back to article Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

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. …

  1. Plest Silver badge
    Pint

    As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

    To be honest I really can't see what Win11 offers over Win10 or even Win7, other than security fixes. My advice unless you really need to go with Win11 I seriously wouldn't bother with it as there's nothing to gain from it. I only used to try it out and it works fine, I bought a new Lenovo Legion7 laptop and I was damned if i was going to use the default installed spyware/malware ridden Win10 that came with it, I wanted to wipe it and install Window how I wanted it and seemed a good time to see what the Win11 fuss was about.

    If you're happy with Win10 or Win7, stick with 'em as there's nothing I've found on Win11 I don't have on my Win10 work laptop.

    1. Mike 137 Silver badge

      Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

      "If you're happy with Win10 or Win7, stick with 'em"

      Except that not a few these days essential services (e.g. Teams (and probably zoom shortly) will refuse to run on Win 7. I reckon it was the last version of windoze that allowed the user real control, but if using it locks one out of necessary services there's no real choice except "upgrade". Churn is the order of the day, and for some time now it's no longer been our kit -- we just get permission to use it for a fee until the vendor chooses to shut it down.

      1. itsborken

        Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

        Use a tablet and take the Win7 PC off the net for PC related needs.

      2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

        Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

        Why would you want to ruin your life by installing Teams? Teams works fine (well, that's debatable) in the browser, definitely better than the "native" application.

        1. Captain Scarlet Silver badge

          Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

          Yeah not surprised, a machine with 4GB running Teams natively runs slowly.

          1. Richard Jones 1
            Joke

            Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

            Perhaps walks slowly, might be more accurate?

          2. Nick Ryan Silver badge

            Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

            A machine with 8GB runs (walks slowly) like a dog (snail) with Teams on auto-start after login. Many users have either taken to not logging out to avoid the pain, which just delays it as eventually performance becomes so bad that a restart is required and that's aside from windows updates, or they remove Teams from auto-start and start it later when they have a gap in work.

            1. Captain Scarlet Silver badge

              Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

              hmm ok must admit noticed zero difference myself, then again our own software tends to be very lean anyway.

            2. BobChip
              Linux

              Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

              As an occasional, and rather reluctant, Win "user", I updated to 11, from 10, on a custom build multi choice system using a separate HD for each OS, selected before booting by an individual SATA power switch for each HD. I can choose from 2 flavours of Linux as well as Win 11. Each lives on it's own 2 TB SSD, and accesses exactly the same system resources when powered up - modern MSI mother board, Intel i7 chip and 32 Mb of ram . Basically several PCs in one box, each being powered up on the basis of meeting my immediate needs. I still need to use some win only software, because a few of the people I do work for persist in sticking with MS. All the sensible guys (IMHO - more than 80% of them as of today) went Linux ages ago.

              Win 10 was a total slug. No mistake. Win 11 is worse - when it is working at all, that is... It seems to crash a lot, and I'm thinking of reverting to 10 just to get something that works when I want it to. As you might imagine, I normally boot the Linux Mint 21 disc, which is blisterringly fast for rendering and re-drawing maps - a lot of what I do. Windows is chronically - unusably - slow by comparison

              Can't wait for the day when I can finally wipe anything to do with MS and forget that I ever had to use it. That said, I thought Win 7 was about as good as they ever got it to, so much so that it now sits in an instance of Virtual Box on one of my Linux drives, for the occasional old win game, but not for some of the modern software I use, but that's about as far as I'll go.

              1. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

                Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

                > 32 Mb of ram

                Suspecting typo, else Windows 95 would be the right choice.

                > Win 11 ... seems to crash a lot

                That is unusual. There are quite a number of bugs in Windows 11, but crashing is rare. Diagnosing that would require more details. Things like: Which i7 exactly, is BIOS up to date, what is the rest of the hardware, is it actually an UEFI install etc... (TPM 2.0 active doesn't matter). There are cases of defective RAM which only one of your four or five OS exposes, by sheer luck which bit is unstable. Would recommending ECC RAM, but i7 cannot ECC, except for DDR5 with its single-bit-errordetection ECC. But until 23H2 or 24H2 Windows 11 is out Win 10 is the better alternative anyway unless you need a special nerdy feature.

                > Win 10 was a total slug

                If you computer is an i7 with 32 GB of RAM, Windows 10 should run faster than Windows 7. Again: Requires more detail.

                As for using Linux: Stick to it when it fits your need! Don't change that.

      3. Hubert Cumberdale

        Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

        "Essential"? I do not think it means what you think it means.

    2. navarac Bronze badge

      Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

      I've kept on trying 11, but it so frustrating. Even 11 22H2 leaves a lot to be desired. Biggest gripe I have is the need for "more mouse clicks per selection" with menus being hobbled. In other words, I find it a dumbed down version of 10, which only came about because of some idiot called Sinofsky, f**ing about with 7. As I keep back-up images, it is back to 10 for me until EOL.

