Despite Microsoft’s push to get customers onto Windows 11, growth in the market share of the software giant’s latest operating system has stalled, while Windows 10 has made modest gains, according to fresh figures from Statcounter.

This is not the news Microsoft wanted to hear. After half a year of growth, the line for Windows 11 global desktop market share has taken a slight downturn, according to the website usage monitor, going from 35.6 percent in October to 34.9 percent in November. Windows 10, on the other hand, managed to grow its share of that market by just under a percentage point to 61.8 percent.

The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade. The stats also revealed a small drop in the market share of its Edge browser, despite relentlessly plugging the application in the operating system.

  • Shadywack@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Well, Microsoft said way back when that “Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows” so a lot of enterprise went to it. To this day I’m dealing with vendors that have a certified “Windows 10-only” solution. Another funny one is stuff like Ford’s FDRS software still only officially supports Windows 10 Pro.

    Platform changes and all that are fine, but when Microsoft says basically “This is gonna be your LTS forever” and then bails on it, shit like this is no surprise at all.

  • LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I work at an MSP and a lot of our clients have to follow specific security compliance standards. Because Windows 10 is eol soon, we’ve been slowly upgrading folks to 11. I die a little each time I do an upgrade. People, including my coworkers and I, are not happy with it overall, but nobody can do anything because ✨compliance standards✨

      • smeenz@lemmy.nz
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        7 days ago

        In the corporate world ? Generally not, because IT can’t force group policy out using AD.

        • bradd@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          One of the biggest hurdles, and one of the only reasons Windows is still alive. Linux doesn’t have a decent AD alternative.

          I think I heard some very large governments, maybe Germany, was going to completely abandon Windows soon. This will generate a ton of demand for an AD alternative so I’m excited to see what happens.

          Until then you have ansible, or salt may be more suitable for workstations 🤷

        • Joe Cool@lemmy.ml
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          6 days ago

          Oh there is policy, telemetry and lockdown software for Linux. My BYOD archlinux worked fine until a company I contract for rolled out their zero trust bollocks. They wanted me to install Ubuntu, Redhat or SLES and their spyware.
          They now sent me a corporate Win11 laptop for remote access.

    • ansiz@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      I know executives don’t tend to go for it but you could always get in a ESU for 3 years past the EoL date. That was semi popular with Windows 7.

      • LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        That involves money and clients don’t want to do that lol. It’s like pulling teeth to get them to replace shit

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I still fail to see how windows 11 was anything but a collusion scam to sell new hardware.

    None of the changes including TPM requirements required a new iteration. Nothing about the underlying NT dropped any of the old and antiquated BS despite Microsoft hiring some morons to advertise the fact on reddit to all the insiders asking questions.

    They even let the media pick up a fake report that Windows 11 was related to the Core OS and a brand new kernel was in the works.

    If Microsoft wanted a marketing strategy, they could have properly started naming feature updates and adverising them similar to Apple.

    8, 10, and 11 have also been a pain on enterprise because Microsoft axed their QA team. I seriously hope any new firms start considering linux desktop as a valid option. All they really need is a vendor to offer a solid distro along with an agreement to rapidly create/deploy any software solution so they don’t get scared looking at the cheap entry windows stuff.

  • jpablo68@infosec.pub
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    6 days ago

    The main problem is that Win11 can only run in special hardware and Microsoft can pry out my potato computer from my cold, dead hands. I won’t change my hardware to update my OS.

  • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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    6 days ago

    im forced to use it at work and holy shit. 11 is so heavy for no reason, 8gb of ram is not remotely enough anymore, even if you yank out some of the garbage. theres no apparent change in functionality to justify it.

    the ssd smart says its almost at its end, and i suspect its because its constantly swapping. paging file is always full, unless i set it to something big like 8+ gb

  • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    An ad blitz doesn’t matter if your product is junk. Make something that isn’t garbage if you want to retain people, people want good products.

    • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Microsoft has realised they have a captive market and are milking it for every dollar (euro, pound, yen, rupee…) they can get.

      • tempest@lemmy.ca
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        7 days ago

        It isn’t really captive.

        People are rapidly moving away from laptop/desktop computers and applications now a days are predominantly web based which means people can use anything that runs Chrome.

        • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
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          7 days ago

          You are overestimating the capabilities of the average person. They don’t care its all in the browser. Their “computer looks different” and becomes unusable to them. Tech-illiterate people have a hard time with the concept that all browser based things basically work the same independent of OS.

        • boonhet@lemm.ee
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          7 days ago

          means people can use anything that runs Chrome.

          Yeah, but a lot of work things are painfully uncomfortable to use on a phone (ERP and EMR software is so much easier to use with a keyboard, mouse and properly sized screen) and most companies aren’t going to be running Linux because of all the extra support load, nor are they going to yeet Macs at regular everyday users. Chromebooks don’t really get taken seriously in corporate environments IMO.

          Similarly, home users who are old school and still want to have a computer - some will switch to Macs, power users will switch to Linux (and switch their family to Linux), but many will just use Windows. Some will use Chromebooks, but those have a bad rep because they used to always be the lowest spec possible (I think it’s gotten better now?)

          And finally, gamers - personally I use Linux for gaming. Hell, I used Gentoo Linux for years. Yes, for gaming. But a lot of people, particularly younger folks, want to play games with invasive anti-cheat. And those don’t run on Linux.

          • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            This is gonna blow your mind, but most (real) phones you can connect a mouse and keyboard to, either via Bluetooth, or with a USBC adapter, and they work fine.

        • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          Businesses are bound to Microsoft Office products which only reliably work on Windows and Mac. Windows is the cheaper of the two, by far, and there are way more IT professionals that are able to work comfortably managing Windows systems than Mac ones.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Me: Hmmmmmm, maybe it’s time for a new PC. Lets see what’s out there.

      Stores: Windows 10 and 11

      Me: Nevermind!

          • oldfart@lemm.ee
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            7 days ago

            Yeah, I use and love Linux, but it’s unusable on random unsupported hardware.

            • boonhet@lemm.ee
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              7 days ago

              For the person who posted it, it could also be that the hardware IS supported, but it’s so obscure that no mainstream distro includes it in their kernel build, not even as a module.

              Of course, for the average person, not having the kernel module built pretty much means it’s unsupported.

            • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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              7 days ago

              That’s why I wish they’d release a concept like the Raspberry Pi, but for fully realized mini-pc’s. The thing I love about it is I could have 10 SD cards all sitting in a box. And I slide one in, now my raspberry pi is a retro gaming emulation machine.

              Then I turn it off. Slide a different SD card in. Now it’s a pihole.

              Slide a different card in, now it’s home automation.

              Any new distro you want to try, slide out the sd card, slide in a new one. Your old distro is saved exactly how it was. Just slide it back in, and it’s exactly like you left it.

              No commitment.

              And the hardware is centralized. So if the distro is built for the raspberry pi, you KNOW it’ll work. The downside is, it’s a rinky dink little arm machine.

              • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                6 days ago

                Maybe get a Steam Deck? Only kind of joking… Switch to Desktop Mode, and it’s literally a fully functioning Linux PC with an immutable distro

              • oldfart@lemm.ee
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                7 days ago

                Except with real PCs users expect some performance, so these would have to be swappable NVMes. Which is of course prohibitively expensive.

                But for a Raspberry, yeah, the ability to turn my Kodi box into a game console is awesome

  • demizerone@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Windows 11 is a privacy invasion. It’s the worst OS I have ever used for a day and a half.

    • Mwa@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Windows 11 is: buggy (Remember That bug where AMD Cpus where slow with 11), slow,maybe training your personal data on ai (Maybe),Very Ugly,Cannot be customized.

    • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I hate Windows 11, for a multitude of reasons. But it is still a better experience than Vista. An unbelievably better than Windows ME. Windows ME for me was the worst desktop OS I think I’ve ever used. If we open it up to just any old OS, then I want to say Novell was the worst I ever used.

      • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        I was fortunately running top of the line hardware when Vista came out. I didn’t understand all the hate at all… until I sat down and did some work on my uncle’s computer with Vista Basic. Holy shit, even with all of the features that required better hardware removed from the OS, it was the slowest and most miserable experience I ever had on a computer. It was brand new and covered in stickers advertising Vista and it still wasn’t capable of running the damn OS.

        That was true with nearly every computer I touched that had it on it.

        Mine was awesome though. No complaints.

        I haven’t used 11, but it sounds like they’ve done it again.

      • alsimoneau@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        I feel like I’m alone in this but Vista was great. I preferred it and 8 over 7 and 10.

        • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          How? The 7 and 10 are among the better received versions of Windows, for stability, performance, hardware compatibility, etc. What was your experience with Vista that was so good and 7 and 10 being so bad?

          • alsimoneau@lemmy.ca
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            4 days ago

            Everything that people liked about 7 was a thing in Vista. AFAIK, people hate on Vista for performance, the automatic updates and the admin access pop-ups. The first one is because they tried to upgrade old XP hardware, a new system ran fine. 7 didn’t really increase performance, people just had new computers by that point. The other 2 issues never changed since, people just got used to them.

            8 had an amazing search feature that got completely garbled in 10. The “start menu” wasn’t well received, but worked fine. 10 brought back a smaller compromise version of it. 10 also has much more telemetry, came with the Cortana and default edge Bing searches and had overall a much less pleasant experience.

            I feel like Vista and 8 get a bad rep because they where so different from the previous ones, even though they rolled some of that into the successors and worked really well. And 10 really accelerated the enshitification of Windows.

  • Codex@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade.

    Yeah no shit! When my computer does full-screen, disruptive things that I didn’t tell it to do, I figure out how to remove that malware. I’ve been off Windows at home for about a month now, thanks Linux Mint! Getting some games to work has been challenging, but most things have just worked and quite a few work much better!

    Performance is up overall, and my confidence that my computer isn’t running a bunch of secret ad and spy ware is way up. Hardware like my gamepad and microphone would randomly disconnect and have issues on Windows, all working perfectly now.

    Unfortunately I’m still deep in MS land for work, but there’s almost a comedic quality to it. Everything’s very slow, everyone has constant issues with Teams, or Office online, or Dynamics, or copilot shoving it’s tendrils into everything. Watching businesses struggle to keep operating in the face of Microsoft’s inadequacy is like being a mechanic watching a motor grind to a halt because the owner/manufacturer replaced all the oil with syrup.

    Like yes, it’s my problem to fix, but I’m just glad it’s not my car.

  • kazerniel@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I’ll stick to Win10 until the end of the support period, just like how I stuck to Win7 as long as I could 😬 That was still my favourite OS, loved Aero 🥺

  • lipilee@feddit.nl
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    6 days ago

    well the market share of Windows 11 has risen significantly on my work laptop, and I can wholehearedly say, I understand why its global market share is falling… random freezes, random restarts, battery life sliced, random starting up from suspend. it’s not great.

    meanwhile, Manjaro on my personal Lenovo laptop has been cutting edge with consistent updates for years.

  • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 days ago

    Who thought that puting ridiculous minimum requirements so your spyware can work better would mean that lots of people without newer hardware just won’t upgrade.