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Windows Microsoft

With 10 Months of Support Remaining, Windows 10 Still Dominates (theregister.com) 160

Posted by BeauHD from the poor-adoption dept.
Despite Microsoft's push for Windows 11, Windows 10 continues to dominate the desktop OS market, rising to 62.7% market share in December 2024. The Register reports: Figures for December 2024 from Statcounter -- used because Microsoft rarely shares usage data unless it has something to boast about -- confirm Windows 10's market share has inched up to 62.7 percent compared to the previous month while Windows 11's share fell back to 34.12 percent (from 34.94 percent in November 2024). Even though Windows 11's percentage of the pie is still bigger than it was this time last year (when Statcounter pegged it at 26.54 percent), the fact the new OS is still nowhere near to overtaking Windows 10 may alarm some Microsoft executives. [...]

Canalys analyst, Kieren Jessop, noted that when looking at the more than 230 countries and regions tracked by Statcounter, Windows 10 share had actually only increased in just under a quarter of them, but that increase made an outsized impacted. Jessop cited the example of the US, where Windows 10 market share had gone from 58 percent in October 2024 to 67 percent in December. [...] Many editions of Windows 10 are due to drop out of free support on October 14, 2025. Affected users will then have the option to purchase Extended Security Updates (ESU) to keep the lights on a little longer or keep using the operating system and risk falling foul of unpatched vulnerabilities. Further reading: Ex-Microsoft Designer Reveals Windows 11's Dynamic Wallpapers That May Have Been Shelved

With 10 Months of Support Remaining, Windows 10 Still Dominates More | Reply

With 10 Months of Support Remaining, Windows 10 Still Dominates

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  • Missing the important info (Score:5, Informative)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Thursday January 02, 2025 @09:24PM (#65058643)
    Yes, yes, windows 10 is far more popular than 11 but what about the real MVP still hanging in at 2.4% adoption win 7?

  • Windows 11 is a downgrade from 10 (Score:3)

    by Angry Coward ( 6165972 ) on Thursday January 02, 2025 @09:29PM (#65058647)
    I've got a win 10 system and zero enthusiasm for win 11. I don't really want to airgap it so I suppose when actual eol comes I'll see if tpm is turned off in the bios and then decide between converting it to a Linux box or downgrading to windows 11. Till then windows 10 is meh but works well enough for my current needs.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I have a reserve teaching-laptop with Win11. The decrease in user-friendliness and generally bad UI design is strikingly obvious. Win11 feels more like a toy than a tool. Yes, I get that some people like that. I do not. This whole thing turns me off.

      I think I will make another attempt to make Linux my teaching OS. The two things that so far prevented me are beamers crashing and Teams. But Teams native seems to be getting worse, so browser-Teams may just not be a worse choice anymore.

      • For those beamers: I think they can't actually handle full resolution at 50 fps ;) My laptop also has the habbit of crashing crap beamers while playing video.
        I never had that problem while presenting sheets. Might be worth to look into if limiting the video playback would prevent crashes.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Last time I really debugged the problem, the beamer told X11 "yep, 2048 x 2048 is totally fine". And then when X11 gave it that, it crashed. That was a long time ago though. In the meantime, I have crashed, for example, two $20'000 large format beamers. The electrician had to power-cycle the lecture hall. And that was with restricted resolution. Hence I think the primary problem is the beamer makers only testing with Windows and sometimes with a Mac.

          • Is beamer slang for laser projector or what?

            The primary problem is whoever not following standards for whatever interface.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )

        Win 11 has a dumbed down start menu but I think the experience overall is more coherent than in Windows 10 where it has a superficial modern feel but it's not hard to go into the control panel and be confronted with some dialog that hasn't changed much since Windows 2000. Windows 11 seems to have made a concerted effort to shed the old stuff although some may be lurking there to find.