      This is, of course, a personal opinion only - if 11 is fine for you, enjoy and carry on :-D

      1. Plest Silver badge

        Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

        Win11 menus were designed by a sadist with a BDSM fetish, just to watch you get more frustruted! Ha ha!

        I started off with Windows 2.0 back in the day and even now I find Windows keyboard shortcuts far quicker to remember than the 7 layers of menus and dialogues. Often firing up Powershell session and just start and app, like you do in Linux. People seem to forget that just cos O/S defaults to a GUI you don't have to use it, simply autostart a command line and live there to kick apps up. I guess that's part of the reason I wasn't bothered too much by Win11 as I never realy scratch below the GUI surface on any O/S, Gnome, KDE, OSX or Windows, just jump to command line and they all feel the exact same.

        1. Updraft102

          Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

          Does Windows offer the possibility of having a command line pane within the file manager window, like KDE's Dolphin file manager? if you change the directory in the graphical part, the command line working directory changes along with it. Using a separate window just seems like a pain now. I can switch back and forth seamlessly between command line and gui for the same task and context.

    3. itsborken

      Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

      I upgraded to W11 last year, was irritated by feature rollback and the fresh coat of paint approach, and rebuilt my PC back to W10 after being too annoyed at it. I'll be happy to stay there until MS fixes the start and context menus and provides a better reason than light and dark modes.

    4. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

      Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

      Nested-V for AMD, robocopy /iorate:20M and SMB-Compression.

      But with my experience with Windows 11 I have to say: Nested-V for AMD is nice, but I regret switching to 11. But if you develop you don't have a choice. Unless you have a truckload of money to use Server 2022, which still has the good UI.

    5. big_D Silver badge

      Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

      At this stage, you really shouldn't be exposing Windows 7 to the general network, let alone the Internet (or planning to segregate it, if you pay for the extended support, which runs out at the beginning of next year).

      We have some legacy hardware (laboratory equipment) whose controlling software only works on XP or 7, getting a software "upgrade" involves buying new lab equipment that does the same job to the same quality level as the working kit it would replace, at a six figure price. All of the PCs that are used in the labs are segregated from the corporate network and are either stand-alone or on a separate lab network that has no corporate network or internet access.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

      Thanks for this.

      My folks are looking at getting a new laptop. I'm fairly sure that I will be upgrading from windows 11 to 10 as soon as I can get my hands on it. I'm not a fan of 10 anyway and too many changes could well be a step to far!

    7. jBardeleben

      Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

      They should have just worked on win10. It's a great os and 11 is a massive PIA. When using a win11 computer, I feel I need a shot or 7 first because it's a battle. W10 is what w7 was supposed to be. Sorry, it just frustrates me. Especially with the amount of time I spent setting up w10 to be my (now favorite) strongest dev box. MS needs to stop f'in with a good thing and work to strengthen it, not force some new not-ready-yet thing on us. When did they think joining the "new js framework flavor of the week" mentality? Damn...

      1. Updraft102

        Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

        10? Great?

        Nah. Nothing with the ads and monetization and half-phone, half-PC GUI, not to mention the lack of full control over updates, qualifies as 'great' to me. XP was great, 7 was at least mostly great, 2k was really great.

      2. David Lawton

        Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

        Windows 10 great? Where have you been since 2015? Do you forget how painful an OS this was when first released? It was hated and for good reasons! Give me Windows 2000 or XP anyday over the junk Windows 8/8.1/10/11 is. They were designed by blind people at Microsoft.

    8. MyffyW Silver badge

      Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

      I'd cheerfully run WindowsXP if it wasn't for the security risk. Haven't seen a Windows productivity improvement that is actually useful since the turn of the century.

    9. Richard Jones 1
      Happy

      Re: As a Win11 user myself, don't bother if you don't have to!

      I have just moved from 10 to 11. At first, it was a buggy experience, but removal of OEM add-ons cured that and left the PC feeling much more spirited. After several days, I am finding it just like 10, but faster and more responsive. I have not yet explored the new 'features', but teams appears totally pointless and is probably not long for this land.

      I should say that everyone's needs, uses and 'mileage' will be different, so their experience will not be the same as mine.

  2. chivo243 Silver badge
    Windows

    OS X?

    I haven't heard that term in quite some time. Didn't Apple go back to macOS and it's new splinters, tvOS, iPadOS and WatchOS?

    And as far as Windows, I'm done at Win10, Windows going up to 11 isn't quite like SpinalTap going up to 11... now is it?

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: OS X?

      You're right they've referred to it as macOS for the last few years, but I can't help but wonder at the claim of 15.6% for "OS X".

