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
Swapped to Linux Mint over the weekend. No major issues. Steam works, LLMs work, web browser stuff all transferred over…it wasn’t perfect but pretty easy to figure it out with a few online searches. The best part - it actually runs better. No more f*cked up bluetooth and audio as well.
A lot of customization can be done on it, but I think for most people, Linux is fine for the vast majority of users already out of the box. Some criticism is that I think the UX can be improved and a more layman-friendly streamlined partition mounting + file security management.
Same for my partner’s old gaming PC: she used Windows 10 until recently, and Bluetooth as well as the steam overlay didn’t work properly.
Now on Bazzite they do.
Microsoft just wants our wallets lol.
I won’t update my perfectly usable computer just because microslop refuses to support it.
The thing is, (as you already know but this is for people that have not yet taking the plunge), Linux today is so unbelievable good. It’s both snappy and good looking. A 5 year old computer feels like new. There might be a little tinkering, but you know that might be a quite fun experience and your computer feels like new again.
I run Debian for my tv PC, steam link with bt controller - shit just works and it’s so fast.
I’ve been dailying linux since 2010 and it’s gotten way easier. stuff that didn’t work just does now. remember printer and wi-fi driver hell? now it works worse on windows if anything. games and some proprietary software are the only anchors, and that’s kinda going away slowly
I still can’t convince my dad to just switch, but at this point running Windows is in nearly every single way worse than just running a popular Linux distro.
That’s a surprisingly large increase, wow. I switched back in 2017 and I’ve been using it ever since, but that’s good to see other people are making the switch too.
It’s finally the year of Desktop Linux, about fifteen (or more) years after people thought it would happen. I’m happy for all the nerds who are finally vindicated. (I like Linux, but I’m an Apple guy.)
Apple’s media support is incredible.
I have one platform where HDR photos/video playback and editing, JpegXL, HEIFs from my camera and such all just work. And it’s definitely not my KDE desktop, nor Windows 11.
I like Windows 11. But only as a thoroughly neutered, disposable “secondary” OS to dual boot with Linux, to the extent that I could wipe my Windows partition without a care.
If I had to use Windows 11 as my only OS, I’d pull my hair out. Same with desktop Linux TBH. There’s stuff that’s just painful in both ecosystems.
I share this opinion. Both OS have their strength. Haven’t used Windows in a long time though. Don’t really know where to get it any more?
That seems so strange. Why would that happen so late?
despite
Misspelled “Because”
glad I switched to Linux, Microslop’s current state is a disaster. yes it randomly implodes sometimes, mainly by my fault, but at least I can rollback! no more headache of forced updates.
I switched to linux at the end of last year too! I am part of that increase and i like it.
I switched to Linux when Windows 7 became EoL.
Anyone paying attention to what they were doing with 10, knew what would be coming with 11… and somehow its even worse than expected… thanks to the sudden appearance of the greatest environmental disaster of our time… AI.
I was too scared to move to linux at the time. It was always something i had many misconceptions about, that only people with specialist knowledge could use and that if i wanted anything to work i would need to know how to code at an advanced level.
I cant speak for then but now at least i have found that the communities are incredible, loads of work is being done to get everything to work and easy to set up. Github is amazing and i am learning slowly to use and love linux.
So far i have only worked with raspberry pis so raspiOS and linux Mint cinnamon. But i am going to be getting a small PC to test different linux distros on until i find the best one for me. Although Mint has been great so far.
Count me in too
People upgrading to Windows 11 be like:
This was me. Hit the update to 11 button because I have always liked new things. About a week later went back to 10, then about a year ago saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship to Mint. Shoulda done it earlier!
Its the first time my peers are actually asking me about switching to linux. Sweden is an extremely techbro country, which i say because they have all the newest gadgets and then cant open a file for fucks sake.
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.
The reason why Windows is pushy is because the average user needs it to be.
Updates would never get installed, unless Microsoft forces them to.
They would lose their files, unless Microsoft pushes OneDrive.
And all of them would blame Microsoft for their own ineptitude.