        As regards Linux, I don't think modern desktop dists are that far removed from the way Windows 11, OS X are going. If you loo

        • Re:Windows 11 is a downgrade from 10 (Score:5, Insightful)

          by buck-yar ( 164658 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @06:02AM (#65059207)

          but it's not hard to go into the control panel and be confronted with some dialog that hasn't changed much since Windows 2000

          Where did the concept arise that anything that hasn't been changed recently, must be changed for changes sake? Kids these days don't like math, perhaps we should redo math symbols and convention because the equal sign is really old, maybe it should be an arrow instead?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DrXym ( 126579 )

            It isn't change for change's sake. User interface design has moved from being a kitchen sink to a more cleaner, taskcentric model. That affects the look and feel of UIs, the terminology, the flow between screens, the widgets and placement of buttons and other things. On top of that desktops must now function over a wider variety of displays and input devices including tablets and touch screens and at various screen densities and resolutions. Then there is accessibility which also introduces new input devic

            • "User interface design has moved from being a kitchen sink to a more cleaner, taskcentric model."

              It was always task centric. The difference is that multiple related tasks used to be found on one page or dialog, and now they are spread out across many more and you need search to find the little used ones because of unfamiliarity.

          • Re:Windows 11 is a downgrade from 10 (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @10:11AM (#65059535) Homepage Journal

            Microsoft must keep people buying new hardware (even when their old hardware is still perfectly good) in order to satisfy its business partners. So it uses new versions of windows to brick that stuff and force the money spend and landfill pack.

            This is a fine example of the "broken windows" fallacy (heh).

        • Re:Windows 11 is a downgrade from 10 (Score:4, Insightful)

          by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @09:08AM (#65059417) Journal
          but I think the experience overall is more coherent than in Windows 10

          How can the "experience" be coherent when they've relocated almost every item needed to do something? Settings is not remotely the same as Control Panel. It is far less useful, does not provide the same granularity that CP did, and items are lumped together with any known rhyme or reason.

          Anything not found in Settings is in some far off menu item or worse, you have to search for it. Why should I have to search for something on my system? I should be able to go directly to it and make the changes. Search only slows down the ability to get things done. Then there is the issue that doing almost anything in W11 takes longer because you have to jump through more hoops (i.e. more menus).

          Simplicity or coherence are two words which can never be mentioned in the same breath as Windows 11.

    • Re:Windows 11 is a downgrade from 10 (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @04:46AM (#65059141)

      I can point to things that are a downgrade in 11 but mostly I think it is a more refined, more streamlined and more coherent Windows 10. But really it's like Windows 10.1 than a new justifiably distinct OS. The user interface for the operating system control panel, task bar looks more consistent rather than being a veneer of new user interface with Windows NT era property sheets a click away but other than that it's just a bag of smaller stuff.

      The biggest downgrade IMO is the new start menu sucks balls. In Windows 10 I can pin something to the start menu and it stays put with a definite X & Y position and size (small / medium). In Windows 11 there is an index, not a position so stuff flows when you put new things in the menu. And that fucking recommendations panel cannot be hidden, only made smaller. I don't want recommendations, I want all the space for the stuff I've pinned. Since I have the "Pro" version of Windows 11 and I live in Europe I'm probably also not experiencing some bullshit that might afflict users in other regions on the "Home" version with regards to ads or whatever and I would not be surprised if that is why recommendations cannot be removed.

    • Every windows after Win 7 has been a downgrade.

  • The media blitz about this is absurd. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RedK ( 112790 ) on Thursday January 02, 2025 @09:29PM (#65058649)

    The OS on your computer going EOL and not getting updates anymore won't prevent your PC from booting. Media is acting like laptops all over are just going to be expensive bricks if not switched to Linux or upgraded to Windows 11.

    It'll still run just fine as it does today, no worse than peeps who cling to Windows 7.

    • Re:The media blitz about this is absurd. (Score:5, Funny)

      by JamesTRexx ( 675890 ) on Thursday January 02, 2025 @10:11PM (#65058697) Journal

      No no no, it's all true. The hardware won't be able to work any longer so it's best to replace it.

      As an aside, I can help out with the bothersome task of throwing the not-so-old preferably gaming with AMD CPU and GPU type laptop by sending it my way. No use trying the arduous task of installing Linux on it which will be a disapointment anyway. Buying a new laptop is so much easier for everyone. Really.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. And even security alerts should be coming in, most never came from Microsoft anyways. And for most things you can do something else than install an update as well. As past experience shows, MS may even publish security fixes for really bad problems after the OS is EoL, just because there would be too many fingers pointed at them otherwise.