      I know the Apple Silicon Macs have seen a big market growth but 15.6% of the global PC market? I have to think they are including iPad Pro in that figure. There's 5% missing from their stats, I guess that's ChromeOS or are they counting ChromeOS as Linux?

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Re: OS X?

        iPadOS is separate, so I would doubt it is being included. But the 15% does sound high (speaking as someone who used macOS, Windows and Linux).

        ChromeOS collapsed last quarter, with sales dropping off a 30%+ cliff. Linux is around 5%, ChromeOS is under 0.42%, as far as I can make out, according to Kinsta. Statcounter has ChromeOS at 2.38%, behind Linux at 2.6%. Take your pick.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: OS X?

          Rearranged, and in some cases smashed up a bit?

        2. Nick Ryan Silver badge
          Stop

          Re: OS X?

          Yeah, but doesn't the blind person really appreciate how much improvement there was through applying paint colour 48956 (legally registered trademark colour) over everything? In particular a really thick application of this to ensure that there is no tangible difference between anything at all and absolutely no edges anywhere. This paint was expensive therefore it will be used everywhere to demonstrate the superiority of the colour. The application of typeface 9093, which is a dedicated new typeface designed with exclusively narrow strokes to make it as hard to read on all devices unless font scaling is set to 800% and even then only the truly discerning will be able to appreciate this. Mostly because the standard text colour is 48957 which is the very similar to colour 48956 just marginally darker. 48956 would have been used as the text colour as well except one of the unwashed (not in the marketing department) complained too loudly and a very costly compromise was made to adjust 48956 darker by 0.05% and billed to the complainant's department.

        3. toejam++

          Re: OS X?

          One of the largest complaints I have regarding Windows is the inability to choose themes and layouts that mimic older versions. Classic Shell resolves some of the layout complaints, but it is not an option on my work PC.

          As others have noted, shortcut key combos and shell commands are more consistent, which is good. But the tab/hint system isn't so great, which is why I find myself going back to the UI for rarely used tasks.

    2. Kane
      Joke

      Re: OS X?

      "And as far as Windows, I'm done at Win10, Windows going up to 11 isn't quite like SpinalTap going up to 11... now is it?"

      Weerrrlll, It's one higher, ain't it!

  3. train_wreck

    Wow, 15%?? Obviously i knew the number would be low, but that’s a pretty stark signal that customers are sending…. I have to think the arbitrary hardware requirements are a not-insignificant factor.

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Global recession, companies necessarily saving money and not wasting it, PCs largely having reached saturation point already... and Microsoft feel the need to release a new "last version of windows" with fictitious hardware requirements.

    2. Lon24

      "I have to think the arbitrary hardware requirements are a not-insignificant factor."

      My only Win11 (a dual boot) is running on unsupported hardware (a 9 year old Thinkpad). Just because it can. I am not alone so it must be less than !:6 for supported hardware!

      Way to go MS ...

  4. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    Windows 12?

    So will we see a new Windows update soon? I expect that an update is in the Microsoft corporate plans for a few years down the road internet.

    1. Notas Badoff

      Re: Windows 12?

      There will be a delay while Microsoft tries to figure what number to use next. Even more people would work to avoid Windows 13. They might opt to name it Windows 12bis?

      If Microsoft sales dept goes with 13, I'm betting it will be released in 2026. They have three different Friday the 13th's to announce on.

  5. Marty McFly Silver badge
    FAIL

    Same Windows, but different

    "Hi Users!

    Welcome to Windows 11. Same problems as Windows 10, we just moved everything around to make it tougher to find!

    Enjoy wasting countless hours trying to learn this all-new GUI. It will save you time and make you more efficient."

    1. devin3782

      Re: Same Windows, but different

      oh, oh, oh don't forget we also completely made a mess of the start menu, start menu search, prevented you from moving the task bar and we're really absolutely going put adverts into your start menu and file explorer just as soon as you've forgotten about the last time we tried to do it.

      1. 43300 Silver badge

        Re: Same Windows, but different

        And added a useless consumer chat program which nobody uses and which pins itself to the taskbar. And helpfully called it 'Teams' despite it being no relation to 'Teams' as used in business settings...

  6. Swordfish1

    We've got 2 towers and 1 laptop. Only one tower was suitable for windows 11. The other 2 won't run Windows 11, and I'm not forking out even more cash, to get those replaced, or upgraded. Windows 10 is running fine on both of them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      In related news: 5 in 6 PCs in the real world not compatible with Windows 11?

      2 desktops and a laptop here, only the laptop is Windows 11 capable (and just barely - it’s an 8th generation intel which is exactly the minimum MS specified) but the installer fails because the TPM is too old (not 2.0).

