Microsoft
A time passed, shortly after the release of Windows 10, when Microsoft released specific adoption numbers often, cheering how quickly the free update was adopted at the time by Windows 7 and Windows 8 users. The company did not repeat this strategy for Windows 11, which It made us rely on third-party data to see how quickly people pick up the new operating system.
We pulled a few months of Steam scanning hardware and software data and comparing it to the months after the release of Windows 10. This data is incomplete and certainly a bit noisy – Steam users have to volunteer to provide the data – but the disparity in adoption is large enough that we can glean some on the Least conclusions.
Windows 11 was released to the public in October 2021 and Windows 10 in July 2015. In both cases, we used the Internet Wayback Machine to extract seven months of data, including the month immediately before each operating system was released. We’ve plotted the usage numbers for 64-bit versions of operating systems (32-bit versions, as well as versions like Vista and XP, grouped under “Other”), with the numbers combined for Windows 8.1 and 8.0.
Adoption of Windows 11 has been consistent, but less than early adoption of Windows 10.
Benefiting from strong pent-up demand, Windows 10 captured a large share of Windows 8 in its first two months.
Andrew Cunningham
The result is that Steam users switch to Windows 11 at about half the speed of their transition to Windows 10. Six months after release, Windows 10 was running on 31% of all Steam computers, or roughly one in three. As of March 2022, Windows 11 was running on less than 17% of Steam computers, or about one in six. Three-quarters of Steam PCs in 2022 were still running Windows 10.
The black corner here represents non-Windows computers running Steam.
Andrew Cunningham
The black corner here represents non-Windows computers running Steam.
These findings are easy to interpret as an indictment against Windows 11, which has caused some controversy with its relatively strict (and often poorly explained) implementation. Security-oriented system requirements. at least Some From this slow adoption is caused by these system requirements – likely many PCs polled by Steam Not possible Installing Windows 11. This may be because users have an outdated, unsupported processor or one or more required security features are disabled; Secure boot and firmware TPM are often disabled by default on newer motherboards for many years.
But there are other compelling explanations. Windows 11 adoption seems slow compared to Windows 10, but Windows 10 adoption has also been exceptionally good.
Windows 8 and 8.1 were not well liked, to put it mildly, and Windows 10 was described as a response (and a fix) to most of the user interface changes in Windows 8. People who used Windows 7 lacked some of the quality of life additions and improvements added by Windows 8 operating system.
You can see this pent-up demand in the jump between July 2015 and September 2015. In the first two months of Windows 10 availability, Windows 8 caused users to bleed from around 35% usage to 19%. Almost all of these users – and a smaller but noticeable portion of Windows 7 users – were upgrading to Windows 10. Windows 11 also saw a good increase in early adopters in November 2021, but its monthly gains were much lower.
In contrast, Windows 11 was announced without warning, replacing what users said was the “latest version of Windows”. Where Windows 10 Replaced An Unloved, Loved, But Outdated New Operating System, Windows 11 Replaced A Modern Operating System That Nobody Really Complained About (Windows 10 worked on over 90% of everything Steam PCs in September 2021 – even Windows 7 in its prime couldn’t boast of that kind of adoption).
It should also be noted that Microsoft he did not donot Try to recreate this wave of initial adoption of Windows 11. Continue some turmoil After the first Windows 10 service updates, Microsoft started rolling out updates more systematically, starting with a small number of PCs and then gradually increasing availability as problems appeared.Finded and fixed . Windows 11 just entered its “final phase of availability” in February, ensuring that anyone with a compatible PC can get Windows 11 through Windows Update if they so desire.