Windows 11 continues gaining traction, nears 75% market share — Windows 10 finally on the way out, some five months after Microsoft axes support
Source: Tom’s Hardware
Image credit: Microsoft
Windows 11 continues to accrue more users, with Microsoft’s latest operating system now installed on nearly three out of four desktop PCs worldwide. StatCounter reports that Windows 11 has a market share of 72.78%, up from just over 50% in late 2025. In contrast, active Windows 10 installs have dropped to 26.27%, down from around 45% in the same period and far below the more than 80% it once commanded.
User Workarounds and Concerns
Many users are exploring workarounds for hardware requirements and account limitations, but Microsoft is actively making it more difficult to do so. This has led some users to feel they are losing control over their own machines as big tech erodes ownership. The rise in Windows 11 usage may be driven more by hardware upgrades than by a conscious decision to switch operating systems.
A noticeable trend is former Windows 10 users moving toward macOS or Linux instead of buying the Copilot+ PCs that Microsoft and Qualcomm have been promoting since the summer of 2024.
Buggy Updates and Issues
Windows 11 users have also been dealing with a series of buggy updates released with frustrating frequency:
- A missing sign‑in password icon (Tom’s Hardware).
- Reduced gaming performance on some Nvidia discrete GPUs (Tom’s Hardware).
- Unintended BitLocker recovery that can lead to data loss (Tom’s Hardware).
- Inability to control the PC in the Windows Recovery Environment after an update (Tom’s Hardware).
- PCs refusing to boot after a security update (Tom’s Hardware).
Microsoft has promised to fix Windows 11’s most annoying flaws earlier this year, but users will have to wait and see how the situation evolves in the coming weeks.