      • That's what I'm expecting, considerinf the bad press that awaits them if they don't: Not just in terms of 'allowing creation of the world's largest botnet' (or some other hyperbole that journalist love to use), but also the single largest event of hardware mass-obsolescence inflicted by a single event (win 10 EOL).

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      For corporate users they have no choice, their insurance depends on it. If an out of support computer gets hacked their liability and business continuity insurance will probably be invalid. Civil courts won't look favourably on them either when there is a data breach.

      So expect lots of cheap but lightly used and good spec machines to hit the market this year.

      • Re:The media blitz about this is absurd. (Score:4, Informative)

        by skullandbones99 ( 3478115 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @12:01PM (#65059751)

        My employer allows me to run Linux Ubuntu 24.04 and it is supported in the corporate Intranet. Ironically, Microsoft is one of our partners allowing Linux desktops to be integrated into the corporate Intranet. My Linux laptop does have some services running for compliance purposes so you are correct that only authorized operating systems and devices can be used. However, Microsoft themselves are supporting Linux desktops in the corporate environment. Therefore, the lockin to being forced to use MS windows is becoming weaker especially that Microsoft is supporting Linux.

        Did you know that Microsoft is a member of the Linux Foundation and provides Linux kernel fixes ?

    • > Media is acting like

      What could be MSNBC'S motivation?

    • Unfortunately for my organization, our government contracts require workstations with operating systems that are still receiving regular security updates. Since we've moved pretty much everything over to Windows terminal services now, we're just going to wipe out windows in most cases and move to Linux running Remmina. A few staff require Windows installed on local workstations, but I think we'll probably be looking at going from 100% Windows machines to probably around 10%. Hopefully the web-based app we h

      • Unfortunately for my organization, our government contracts require workstations with operating systems that are still receiving regular security updates.

        "Unfortunately"?

        I understand that it's likely a completely separate set of commenters, but I still can't get over the dissonance between the calls on every data breach story for "incompetent" IT staff to be thrown in jail, and the comments in this thread arguing that running a supported OS isn't that important.

    • Basically this. I expect Linux to tick up a couple tenths of a point but otherwise people will just run Win10. That and if something so severe comes in MS will patch it, just like they did for Windows 7 even though the support period ended.

  • Hardware requirements (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Thursday January 02, 2025 @09:42PM (#65058663) Homepage

    The article dismisses the hardware requirements, and maybe with some reason. But this is THE biggest reason people aren't upgrading: they can't, without buying a new computer. And their old computer is still working just fine.

    • Re:Hardware requirements (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday January 02, 2025 @10:33PM (#65058741)

      Indeed. And many people will not really be able to afford new computers. So they just have to risk it. Remember that most US citizens struggle to find $500 for an unexpected expense. And this is probably worse in much of the rest of the world. MS thinks these people will be able to buy a new computer?

    • err... yes they can.

      I don't have TPM and have it on my daughters PC

      • So you do have a CPU with the mandated extra instructions.

        Linux can optimize with them or run just fine without them.

        Microsoft colludes illegally, News at 11.

      • While it's true that it's possible to circumvent some of the hardware requirements, such as TPM, by tweaking registry settings, this is not an option for many individuals or small companies who don't have the knowhow to do such things. And, these tweaks do have consequences. I've personally circumvented TPM on a desktop computer I own. And although it does run Windows 11 fine, there are some features that are disabled as a result.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      The article dismisses the hardware requirements, and maybe with some reason. But this is THE biggest reason people aren't upgrading: they can't, without buying a new computer. And their old computer is still working just fine.

      The biggest hardware requirement is TPM2, and that's been basically lifted. Sure it's not "completely" supported, but the bypasses are well known and by saying it's not required, it means those bypasses are likely going to be permanent.

      Which is relatively good news, because tools like

      • While it's true that the TPM requirement can be circumvented (I did this myself), some features are disabled as a result, and the process of circumventing the TPM requirement is *not* straightforward to anyone who is non-technical. Most individuals and small companies would have to call Geek Squad or other tech person to help them out, itself cost-prohibitive for many.

  • Won't somebody think of the grandparents? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ChunderDownunder ( 709234 ) on Thursday January 02, 2025 @09:42PM (#65058665)

    Explaining to a octogenarian over Christmas dinner why a perfectly good 16GB core i5 laptop from 2015 may start throwing scary warnings up telling her to buy a new PC...

