Windows 11 Finally Overtakes Windows 10 as the Most Dominant Operating System

[AleksandarK]

A new king has been crowned. As of July 2025, data from StatCounter shows that Windows 11 now runs on 51.77% of all Windows PCs, overtaking Windows 10's 45.02% share for the first time. Released in October 2021, Windows 11 initially struggled, capturing less than 10% of installations by the end of its first year. In 2023, its market share had climbed to 28%, and by late 2024, it reached 36%. The recent surge is a result of a combination of factors. First, Microsoft has begun highlighting the approaching end of support for standard editions of Windows 10 on October 14, 2025. Second, many organizations and individual users have upgraded their hardware in search of the latest security improvements and software enhancements. Finally, features such as performance optimizations, tighter security defaults, and built-in support for AI-driven tools have made Windows 11 more attractive to both enterprises and gamers.

According to these figures, more than 700 million devices now run Windows 11. Although StatCounter does not capture every device and its figures may differ from those of other analytics services, it provides a reliable snapshot of broader trends. As Windows 10 approaches its end of mainstream support in October 2025, the coming months will reveal whether these incentives and new hardware offerings will sustain Windows 11's upward trajectory or prompt users to seek extended support instead.



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[Darksword]

I use two PC's on a daily basis.

My Windows 10 PC is much snappier, even though it's running a 10900K instead of a 9800X3D, like my Windows 11 computer.

 

[Onasi]

I mean… yeah? MS was pushing updates left and right and 10 is out of mainstream support in a couple of months. Of course people are migrating.

 

[Hecate91]

First, Microsoft has begun highlighting the approaching end of support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025.

This is likely the main or reason, and a reasonable assumption would be that Windows 10 could have more marketshare if MS wasn't forcing everyone onto W11.
Windows 10 performs better than 11, and gamers probably don't care about the AI crap.

 

[Onasi]

Windows 10 performs better than 11, and gamers probably don't care about the AI crap.

The vast majorly of Windows users aren’t gamers, lmao. This isn’t from Steam HS, this is StatCounter.

 

[Hecate91]

I'm referring to the OP which claims "AI tools are attractive to gamers". It sounds like marketing nonsense.

 

[ZoneDymo]

well yeha, if they drop security updates.....

 

[Daven]

I had to roll back to Win 10 as Win 11 24H2 broke my desktop PC. I also had to block 24H2 on my laptop with registry edits because I kept getting blue screens.

I’ll try to get Win 11 to work on my laptop after 25H2. I have to have Windows for work and I don’t want to give up on the Win 11 license that came with it.

Next time I need to format my Win 10 desktop, I’ll try Linux.

 

[_roman_]

Windows 7 is still alive
PCGH had similar news post days ago

 

[lemonadesoda]

Give me the count: Company/corporate PCs vs Home users/SOHO. I bet the figures are driven by corporate IT departments rolling out updates

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

The vast majorly of Windows users aren’t gamers, lmao. This isn’t from Steam HS, this is StatCounter.

The vast majority of windows computers today are used by businesses, not end users. 12.3% of the global windows userbase are gamers that have Steam installed (185m monthly active users).

I would be good money on the personal user count that are gamers approaching much closer to 50%. Non gamers have been moving away from windows for years now, Android's global marketshare is double that of Windows, and iOS is 2/3rds the size of Windows as a whole.

I wish somebody would publish how many windows PCs are on a domain/entra VS a workgroup. I'd bet its over 50% now.

 

[sudothelinuxwizard]

I don't even use Windows as my main OS anymore, but Windows 10 is both much snappier and has a more pleasing interface to me (I like the more rugged look). I will keep using it till 2032 with IoT LTSC.

 

[Macro Device]

I'm referring to the OP which claims "AI tools are attractive to gamers". It sounds like marketing nonsense.

It indeed is. I'm a PC gamer and literally no AI they implemented in the W11 might even affect my gaming experience, let alone improve it.