      Windows 11 only on 1 in 6 PCs because only 1 in 6 actually meet the requirements, perhaps? Especially since it’s being pushed down by Windows update now so you have to click “no” on a box saying how wonderful it is in order to NOT install it. Repeatedly. On a machine that can’t take it due to the TPM version. It’s not getting annoying ;)

      At a time when many people are struggling financially, trying to force people to upgrade their hardware is a bit low even for MS. My laptops still under warranty (expires when it gets to 3 years old) but is apparently “too old” for Windows 11, how ridiculous!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: In related news: 5 in 6 PCs in the real world not compatible with Windows 11?

        With some HP kit at least, I have seen that you can run a firmware update to upgrade the TPM to version 2 - maybe there is something similar for your laptop.

        In my case, while the TPM did upgrade to 2.0, Windows 11 wouldn't install as it failed the CPU check

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: In related news: 5 in 6 PCs in the real world not compatible with Windows 11?

          You lucky bastard!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      From the PoV of many companies in your situation the answer would be "They all stay on W10" having different systems running different versions is a PITA. Until it is cheaper to replace the system which aren't up to running 11 than it is to stay running 10 then there is no likelihood of moving.

      MS will remember this at some point.

      W10 wasn't supposed to ever run on systems which didn't use secure boot. It was this requirement which forced the industry to switch over to UEFI from old fashion BIOS.

      Then when they wanted to foist upgrades on everyone they realised that most of the boxes they wanted to upgrade didn't support their new adware so they dropped the need for secure boot.

      At some point they'll decide they want to move more people off 10 onto 11 and that to make it happen they'll need a version of the OS which is compatible with the HW the customers have.

  7. TVU Silver badge

    "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"

    Given the number of bugs and errors in Windows 11 updates these days, I wouldn't be surprised if corporate enterprises waited at least 36 months before 'upgrading' their business computers to Windows 11.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Typically we wait for

      "Most corporate enterprises have yet to migrate to Windows 11 – typically they wait for..."

      We don't just wait for 18 months, we spend about two years hammering on the idiots until they release a version we can stomach. That starts in the preview builds, continues past launch day, apology day, update broke my computer day, and and continues until a minimally functional build arrives.

      That usually takes about 2 years, starting from the preview builds a few months before launch, as people's ears poke up and more sites that arent' early adopters take their first serious look at the new potato baby.

      Sometime they fail to release a viable version, and people just stay on the previous solid one until the apology edition arrives. That happened after both XP and windows 7, so there is no reason to expect 11 is special. They fix it or we wait them out. They have to blink before the business world does, they are locked into support contracts and they need the revenue more than their customers need an unreliable OS that will kill productivity.

      The funny thing is that it is the same design by committee and flawed market research that has wrecked every major OS release since, what, windows 2000 probably? They broke XP at launch and it had to be fixed, and win 7 stole market share from the trainwreck that proceeded it almost immediately, but lulling market share off XP took enough years it was more about people buying new computers than upgrades.

      And it's the same mistakes, time after time. UI changes that aren't a meaningful improvement but are enough to leave users totally lost. Important settings and tools move or are missing. New UI chrome that changes how all the apps look, and so sloppily implemented that have the controls still have to be dug up off some old version of the pull down menu, which is probably hidden by default. Hidden controls that only render on the UI when you hover over them, controls that slide around onscreen as the pointer moves. Profoundly and obviously dumb choices that the community howls at the moment it hit's the previews.

      Yet the one part of the process they refuse to talk about fixing is the one that drives all these mistakes. The people doing the market research for them are expensive, implementing features people hate costs money, as does fixing or removing them, and those mistakes add up. Because of the collective insanity that stuck the PC world post tablet, they reversed the direction of mouse controls to make them more consistent with devices that don't use mice, even on machines that don't have touchscreens. Now they have to support a control to change the scrolling behavior for every device till the end of time. Regardless of what that defaults to people a large fraction of people will hate it, and it will ruin the critical honeymoon period to win people over to a new OS build. Same for hiding file extensions on an OS that still decides how to handle a file primarily based on it's file extensions. So in a mixed shop you have people making office docs on Mas that could care less about the extension and sending them to people who can't see them by default, and can't fix them without changing the default settings.

      1. vcragain

        Re: Typically we wait for

        The problem arises every time because Microsoft thinks it is 'computer world' and what it forgets is it is only the medium upon which all the packages we WANT to use are loaded - we don't necessarily need or want Windows itself, it gets in the way ! The concept of 'Windows' is a great one, not arguing about that - those containers holding an app that allow us to keep multiple apps going while we busily roam around doing various things, make it a wonderful environment - but Gates is forever trying to make his 'thing' into 'the world', just as the google guy is doing. OK fine so you made a useful thing you are getting paid for - we don't need YOU - we just want to use what you produced & get on with other stuff ! But they can't leave it alone, have to keep trying to be 'THE CONTROLLER' !!! The first thing I did when I got my last Win 10 pc was reorganize it to look like my Win 95 desktop, so I could carry on the way i did before all the Win 10 'enhancements'. I don't like 'tiles' don't need you to tell me how I should be running my life - i'm busy - go away ! Sometimes I have a good laugh when I've got several 'cmd' windows running - the very essence of the whole point of Windows as far as I'm concerned ! All the graphics are just fancy goop to make it all 'pretty' - and that's the point of the changes - to SELL - MARKETING at it's best - or most awful !

