{"id":606173,"date":"2025-08-12T10:59:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T08:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=606173"},"modified":"2025-08-12T11:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T09:00:09","slug":"biggest-windows-change-in-seven-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/software\/606173-biggest-windows-change-in-seven-years.html","title":{"rendered":"Biggest Windows change in seven years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

According to Globalstats Statcounter, Windows 10 has lost its seven-and-a-half-year title as the world’s most used desktop operating system (OS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The website traffic and usage platform has estimated that Windows 11 surpassed Windows 10 as the most popular version of Microsoft’s OS last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of July 2025, Windows 11 was estimated to be running on 53.51% of Windows PCs, a big jump from 47.98% in June 2025. Windows 10’s market share plunged from 48.76% to 42.88% of Windows PCs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering Windows accounts for around 72% of the desktop OS market, Windows 11 is now also the most popular computer operating system overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The change of guard comes just two months before Windows 10 reaches end-of-life, after which the OS will no longer receive updates as standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Windows 10 is over a decade old and has undoubtedly been more popular than its predecessor, Windows 8.1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the latter certainly improved on the dismal release that was Windows 8, its usage never surpassed the wildly popular Windows 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Windows 10 was launched in July 2015. Its users surpassed Windows 7’s by January 2018 \u2014 two and a half years after release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time Windows 11 was officially rolled out in October 2021, it was running on nearly 80% of all Windows machines, trumping Windows XP’s peak of roughly 76%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among Windows 10’s most prominent features were the return of the Start Menu, virtual desktops, Task View, and improved security measures like Windows Hello.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all of its capabilities were well received, however. Neither Microsoft’s Cortana virtual assistant nor the first version of Internet Explorer replacement Edge were loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, Windows 10’s seven-and-a-half-year run at the top is noteworthy considering Windows 7 was only the most used OS for slightly more than six years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Windows 10 initially seemed to represent a significant shift in Microsoft’s OS business model, after a Windows developer evangelist at a major event said it would be the “last version of Windows.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The software giant created the impression that instead of launching new OS versions every few years, it would offer “Windows-as-a-service” with continuous updates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Microsoft has evidently backtracked on that plan, it has largely adopted the model for its Office 365 productivity software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The graph below from Globalstats Statcounter shows how the market shares of different versions of Windows changed between 2009 and 2025. The dotted line primarily represents Windows 11 users. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Windows 11’s slow burn<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Windows 11’s uptake has been slow compared to Windows 10’s. Having launched in October 2021, it took nearly four years to become the top desktop OS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The slower adoption could potentially be ascribed to two factors. Firstly, the jump from Windows 10 to Windows 11 brings only a few new features and no major visual changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With consumers generally being averse to change, there was little incentive to upgrade in the first few years after the OS launched. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, Windows 11 has demanding system hardware requirements, including compulsory support for Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TPM 2.0 provides hardware-based security for protection against malware, firmware attacks, and unauthorised remote control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feature is standard across most CPUs released after 2018. However, many powerful processors from before that time \u2014 including Intel i9 and Ryzen Threadripper chips \u2014 don’t support it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft previously provided a dedicated web page with instructions on bypassing TPM 2.0 requirements for desperate users. This has since been taken down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Users of PCs that don’t support Windows 11’s requirements can join the Windows 10 extended software update (ESU) programme to receive security updates until October 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Windows 10 ESU programme is free for users who sync their PCS with OneDrive. Otherwise, they can pay a one-off annual fee of $30 (R532).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The longest-reigning Windows king has been dethroned. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":581899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[89842,123,26970,70233],"class_list":["post-606173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software","tag-desktop-operating-systems","tag-microsoft","tag-windows-10","tag-windows-11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606173"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":606250,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606173\/revisions\/606250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}