W10 for gaming systems ftw. Until it stops working of course.

 

[Tomorrow]

My Windows 10 PC is much snappier, even though it's running a 10900K instead of a 9800X3D, like my Windows 11 computer.

Windows 10 performs better than 11

At what exactly? Based on tests i've seen the difference is within a few percentage points. Nothing most people would notice.
I bet if MS did another "Mohave" experiment most people would not notice. Look it up. It's fascinating how calling something (perceived as bad) by another name and telling it's a new thing people are much more positive about it.

Unfortunately first impressions are hard to reverse and once a piece of software or a game has garnered bad initial feedback it's very hard to make it a success story. It has been done, but not often.

W10 for gaming systems ftw.

Going by Steam stats most gamers already run Win11.

 

[Macro Device]

Going by Steam stats most gamers already run Win11.

Don't care. W11 just won't work fine on my machine so I use W10. I spent >500 hours fighting with their "support" without any outcome so if they want me to use something new they must earn it a very big time.

 

[ymdhis]

Does Win11 still take seconds to open up the context menu if you right click on the desktop? My Win98SE rig running a 450 MHz K6-2 can outperform that.

 

[Hecate91]

Give me the count: Company/corporate PCs vs Home users/SOHO. I bet the figures are driven by corporate IT departments rolling out updates

Agreed, data of corporate vs. home/personal users would be a more accurate look at marketshare.
The average home windows user is probably sticking with Windows 10, because for a lot of home users using Windows 11 means having to buy a new PC, also as the average users are using a phone or tablet more than a home PC.

At what exactly? Based on tests i've seen the difference is within a few percentage points. Nothing most people would notice.
I bet if MS did another "Mohave" experiment most people would not notice. Look it up. It's fascinating how calling something (perceived as bad) by another name and telling it's a new thing people are much more positive about it.

Unfortunately first impressions are hard to reverse and once a piece of software or a game has garnered bad initial feedback it's very hard to make it a success story. It has been done, but not often.

IMO, Windows 10 feels faster, it may be the really awful UI menu delays, but W10 felt a lot faster. And yeah I know you can debloat and customize W11 to feel faster than W10, but W11 shouldn't be worse at stock than W10. I might trust an experiment if it were conducted by a 3rd party, Vista just plain sucked until SP1, even then it was slower than XP was.

 

[Tomorrow]

Don't care. W11 just won't work fine on my machine so I use W10. I spent >500 hours fighting with their "support" without any outcome so if they want me to use something new they must earn it a very big time.

That's odd. I doesn't look like your profile PC is anything rare or old that would cause issues.

Does Win11 still take seconds to open up the context menu if you right click on the desktop? My Win98SE rig running a 450 MHz K6-2 can outperform that.

Don't know. Im running the standard context menu and it's as snappy as it was in previous versions.

IMO, Windows 10 feels faster, it may be the really awful UI menu delays, but W10 felt a lot faster. And yeah I know you can debloat and customize W11 to feel faster than W10, but W11 shouldn't be worse at stock than W10. I might trust an experiment if it were conducted by a 3rd party, Vista just plain sucked until SP1, even then it was slower than XP was.

In my eyes it's irrelevant since every windows i've ever used required some amount of debloating. I've never used stock windows on my own devices because some of the design decisions like hiding file extensions by default drove me mad. Every time i have had to use stock windows at some else's computer it's been a pain.

 

[matar]

I tried windows 11 24h2 a few days ago i hope i am not included in that chart i did not like it i at all i even tried 21h2 since that had some windows 10 feel still i went back after 1 day to windows 10 its mush faster and more features so staying on windows 10. SO please count me out from the chart Microsoft if you included my windows 11 install lol.

 

[Macro Device]

That's odd. I doesn't look like your profile PC is anything rare or old that would cause issues.