        1. Tim99 Silver badge

          Re: Typically we wait for

          After supporting this stuff for years, I think that for many users it could be called "Window". They use just one or two apps, and never copy/paste between them. Back in the day, when I asked them what version of Windows they were using they said "97", that's when I realized that they used MS Word for almost everything. These days it may be "Chrome" (the browser).

        2. Updraft102

          Re: Typically we wait for

          "but Gates is forever trying to make his 'thing' into 'the world'"

          That ended 22 years ago.

      2. peachy001

        Re: Typically we wait for

        "Couldn't care less"....

        The rest, spot on

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Corporates - that have upgraded recently - are largely sitting on Windows 10LTSC (formerly IoT) with EOL in 2027. They have *zero* plans for W11 or even have and interest to even pencil it in on the roadmap.

      https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-enterprise-ltsc-2021

      I still have customers - some tier 1 UK High Street retailers - in places running Windows 2003 Server, XPe as well as extensive implementations of more recent Windows 2008 Server/Windows 7/PosReady 7 just EOL’d )and having issues with old versions of Chrome - all that you can run on it - not being compatible with partner websites).

    3. pwingert

      Our company did an evaluation of updating our two hundred laptops. Total replacement is required for 95% of them. The CEO bought a new machine outside the normal purchasing process, LOL. We also evaluated rewriting, testing, and upgrading or replacing our forty custom apps. The laptops hardware was under a million. The retesting, and software stuff was about 4 million. So the answer is no. We will stick with windows 10 until we have no other choice. Luckily, I retired in less than five years!

  8. NewModelArmy
    Happy

    Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

    Shame.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

      It should be

      Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6,000,000,000 PCs

      Perhaps one day MS might get the message that the direction that they are taking is NOT what the vast majority of users want.

      I'm done with Windows until the bring back W7.

    2. Solviva

      Re: Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

      Fewer (implying a countable whole number), than 1, avoiding going negative is 0, so Windows runs on 0 in 6 PCs?

  9. mickaroo

    Proud To Be...

    ...one of the contributors to the 2.6%

    I run Windows 10 in a VM for "colleague compatibility".

    But I'm old, and soon to retire. Windows 11+ will never, ever happen on my PC. Never, ever... Never...

    1. Updraft102

      Re: Proud To Be...

      I have it in a VM, and also on an external SSD (Win2USB) for the rare times when I need it at a hardware level (like to update the firmware of things like laptop touchpads and LCD screens, which only come as Windows executables). I seldom use either one. Strangely, neither has nagged me about activation... the one in the VM has decided it is in "Test mode," or at least that is what the watermark says. Works for me.

  10. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

    No surprise here!

    The UI requires more mouse clicks for the same tasks. Just simply selecting a task from the task bar requires more mouse clicks than before. And a few new Kernel-level bugsfeatures which were added with 22H2 don't improve it.

    And Microsoft ignores all that insider feedback they received.

    I suspect 23H2 might get usable. I know companies planning to migrate to Windows 11 in 2024, but definitely not before.

    1. Mike 137 Silver badge

      Re: No surprise here!

      "The UI requires more mouse clicks for the same tasks

      <sarc>That's "interaction". We all know that windoze has an interactive GUI, so obviously the more interaction the better.</sarc>

      The same policy is widely used on web sites, where instead of presenting all relevant information on a flat page, lumps of it are hidden behind "tabs". Frequently, clicking a tab reveals little more than a single sentence, which could easily have fitted on the flat page.

      As Larry Ellison famously said "IT is more fashion driven than ladies' fashion", the difference being that IT has to be used to do real work.

  11. aerogems Silver badge
    Holmes

    And?

    I never quite got the point of these articles except as porn for the people who need external justification that they made the correct decision staying with <operating system>. Use whatever works for you, who cares about the rest? If you're perfectly happy with CP/M on some old 8088 based system, good for you. If that old Apple ][e does everything you need, great. I don't really care either way. Just find something that works for you, use it, and let that be enough.

    1. myithingwontcharge

      Re: And?

