According to Statcounter, Windows 11 held a 55.18% market share in October 2025. That share dropped to 53.7% in November and dropped again in December. Now, Windows 11 holds a 50.73% market share.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worldwide
Many are rollback to Windows 10, but Linux is increasing as well.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
I imagine this is why MS is finally backtracking a bit on the aggressive pushing of AI in every app. They’re doing Clippy all over again, but OS-wide this time.
Just impressive how hard they managed to screw the pooch here. Have they forgotten that every other Windows release is universally hated? They had a good thing going until they discontinued Windows 10 before Windows 12 was out. Now they’ll probably need to rush out another version, because the name Windows 11 is forever tainted.
The thing that’s driving me away from windows is how pushy it’s gotten. Forced updates, ads, AI, OneDrive, and subscriptions. I just want to be able to turn on MY computer and do what I want or need without having my guard up that I can’t trust my home PC with my privacy.
Windows 11 is ok, but is frustrating to use and I can’t trust it not to screw with settings and there seems to be something annoying added instead of something useful with every update. I also hate the Settings menu, it’s like an unhelpful layer between you and Control Panel the eventually will take you to the same place but took 5 more clicks and searching through drop downs for a link to what you needed.
Win10 LTSC IOT has support until like 2032, and doesn’t have any of that pushy bullshit. It’s free to pirate btw.
This is the way
Eh, if you’re not able to make the jump to linux ig.
Derrr
Lemmy tells me it’s more user friendly than ever.
I finally kicked Windows after 30 years because I have to use windows 11 for work, and it fails at almost everything an operating system should be. Search doesn’t work right. Applications don’t work right. Basic UI is buggy and inconsistent. It’s the most expensive piece of software I use. Using 2 cores and 7GB of RAM at idle is unacceptable for an operating system. It’s the equivalent of running Skyrim all the time in the background. It actively tries to undermine my privacy, and instead of using that data to enhance my UX, it spams targeted ads at me in my fucking taskbar. Windows 11 is basically a SmartTV in terms of privacy and functionality at this point. It actively gets in the way of you using the hardware, and to no tangible benefit. Worse, it’s become clear that Microsoft recognizes this, and is actively pursuing and expanding the capabilities, with no intent to make a good OS in the future.
I’m out.
It’s not just AI, W11 is slow and unfriendly in general
Yeah, for a while I was looking for any benefits to moving from win 10 to 11. 7 to 10 had kernel and scheduler improvements, for example.
Only ones I could find were the virtual desktop support (though I had an alternative desktop back in the XP or Vista days that supported that, so not really groundbreaking), and WSL, which I didn’t have any use cases for.
Other than that, it was just shit I didn’t want. Copilot, recall, more UI changes that don’t really add anything (on my work laptop where I didn’t have a choice, first thing I did was go into the UI options and undo as much as I could). One of the things I used to like about windows was that it wasn’t a mac, but the UI changes look like that’s their inspiration. The inspired folks porbably all left already.
Wait, what do you mean? 10 had virtual desktops and WSL (LSW!) too
So yeah, they built a new product and tried to force everyone to use it, when it had no improvements for the users whatsoever. And surprise, no one is excited to use it.
I liked Clippy. I hate AI
They thought they were too ingrained in everything for people to leave so they could start enshitfying and everyone would just have to deal with it. They knew they would lose some market share by doing so but are gambling on the increased profits from targeted ads and AI training data would make up for it.
It’s also likely that for a single glorious quarter stockholder value was slightly increased, therefore it was a complete success.
I think it’s more that they’re not really making money on Windows anymore. The money is in cloud services like Office 365. So Windows is just being used to push people towards what actually makes Microsoft money, disregarding whether they actually want those services.
The first time I heard the “every other” theory I was sceptical but it has held true for a very long time now.
They might do an 8.1 and mess with some features (remember when they had to bring back the tool bar)? But another release is likely needed to fix some of the Win 11 performance and bloat issues now.
They’ve cut too deep, for some good reasons, but at the cost of making everything slow.
^ Note I haven’t even talked about AI here.
Windows 11.1 anyone? lol