To be more specific, W11 has something extra paranoid going on with RAM. For some reason, my RAM sticks spit error after error under W11 with no apparent pattern to it. Sometimes it's crisp and robust and I can work flawlessly for weeks and sometimes it's 35 reboots in a single day. With W10 and Linux, it's ALWAYS stable.

I tested them in all memory testing software existing on this barren earth, spent literal hundreds of hours in benchmarks. My hardware is fine. How W11 works with it is not.

W11 is hot bollocks anyway because of WordPad deprecation, AI in everything, default context menu being absolutely useless, updates breaking everything, and other less than intelligent choices. I'm yet to know what it can do that W10 canna that I could theoretically need. It's also 10+ gigabytes heavier. To hell with it. I'm not upgrading until W10 is completely unusable.

 

[Tomorrow]

To be more specific, W11 has something extra paranoid going on with RAM. For some reason, my RAM sticks spit error after error under W11 with no apparent pattern to it. Sometimes it's crisp and robust and I can work flawlessly for weeks and sometimes it's 35 reboots in a single day. With W10 and Linux, it's ALWAYS stable.

I tested them in all memory testing software existing on this barren earth, spent literal hundreds of hours in benchmarks. My hardware is fine. How W11 works with it is not.

W11 is hot bollocks anyway because of WordPad deprecation, AI in everything, default context menu being absolutely useless, updates breaking everything, and other less than intelligent choices. I'm yet to know what it can do that W10 canna that I could theoretically need. It's also 10+ gigabytes heavier. To hell with it. I'm not upgrading until W10 is completely unusable.

Could it have been security settings messing with RAM stability? Win11 has stricter out of the box security settings including ones that deal with memory.

Wordpad is a nonissue as it can easily be reinstalled via optional features for those that want it. AI is only with Recall and Copilot which can easily be disabled.
I wouldn't say the default context menu is useless. For a power user like myself - yes. But my friend who is not computer savvy actually found it helpful that common actions like cut, copy, paste etc included icons in the new menu. Win10 also had issues where updates broke things. I remember how 1809 caused literal data loss for people. Win11 has avoided such bad incident so far. But like Win10 it has had it's fair share of issues that stem from the 2014 layoffs of internal QA.

In fact reading the quoted criticism of Win10 from Wikipedia it's eerily similar to current Win11 criticism:

Critics characterized the release of Windows 10 as being forced onto users of past versions of Windows. Critics have also noted that Windows 10 heavily emphasizes freemium services, and contains various advertising facilities. Some outlets have considered these to be a hidden "cost" of the free upgrade offer. Examples of these have included microtransactions in bundled games such as Microsoft Solitaire Collection, default settings that display promotions of "suggested" apps in the Start menu, "tips" on the lock screen that may contain advertising, ads displayed in File Explorer for Office 365 subscriptions on Creators' Update, and various advertising notifications displayed by default which promote Microsoft Edge when it is not set as the default web browser (including, in a September 2018 build, nag pop-ups displayed to interrupt the installation process of competitors).

 

[lexluthermiester]

Windows 11 Finally Overtakes Windows 10 as the Most Dominant Desktop Operating System

Corrected and proper. Android is still the most dominant OS on Earth and by a big margin.

I love how Windows 7 seems to be holding on..

 

[Bomby569]

I use both Win10 and W11, i prefer 10. I will keep using 10 in my main system with LTSC.

 

[Veseleil]

My 21H2 LTSC license will expire in 2038. But it won't take that long to make sure my next OS installation won't be Windows, not even on a single (even unused) rig of mine.. I'm just waiting a bit more of spare time, maybe during the winter holidays. I've had enough of the MS crap for almost 3 decades. From MS-DOS days in the high school to this very present day. It won't be missed.

 

[Flyordie]

My biggest thing is the fact they dumped support for so much older hardware for Windows 11.


I'm running-

Threadripper 2950X with 32GB of RAM with a Vega64 XTX and I cant bump to Windows 11 because they removed the Zen 1+ from the official compatibility list.