      "If you're perfectly happy with CP/M on some old 8088 based system, good for you"

      While CPM/86 can run on an 8088, thats really an OS upgrade too far. Better true CP/M on an 8080 or (if you're one of the cool modern kids) a Z80 as an OS shouldn't need 16 bit hardware just for an upgrade. :-)

      1. aerogems Silver badge

        Re: And?

        Honestly, I just used the oldest chip I could think of at the time without really knowing if it was a valid combo.

      2. pwingert

        Re: And?

        I miss running CP/M on my Z-80 card in my Apple II+

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @aerogems - Re: And?

      Ah, CP/M! Those were the days.

      God bless you for bringing me back those memories.

      1. Totally not a Cylon
        Happy

        Re: @aerogems - And?

        Or for the social crowd:

        MP/M running on a 286 with a bunch of serial cards as a '286 is too much performance for 1 person'....

        For those too young to remember the early 80286 based PCs were genuinely thought to be too powerful for single users, anything upto 16 connected via serial terminals was expected.....

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And?

      Agree (although I'd not advocate moving to something quite that old). We're talking about an OS (or OSes) which are there to allow users to run programs (that do something useful) and manage the resulting data. Ideally, a good OS should present the application programs and then be unnoticed in the background. CP/M and early MS-DOS did that quite well, until we wanted to run multiple applications at the same time, and then liked the fancy wysiwyg and gui we drooled over. Then came from over function and the access explosion that we call the internet.

      We can't go back without disadvantaging ourselves - we've come to rely on our terminals (which is what most computers have become). For many users, a handheld, portable VT220 would be all they really need.

      OK, maybe I'm being simplistic but, when I'm having to hold some people's hands to get the services they need (because you have to go online to get them), I wonder whether we've actually progressed...

      1. aerogems Silver badge

        Re: And?

        The point wasn't to advocate for something over anything else. The point was to just be happy with whatever works for you and stop worrying about what other people are doing. If you like Win 11, great. If you like macOS, also great. Whatever works for you and your specific set of use cases.

  12. Rckjp

    I had windows 11 installed on my laptop, back when they started the windows insider program for windows 11. Had it for a while then I couldn't get any more updates for it.

    So went back to windows 10. Then found out it was my processor the whole time (core i7-7820hk).

    1. Caver_Dave Silver badge

      Yes, I have the correct TPM, enough memory and fast drives, and a fast i7.

      However, Windows 11 only supports certain i7. If they can't be arsed to test all of the processors, then I can't be arsed to load it! Simples!

  13. manalive

    Windows 11... we've had enough.

    We're a few months away from upgrading our 12,000 macOS devices to macOS 13... three words - Declarative Device Management:

    What's new for enterprise in macOS Ventura

    Meet declarative device management

    Anyone who absolutely needs to use Windows, Linux or A.N. Other OS can do it so using a VM in one of our DCs using RPD and Per App VPN working together.

    My $0.02

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  14. terry 1

    Been suppling small offices (workgroups) with W11. Start the brand new PC with no internet so no demand for a MS account. Then once at the desktop, taskbar put to the left and a reg tweak to bring back the classic 'right click' context menu. Then the end user feels it's close enough to W10 that they can actually work rather than be stuck having a WTF moments all day long.

    The start menu sucks the most

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Start the brand new PC with no internet so no demand for a MS account.

      Hate to be the one to break it to you, but Micros~1 is at present pushing an update (most likely in the Cumulative Update for 2022-08 or 2022-09) that will force the OOBE to show up after logon (after the update installs and the system reboots) and *mandates* that the user either logs in with a Microsoft account or postpones it for up to 3 days. No option to skip - even the %windir%/system32/oobe\BypassNRO.cmd workaround is ignored. Disconnecting the internet doesn't fix it either. I accidentally found out that forcing a reboot skips it, however.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Artificial obsolescence

    You don’t have to play their game folks.

  16. Christian Berger

    It actually could be much less

    Such services typically determine market shares by trying to run 3rd party Javascript in browsers. Since running extensions like noscript is correlated with running Linux or *BSD, those operating systems are likely under represented in those studies.

    There is a good point for this, heise.de, a website mostly browsed by people at work (=>much higher Windows percentage than global) still has lower numbers for Windows than those statistics.

  17. Charles Smith

    Windows 11 chose not to accept me.

    Microsoft decided that my perfectly good Intel hearted PC was not good enough for their Win 11 product. Apparently to regain their favour I have to buy a new PC.

    I've always supported the view that developers should be forced to test their latest release on five year old PCs.

    1. Nelbert Noggins

      Re: Windows 11 chose not to accept me.

      So far having fTPM disabled on my perfectly capable amd machine has been enough to keep MS deciding I'm not worthy or need nagging.

      Even better was the recent announcement about no more 'feature' releases for W10, just security until the EOL date.

      I'm hoping by then Valve's current push of steamdeck and proton means my only need for windows can finally go away :)

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What Are MS Really Up To?

