But Windows 10 is still too popular!
That’s all, folks! Windows 10 has reached the end of the line and it’s about to be phased out. Everyone who hasn’t bought a Windows 11 PC is surely about to buy one now. All done! Right?
No! Things aren’t quite so easy. If you think Windows 10 is awfully popular to be facing the executioner’s axe, you’re right. In December 2024, StatCounter’s market share statistics show Windows 10 was on about 63 percent of all PCs worldwide while Windows 11 sat at 34 percent. Less than a year from Windows 10’s end of life, it’s still running twice as many PCs as Windows 11. How can Windows 10 be about to die?
Compare it to where Windows 7 was at the same point in its own official life cycle. Support for Windows 7 ended in January 2020. A year prior, in January 2019, 53 percent of PCs worldwide ran Windows 10 while 35 percent ran Windows 7. A lot remained on Windows 7, but the newer version of Windows was already significantly ahead.
Microsoft
As we head into 2025, Windows 11 is still far behind Windows 10 as far as worldwide adoption. For an operating system that’s supposedly about to be shown the door, it appears to be in a very strong position.
There’s never been anything like this before. Microsoft is making a good show of putting Windows 10 out to pasture, but I wouldn’t be totally shocked if things changed in some small way. For example, perhaps Microsoft will offer more than one year of extended updates to consumers if Windows 10 continues to be so widely used?
We’re in totally uncharted territory. Microsoft clearly hopes adoption of Windows 11 will accelerate this year, and that explains the company’s initiatives like “the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh.” Will a big PC hardware push — complete with lots of talk about Copilot+ PCs and AI features — be enough to help Microsoft move on from Windows 10 in 2025? That remains to be seen.
And even if Microsoft remains adamant about pushing users off Windows 10, you still have other options if you don’t want to dump your PC. You may want to consider installing a Windows-like version of Linux or perhaps even turn your old laptop into a Chromebook.
