Home windows 11 is reportedly in use by greater than 400 million month-to-month energetic units. Windows Central reports that it has seen “Microsoft inner knowledge” that reveals Home windows 11 is predicted to hit 500 million month-to-month energetic units by early 2024. All indicators have pointed in direction of a slower adoption of Home windows 11 than its predecessor and this leaked knowledge backs up the idea.
Home windows 10 first reached 400 million active devices simply over a 12 months after launch, an adoption charge that Microsoft proudly famous was 115 % quicker than Home windows 7. It has taken Home windows 11 two years to succeed in that very same adoption charge, a major slowdown contemplating Home windows 10 reached 600 million devices a number of months after its two-year anniversary.
Microsoft first launched Home windows 11 in October 2021 with strict {hardware} necessities. Home windows 11 is simply supported on CPUs launched from 2018 onwards, and with units that assist TPM safety chips. Microsoft shifted the minimal system necessities so as to give attention to elevating the safety threshold in Home windows 11, with fashionable chips able to enabling reminiscence integrity safety features that depend on virtualization and Microsoft’s Digital Machine Platform (VMP).
These {hardware} necessities have meant that Home windows 11 has lagged behind the Home windows 10 rollout, which was additionally supplied to Home windows 7 and Home windows 8 customers as a free improve. Home windows 11 was a free improve for Home windows 10 customers, however provided that they met the minimal {hardware} necessities that left millions of machines behind.
We’ve seen the sluggish adoption mirrored in Steam survey data, with Home windows 11 solely counting for 37 % of working programs, in comparison with practically 60 % for Home windows 10. Statcounter places Home windows 11’s market share at practically 25 %, far behind the greater than 70 precent of Home windows 10.
Microsoft has by no means formally shared what number of energetic units are working Home windows 11. The software program maker used to supply a mixture of Home windows 10 and Home windows 10 month-to-month energetic units on its “Microsoft by the numbers” web site, however that was quietly discontinued late final 12 months. A cached page reveals there have been greater than 1.4 billion month-to-month energetic units working Home windows 10 or Home windows 11 in April 2022, based on Microsoft.
Microsoft’s personal assist for Home windows 10 is about to finish on October 14th, 2025, that means an finish to safety updates and fixes for tens of millions of machines. If Microsoft isn’t in a position to persuade extra companies and shoppers to change to Home windows 11 (or no matter comes subsequent) by 2025, then it appears probably that the corporate might want to prolong that assist cutoff date.
Microsoft hasn’t introduced any plans for Home windows 12, however there are indicators a future model of Home windows will likely be centered on AI. “As we begin to develop future variations of Home windows we’ll take into consideration different locations the place AI ought to play a pure function when it comes to the expertise,” stated Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s head of client advertising, in an interview with The Verge earlier this year.