    It's interesting that MS are intentionally limiting the rollout of W11 given that they were insistent on trying to get W10 to run any PC that had power and an internet connection.

    To some degree I can see the argument. If you have an older pc with 2 or 3 GB of ram, a small hard drive and a weak processor then if you get past the upgrade it may not be a great user experience, but the idea that MS is forcing users to buy new hardware I don't think is completely true either. (Unless MS Management are more deluded than they care to admit).

    If W11 is only running on 1 out 6 computers I would think MS Management would be jumping up and down - hardly world domination of the latest and greatest, even if it drops to 3 out of 6 computers it still means there will be a lot of W10 machines out there for a long long time which MS are going to have to support. Then comes W12? Will that only run on 1 out 8 computers?

    MS may be that limiting the rollout of W11 initially, reducing the support issues that happens with a big bang release and will reduce the restrictions on computers that can run W11. Time will tell.

    One thing that hasn't been suggested is that in limiting W11 to certain machines so tightly and without much openness to why could that be indicative of a bigger problem with W11 that MS don't want to discuss?

    If MS would only be open and honest.... ....Oh, yer - not going to happen.

    1. navarac Bronze badge

      Re: What Are MS Really Up To?

      More of a damp fizzle than a big bang release, it seems.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh those lucky ones.

  20. big_D Silver badge

    AdDuplex...

    One problem I have with AdDuplex is that they take their figures from the Windows Store downloads/active apps. The problem is, in over a decade of working at various companies, none of them have had the App Store enabled, it is always disabled by policy and all PCs have all App Store apps stripped, before they are delivered to users. That means thousands of PC that I know of aren't delivering any stats, if other companies are also so strict, that probably means 10s of millions of PCs running Windows 8+ aren't being polled.

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Re: AdDuplex...

      For good reason. It permits users to install random arbitrary software on company computers. I suspect that the hoops required to disable Microsoft's automatic billing mechanism, as in users could start subscriptions to random software services and there's no control over this were the final straw for many.

      A company curated Microsoft Store would be fine, but definitely not a wild west of uncontrollable rubbish that will often steal data and copy it to regimes with no data protection whatsoever, such as the US.

      A sensible regime where a company "Microsoft Store" could operate and only provide a selection of applications would be OK, allow this company to deploy their own applications through the same "Microsoft Store" and it would be it actually useful.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This should help PC sales

    Hard not to argue there is not some sort of hardware kickback when 11 well only run on 1 in 6 PCs.

    They must be hoping this will juice lagging PC sales.

    1. NewModelArmy

      Re: This should help PC sales

      It may help PC sales, but here in the UK, the economy is so bad, and with people who previously upgraded due to Covid, then people are very unlikely to upgrade their recently new machine with money they haven't got.

      I run a Windows 8.1 machine with Intel processor from 2017, and that is only because the key program has to have an Intel processor and Windows. Else, it is Linux all the way for every other machine.

  22. Greywolf40

    MS Offered W11 for my desktop and the Surface 7 tablet. Declined. W10 is OK as is, and some of W11's reported features sound like increased privacy invasions.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The Surface Pro 7 (10th gen Intel Core processor) is a piece of throttling shit - both Windows 10 and 11 stutter like mad on it as the CPU loves its base clock of 1.something GHz. The 7+ (11th gen processors) is a much better buy!

  23. shawn.eary

    Personally, I think TPM chips offer very little in terms of improved security... The bigger problem is that eventually Microsoft will stop patching Windows 10...

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unbelievable amount of whining about Windows 11

    My largely computer-illiterate brother-in-law upgraded his laptop to Windows 11 without even realizing it. The browser and email are still the same for him, so from his point of view, nothing really changed.

  25. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
    Joke

    So we got piss and shit

    Windows 10 came out in market share as Number 1 (Piss) and Number 2 is Windows 11 (Shit). The ranking is correct if you see it both ways. :-D

  26. TeeCee Gold badge

    Colour me uinsurprised.

    See also: Vista and 8.

    The majority of Win licenses are the corp desktops. They always run one and only one version and never upgrade for the sake of it. So, as every other release will do with the support cycles, that's what happens.

    MS know this, so Vista, 8 and 11 are guinea pig releases, trialling new directions on the lusers where the odd massive cockup or three doesn't matter.

  27. Jan K.

    The numbers are frankly meaningless... as long as Microsoft supports Windows 10, it will of course have it's userbase.

    Once Microsoft stops supporting Windows 10, then they'll have to choose to run unsupported, upgrade to 11 or replace the OS.

    When that time comes, we'll of course see Windows 11 be the leader...

    Microsoft controls the numbers, so they don't mean anything.

    Carry on! ^ ^

  28. Gerlad Dreisewerd

    What again!