    Get stuffed Microsoft.

    • Its extremely shortsighted. The most likely alternative will be an android phone or some form of non-microsoft tablet.

  • Try Windows 11 some day.

    • Well, I use windows 11 daily and it is only a minor downgrade if you take (a lot) of time to tweak it to be usable.

      • So you're basically happy because you only had to suffer a "minor downgrade" after a lot of work. If that's the best you can hope from Microsoft, it kinda proves the point...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I did. Including a borderline criminal automated downgrade to Win11 that I never consented to. Fortunately easy to reverse or I would have used the last known-good image backup to remove that crapware. Obviously I had to reinstall some stuff that afterwards, but that is a small price to pay. I now have the downgrades to win11 locked out via the registry.

      • Disabling the TPM in the BIOS will stop it, and Microsoft can't undo those settings in a new update.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          I needed bitlocker. That was the whole reason I turned the TPM back on. Without TPM, bitlocker seems to be a pain.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bert64 ( 520050 )

            If you're relying on the tpm to hold your bitlocker key and not using pre boot authentication then you're just giving yourself a false sense of security. You've reduced the encryption to mere obfuscation.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Nope. I am relying on noticing when my Laptop gets tampered with physically. Seriously. Some understanding required.

  • At work I have one Windows machine (still Win 10) solely to run one particular engineering app. I expect that the app would run fine on Win 11.

    In the meantime, last summer I was trying to travel on an airline on the same say that the crowdstrike outage hit. Fortunately there was a flight crew that hadn't timed out, so I was able to return home with only a 5 hour delay.

    Returning to work, my Win computer was borked. Reboot, reboot, cast some spells, wait another 5 hours, finally back in service.

    Then came t

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      At work I have one Windows machine (still Win 10) solely to run one particular engineering app. I expect that the app would run fine on Win 11.

      In the meantime, last summer I was trying to travel on an airline on the same say that the crowdstrike outage hit. Fortunately there was a flight crew that hadn't timed out, so I was able to return home with only a 5 hour delay.

      You remember that the issue was a Crowdstrike update that avoided Microsoft's review because the EU mandated that Microsoft not require third-parties to submit core OS updates for review/approval.

      Returning to work, my Win computer was borked. Reboot, reboot, cast some spells, wait another 5 hours, finally back in service.

      Wasn't that part of the afore-mentioned Crowdstrike failure?

      Then came the MS Outlook email outage.

      OK

      Three strikes and you're out.

      I count two, one if you do the right thing and hold Crowdstrike and the EU Regulators responsible for the global outage [forbes.com].

      That machine has now been excessed and will not be replaced.

      So what about the Windows-only Engineering application you needed the now-excessed machine for?

      • > update that avoided Microsoft's review

        We're supposed to believe Crowdstrike didn't even QA it.

        The theory that IC needed a non-logged WinPE environment excuse to wipe their tracks when the assassination of President Trump failed is more likely than Crowdstrike suddenly got a 100% non-booting patch out without their CI noticing. That's not even 1% believable.

        NT 3.5.1 had an isolated driver model which MS scrapped for performance on ancient hardware. Therein lies the real problem with Windows's vulnerabi

  • Some folks complain that the new release is terrible for reasons.
    Others recommend switching to Linux.
    They get told it's fragmented, and not compatible with apps and games.
    A minority reacts positively to this new windows release.
    Everyone goes home and runs whatever they want.
    Microsoft gets desperate and semi-forces everyone to switch to new release
    • The problem is that some versions are obviously downgrades compared to previous ones. Here I completely skipped Windows Me and Windows 8, and only left Windows 7 because of the forced upgrade to Windows 10. And now Windows 11 is being such a clusterfuck that if a hypothetical Windows 12 doesn't get better I'll really be forced to migrate to Linux this time.

  • Win 10 is actually a pretty good OS and mostly stays out of my way for doing basic gaming stuff that doesn't run good in wine/proton yet. My 2014 desktop thing with a 2022 GPU in it doesn't have the TPU thing so I dunno what will happen when it drops or of support I might just give up steam games that can't run on proton

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Steam only just recently stopped supporting Win7.I expect GFX card drivers for Win10 will remain available for quote a while as well. Hence I expect you will be fine continuing to do gaming on Win10 for the foreseeable future.

