stop selling ICE cars and only sell EVs"?
Re: Whatever happened
..." unique selling points that made your product so much better than the competition that people would buy your product over the competition?"
What competition? Microsoft are dominant*. They have the market sewn up. Businesses will go the Microsoft route because they always have and businesses are too risk averse to do otherwise. Go into a consumer shop and it's Microsoft everywhere because Microsoft and the PC manufacturers make deals that make it so. The only way a consumer would choose anything other than Microsoft is because they already know what they want (probably what they are already using and they just want a legitimate hardware upgrade). OS choice isn't majoritively made on the basis of a healthy competition and the ability to compare and contrast and make an informed decision, it's on the basis of what the dominant player pushes. I'm surprised authorities haven't chased Microsoft on the basis of having an unfair monopoly on PC OSes. They control the consumer OS market and through that drive the hardware industry in a way that isn't in the consumer's interest - ie forced hardware updates because of corporate decisions to prevent security updates being available to users of older (but still perfectly functional) hardware.
...and relax.
*73% dominance of desktops/laptops according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
Wouldn't it be interesting if...
...(hypothetically) contracts, laws and regulations were different, such that:
+ everyone's "obsolete" non-Win11-compliant hardware ended up at M$ offices globally
+ M$ were to foot the bill for all replacement "refresh" hardware
+ invoices for remediation costs and lost time caused by software "upgrades" were sent to Redmond.
Purely hypothetical speculation of course, since accountability is old hat. But the mental exercise is somewhat satisfying.
2025...
'The year Microsoft falls flat on it's face'...
"chief marketing officer"
That says it all.
Much like a lot of brainless movie remakes, Windows 11 seems to be completely hypeless.
"and the familiar Windows experience they know and love."
Buuuuullll crap.
I don't love being a full time beta tester.
I don't love dumping perfectly serviceable hardware 'cos Win11 is somehow imaginarily special.
I don't love AI being shoved down my throat.
I don't love Edge being shoved down my throat.
I don't love MSN
I don't love Recall
I don't love OneDrive
I don't love Outlook mail
I don't love "Settings"
Should I go on?
and the familiar Windows experience they know and love."
I didn't know AI was going to be that bad !