    I replaced my Win 7 computer because Microputz didn't like the on board video. Now they don't like the TPM chip in the replacement. Yah know it just may be time to go to Linux

  29. Dropper

    Side-grade

    I benchmarked my PC before / after (did several) and found that, within a 2 percentage point margin of error, it makes no difference whatsoever.

    The most noticeable change to performance was moving the start menu button closer to where my mouse is sometimes. Other times the relocation of the button has slightly slowed me down. Obviously this depends on where my mouse is in relation to the start menu button's new location - about 3 inches to the right of where it used to be.

    If my mouse is in the top right corner, then reaching the start menu button is nearly a fraction of second faster. And I consider this scenario best highlights the advantages of upgrading. Of course you can't ignore the disadvantages - namely if your mouse normally resides in the bottom left corner, it might take as much as 0.05s more time to reach the start menu button. So you know, 6 of one, half dozen of the other. Why is everyone looking at me funny? You'd think no one ever uses the start menu or something.

    I heard there were other advantages to reskinning Windows 10, but I'm buggered if I can find them. I see they moved some things - task manager is so much better for having to click stuff running down the left side of the window instead of at the top. I'm delighted they pushed adding printers out of control panel and into Windows 10 device settings - said no one ever.

    They also broke some things - but those decrying Windows 11 should do well to remember that they probably would have broken those exact same things if Windows 11 had never happened. Personally I suspect that most of their developers have a fondness for the sound of shattering glass or that "noise" two cars make when someone forgets to stop at a red light. Without doubt they have taken that philosophy to heart and run with it for about 3 decades now. No one will forget the hilarious time they deleted a whole bunch of peoples' data forever. And then did it again a few months later. But no more nostalgia over Windows 10.. I can't wait for the first time they empty everyone's one drive in Windows 11 and we can all reminisce over how much better it was when they did that in Windows 10. How much cooler it was. How more hopeless it felt. The good old days, before they reskinned the exact same OS then declared it was safer.

  30. SoulFireMage

    Unnecessary change

    When I heard abiut it, it felt like an unnecessary pointless hassle that surely wasn't needed.

    Couldn't they have just gradually updated Windows ten forever instead? I dislike the whole nonsense of big reinstalls and managed to skip it for a few years now.

    My own plan is Windows 10 until I can't do what I want and need to do on it safely. But I definitely feel Microsoft should learn that actually the world isn't universally welcoming of regular OS reinstall upheaval and risks of bs changes that aren't useful.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Windows 11 runs on 1 in 6 PCs that it is installed on. It limps on the other 5.

  32. Alan Hope

    I like W10, it's been stable and fast for me and does not get in the way of what I do.

    I can live without all the additional mouseclicks that the W11 interface apparently imposes.

    Oh, and my very fast, reliable and silent PC is not able to upgrade to W11 without some possibly support-breaking kludge - so not a difficult decision.

  33. Jason Hindle

    Filed under…

    That’s what happens when you put a blithering idiot in charge of product strategy?

    There must surely be many millions of PCs out there that are perfectly capable of running Windows 11 but lack the right security chip.

  34. Desideratus

    Doesn't help that W11 will not voluntarily run on many very capable PCs - the missus wanted it (no idea why) and I had to enrol her into Dev to try it. (Intel Core i7-7700HQ, 16 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD Plus 1 TB HDD, NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti 4 GB) - Win 11 refuses to install by itself on 7 series chips, they are completely up to the job!

  35. izharahmed

    win 11

    I am using win 8.1 because my pc cannot be perfectly capable of running Windows 11 so i am user of window 8

  36. Ashto5

    Plain Annoying

    Win11 on one laptop

    It is just annoying

    Thank god it’s on my wife’s laptop and not mine

    1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
      Angel

      Re: Plain Annoying

      Don't you and the wife get on then?

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I see that Rufus has added support for installing Win11 without a Microsoft account without having to do some weird sequence combination that breaks in the next Windows update. Still, I would not want to rely on that not being screwed up semi-intentionally, too, if I change my GPU (or whatever change is enough to trigger a reactivation prompt nowadays), update to a newer Win11, or something...

    So certainly looks like 10 is the end of the road for Windows for me on the gaming PC. The next one I build, I will have to take the leap to Linux gaming. Luckily it does seem to be a genuine alternative now, as long as you choose wisely among the numerous options (and stay away from Nvidia GPUs?)

    1. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

      Much easier to skip that "Lets connect to a network else I refure to go on" step: Hit SHIFT+F10 when it demands a network.

      Method 1: Start taskmanage, kill "NetworkConnectionFlow"

      Method 2: taskkill /F /IM oobenetworkconnectionflow.exe

      Method 2 has an advantage being able to add a .cmd file directly on your install media.

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