  • Stop lying (Score:3)

    by fafalone ( 633739 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @12:02AM (#65058859)
    Support ends in 2032 for the best and only decent version of Windows 10, IoT Enterprise LTSC. Despite the name it's a far superior version for a consumer desktop OS. 11 LTSC sucks and is barely better than pro at all.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Can I get and run Win10 IoT Enterprise LTSC as a regular user?

    • The problem is that officially only corporations can use the LTSC version

    • Your post is 80% there. The headline is lying too.

      Microsoft isn't stopping Windows 10 support.

      They are going to start charging people who want to keep using it. Even if they paid for it already.

      Can you imagine the car analogies?

      It's actually much less time consuming to change cars than change computers across OS versions.

      Let's be real - even linux distros don't have a $HOME/.foo tracking mechanism to make sure a reinstall will have all the packages you need.

      We /could/. Apt has all the requirements it nee

  • Remember when.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Vegan Cyclist ( 1650427 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @12:49AM (#65058909) Homepage

    Remember when MS said this would be the last version of Windows?

    Well let's hold 'em to it!

  • If they wanted people to adopt windows 11 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lusid1 ( 759898 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @12:51AM (#65058911)

    they should have supported windows 10 hardware.

  • I find those stats counterintuitive and very much doubt them, sure there is not a flaw in counting methodology? New computers are sold with W11, old W10 installs nag their users to upgrade, with unintuitive to skip dialogs, honestly I can's see how it can be possible for W10 to increase share and W11 do decrease.

    Also, as an old time Linux user (I use Fedora with MATE), I don't understand the hate for W11: recently I moved to a new job and have to use W11 as a desktop, the GUI looks more polished than W10 an

    • ...with unintuitive to skip dialogs....

      so - literally putting the words "Stay on Windows 10"on a button you can click, is now "unintuitive"?

      • Sad to think that's actually an improvement over the win7/8 to 10 upgrade. I can't remember exactly how it went but there was a big very visible button that would start the upgrade and a tiny text only link to say no. But if you said no it would take you to a different dialogue that would ask you in a different way so if you didn't read it properly and just went for the negative again you'd start the upgrade. And to top it off if you closed the window via. the [X] it would start the upgrade.

        I wouldn't say t

    • Re:for real? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tijgertje ( 4289605 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @03:22AM (#65059039)
      Generally people only buy new pc's when their old one stop working.
      And for the older PC's upgrading the OS in place is not an option like it was from 7/8 to 10.
      Because the hardware requirements like the TPM and a "modern" processor.

      Even if I wanted to use WIndows (I don't as a Linux user), Windows 11 would be a big no for one simple reason:
      I work with sensitive data. On the level that the GDPR is only the tip of the iceberg,
      Windows 11 with all it's build in spyware is NOT compatible with the data protection laws I'm under.
      • If the truth be known:

        Windows 11 with all it's build in spyware is NOT compatible with sanity

        If you want to remain sane, have nothing to do with MS.

        If they say "our software requires Windows" - the correct response is:
        Are you nuts?

    • New computers are sold with W11

      New computer sales are way, way down. It's mostly the economy, but also people just don't need a new PC unless they want to run a very new game.

      Also, as an old time Linux user (I use Fedora with MATE), I don't understand the hate for W11

      The interface is worse.

      the GUI looks more polished than W10

      Some of us care about functionality more than eye candy.

  • ... Windows 11's share fell back to 34.12 percent ...

    It think Windows 11 is the first MS O.S. to lose popularity, and IIRC, this is not the first time Windows 11 installs have decreased: It's like people are making a point of downgrading to Windows 10.

    ... 58 percent ... to 67 percent ...

    A 9% swing to Windows 10, raises a question, what was the median swing to Windows 11? It's interesting those numbers weren't compared.

    ... drop-out of free support ...

    IIRC, Windows XP numbers didn't drop dramatically, until the last month. People waited as long as possible before changing to the still-young Windows 7. While there are, obvio

  • When windows xp first came out everyone hated it and called it Playskool windows. It turned out to be one of the best versions they ever made. Do we have to do this every time?

  • MS is like the car companies of the 50s and 60s: every year there must be a new look.

  • Nobody wants the ad-ware, spying, pushing MS products crap that Win 11 is and Win 10 started becoming

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