It is easy for techy people to keep their computer functioning properly. But Windows isn’t just used by those people.
I like that Linux isn’t designed for the lowest common denominator. Windows frustrated me as much with the stuff that was designed for the stupid as the stuff that was designed to make them money, just the second one ended up dominating in the end. But I remember the earlier frustrations often having the thought “I bet they just changed this to reduce support calls from people who don’t know wtf they are doing”.
I’ll agree on the update thing, but absolutely NOT on any of the other parts. Things like OneDrive are ENTIRELY about money.
With the update thing, even “pros” were incredibly lazy with updates in the past. Having automatic updates at least as the default is entirely correct.
I would say that it’s as simple as adding a prompt during initial user setup with check boxes. Would you like windows to handle XYZ for you? Instead of assuming all users just want to use their computers to become influencers and forcing frustrating problems onto everyone.
It may have started out with “hey we are doing this for your own good” to now it’s “how can we exploit ignorance and data mine our users and put ads on the desktop?”
There are alternatives, you can see the alternatives on display in various Linux distros, and hell, even Mac OS. The thing is that with Windows Microsoft doesn’t want you to think of an alternative.
It’s simply not true that the only way to do computing is to force everyone to use your trashy software or be nagged about it during every upgrade.
They are only doing this because they have the average user by the balls. Hopefully, Linux continues to get better and then that won’t be the case anymore either.
+1. I ragequit windows when it reinstalled Teams during an OS update, just after i uninstalled it.
I discovered that there’s a separate application which just reinstalls Teams all the time. I don’t remember the name, but it had Teams in the name. After I uninstalled that it finally stopped popping up.
Apparently:
This behavior is usually caused by two things:
- A background installer from Microsoft Office called the Teams Machine-Wide Installer, which automatically reinstalls Teams for each user.
- Windows 11’s built-in Chat feature, which is powered by Teams and may reinstall the app during updates or restarts.
It’s called something like Teams System-Wide Installer, at least it used to be. Who knows, now. It is now a hidden app that won’t show under programs and features. I had to figure that shit out at work cause originally it only installed per user and my work wanted our users to start using it and make sure they didn’t need to go looking for it. Once it got bundled with the Office install I no longer had to care!
That’s probably my main issue with Windows : Its ability to change settings on its own.
I feel like I have almost not control over my OS. It’s not a tool that helps me do stuff, it’s a dumb assistant that thinks he understands what I’m trying to achieve.
“Oh you plugged a PS5 Dual Sense controller I see, let me switch your microphone to the controller even though you are actively already using another one”.
“Oh you put your computer in sleep before going to bed? Let me switch it on In the middle of the night to update, we will call that a mandatory maintenance because you can’t disable that feature”.
I really need to spend more time on my Linux boot rather than this shitty W10 setup".
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.
That sounds frustrating. What have you switched to?
I’ve only worked one place with Linux desktops, I miss it.
My personal desktop is on mint. I just got an old 56 core, 256GB RAM, 18TB server from work. I’m running proxmox on that so I can spin up VMs with different distros on it to try them out.
Windows update are starting to feel like updates to Pixel phones: what horrible shit is coming next?
Every forced update is 5 minutes of hassle for each login. If you work from multiple PCs, it’s a nightmare.
I liked Clippy. I hate AI
📎I see you are nostalgic for your youth and how programs were tools and not spyware to track and target you. Maybe I can help with that 👮♀️👮♀️👮🏽👮🏽🚓🚓🚁🚁
Do you have a source for that backtracking about AI? I think they did not mention that explicitly. Instead they were talking about unrelated improvements. The CEO is still in denial about AI bloat. He seems unable to comprehend that people don’t like to be force fed AI everywhere across the OS.
They’re not in denial. They know no one wants it. They all do. They just don’t care because pretending like they do is extremely profitable in the fucked up modern economy we live in.
I think that Satya Nadella and a lot of other CEO types genuinely believe in AI, as misguided as it seems. This is more about who they choose to listen too than having an actual understanding of the technology and its limits. And probably some FOMO sprinkled on top.
