Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs – The Register

Much of the Windows world has yet to adopt Microsoft’s latest desktop operating system more than a year after it launched, according to figures for October collated by Statcounter.

Just 15.44 percent of PCs across the globe have installed Windows 11, meaning it gained 1.83 percentage points in a month. This compares to the 71.29 percent running Windows 10, which fell marginally from 71.88 percent in September.

Windows 7 is still hanging on with a tenuous grip, in third place with 9.61 percent, Windows 8.1 in fourth with 2.45 percent, plain old Windows 8 with 0.69 percent, and bless its heart, Windows XP with 0.39 percent because of your extended family.

In total, Windows has almost 76 percent of the global desktop OS market followed by OS X with 15.7 percent and Linux with 2.6 percent.

Android comprised 42.37 percent of total operating system market share, with Windows trailing on 30.11 percent, iOS on 17.6 percent, OS X on 6.24 percent, and Linux on 1.04 percent.

Statcounter is a web analytics service with tracking code installed on 1.5 million websites, recording billions of page views for each site. AdDuplex collates stats from Microsoft Store apps that contain the AdDuplex SDK (estimated to be 5,000 apps) and it claimed that Windows 11 had 23 percent market share in June.

Microsoft releases activation data to PC markers but this is not made public.

It almost didn’t happen…

Windows 11 launched on October 5, 2021. It is the OS most never thought would happen after Microsoft said some six years earlier: “With Windows 10, the experience will evolve and get even better over time. We’ll deliver new features when they’re ready, not waiting for the next major release. We think of Windows as a Service.”

One reason for the new release was improved security and reliability, Microsoft said, including hardware root of trust via Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0, Secure Boot, hypervisor-protected code integrity, and hardware-enforced stack protection.

The release also managed to alienate a bunch of folk due to its hardware requirements. Microsoft decided that Windows 11 would not install on devices that lack a recent TPM-equipped CPU, and while there is a workaround it’s an imperfect solution.

According to Lansweeper data, some 42.76 percent of 27 million PCs it tested across 60,000 organizations failed the CPU test, and it said this was forcing users who didn’t want to upgrade hardware to stick with Windows 10.

Most corporate enterprises have yet to migrate to Windows 11 – typically they wait for 18 months after an OS has launched before upgrading business computers. The entire PC ecosystem will be waiting with bated breath to see if that happens next year or whether businesses will want to sweat assets for longer in a nod to uncertain economic times. ®

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