Sam Altman knows what’s up though and so does Jensen Huang. In this gold rush one is peddling the fake gold and the other is selling the shovels.
Agree to disagree, I suppose. I believe the Anthropic guy because he’s actually quite nuts about it. Nvidia is the only company that’s actually going to make money here, selling shovels, as you said.
Yeah the Antrophic guys are also firmly in the “believer” group.
eh, they’ve sold most of their shovels on credit (which as income in it’s entirety, as one does)…the AIslop companies can’t turn a profit then all that revenue goes poof
https://pureinfotech.com/microsoft-windows-11-ai-brakes-copilot-recall/
Note that this article completely buries the lede. This is the last paragraph:
#Enterprise pushback is also influencing decisions#
Separately, enterprise users have pushed back against Copilot in managed environments, prompting the software giant to test options that would allow IT admins to uninstall Copilot more easily on business devices. This indicates that the rethink isn’t just about consumer sentiment but also addresses corporate deployment challenges.
The reason they’re having second thoughts is due to enterprise customers, who are the only customers they really care about the opinion of. If it was just home users complaining, they would not be adjusting course.
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.
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.
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.
Yep. Everything that runs in windows 10 runs worse on Windows 11 and y are getting nothing in return. My work PC can barely manage a big spreadsheet now.
I use VMs to program industrial PLCs and I find it outrageous that performance today is worse than what it was 10 years ago with the same software
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.
It isn’t even just the performance and bloat issues or the AI.
As you hinted, Windows 11 made a lot of changes to the UI. I can’t think of a single change made which I liked as someone who has had to deal with Windows since before 95. Windows 11 felt like a downgrade from Windows 10.
You’ve got a lot of managers with purchasing authority who developed a ton of muscle memory on old Windows. The new UI changes have made Windows feel alien enough that you can’t use retraining costs as an excuse to keep with Windows.
Windows 11 UI is a downgrade from XP.
Windows 11 is also deeply unstable. I haven’t had this many program crashes, errors, and other bullshit since Vista and ME. Windows 10 had it’s annoying quirks but it was at least relatively stable.
I have saved myself the headaches with UI changes since the Win8 clusterfuck when installed a 3rd party taskbar/menu.
I think explorer and the desktop tray got a little better in terms of UI. I actually find myself liking the centered icons.
That said, I’ve tweaked a lot with openshell and fully replaced the awful start menu and search to fix a lot of the garbage.
Windows 11.1 anyone? lol
Windows 11.1.1 for desktops?
Clickbait bullshit.
The source shows that Windows 11 usage has been steadily climbing for a long time, including in January - the latest data available - but presumably that didn’t fit their narrative so they ignored all the data except the data single point that they liked which corresponds to the month where every business shuts down for a week.
Statcounter shows that not only is Windows use increasing, but also that Windows 11’s share is too.
I don’t expect anyone here to be happy about these things - I certainly can’t say I am - but pretending the Windows is in the middle of an epic downfall when it actually appears to be doing fine won’t help anyone except Microsoft.
How do they measure these stats?
They aren’t reaching into my PC so they’re only checking when I [X].
So it isn’t it always just measuring “Os percent from user who [X]”
E.g. Steam only check people with Steam. Slash Dot can only going to measure PCs who go to Slashdot. AOL.com is only checking Boomers.
Agreed, there is no objectively perfect way of measuring this stuff. My point mainly is that the author of the article picked one data point, took it out for context and built an entire lie on that. It’s very much a “look at this snow - so much for global warming” argument. But also, we keep hearing how much Windows is tanking and yet all the metrics we have show it’s actually doing well. Do people like it? No, I don’t think they do. Do I personally want to see Windows crash and burn? Yes, at least in it’s current form. But for all the frustration and anecdotes it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere, and I don’t think any decision-makers will be convinced that Windows is failing when all the available stats suggest otherwise.
Statcounter is running on more than a million websites. They track user metadata across these websites.
While this doesn’t give you absolute numbers for everything, it should be enough to notice trends.
Their methodology is on their website.
