According to Statcounter, Windows 11 held a 55.18% market share in October 2025. That share dropped to 53.7% in November and dropped again in December. Now, Windows 11 holds a 50.73% market share.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worldwide
Many are rollback to Windows 10, but Linux is increasing as well.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
I imagine this is why MS is finally backtracking a bit on the aggressive pushing of AI in every app. They’re doing Clippy all over again, but OS-wide this time.
Just impressive how hard they managed to screw the pooch here. Have they forgotten that every other Windows release is universally hated? They had a good thing going until they discontinued Windows 10 before Windows 12 was out. Now they’ll probably need to rush out another version, because the name Windows 11 is forever tainted.
The thing that’s driving me away from windows is how pushy it’s gotten. Forced updates, ads, AI, OneDrive, and subscriptions. I just want to be able to turn on MY computer and do what I want or need without having my guard up that I can’t trust my home PC with my privacy.
Windows 11 is ok, but is frustrating to use and I can’t trust it not to screw with settings and there seems to be something annoying added instead of something useful with every update. I also hate the Settings menu, it’s like an unhelpful layer between you and Control Panel the eventually will take you to the same place but took 5 more clicks and searching through drop downs for a link to what you needed.
I finally kicked Windows after 30 years because I have to use windows 11 for work, and it fails at almost everything an operating system should be. Search doesn’t work right. Applications don’t work right. Basic UI is buggy and inconsistent. It’s the most expensive piece of software I use. Using 2 cores and 7GB of RAM at idle is unacceptable for an operating system. It’s the equivalent of running Skyrim all the time in the background. It actively tries to undermine my privacy, and instead of using that data to enhance my UX, it spams targeted ads at me in my fucking taskbar. Windows 11 is basically a SmartTV in terms of privacy and functionality at this point. It actively gets in the way of you using the hardware, and to no tangible benefit. Worse, it’s become clear that Microsoft recognizes this, and is actively pursuing and expanding the capabilities, with no intent to make a good OS in the future.
I’m out.
That sounds frustrating. What have you switched to?
I’ve only worked one place with Linux desktops, I miss it.
My personal desktop is on mint. I just got an old 56 core, 256GB RAM, 18TB server from work. I’m running proxmox on that so I can spin up VMs with different distros on it to try them out.
Do you have a source for that backtracking about AI? I think they did not mention that explicitly. Instead they were talking about unrelated improvements. The CEO is still in denial about AI bloat. He seems unable to comprehend that people don’t like to be force fed AI everywhere across the OS.
https://pureinfotech.com/microsoft-windows-11-ai-brakes-copilot-recall/
Note that this article completely buries the lede. This is the last paragraph:
The reason they’re having second thoughts is due to enterprise customers, who are the only customers they really care about the opinion of. If it was just home users complaining, they would not be adjusting course.
I liked Clippy. I hate AI
The first time I heard the “every other” theory I was sceptical but it has held true for a very long time now.
They might do an 8.1 and mess with some features (remember when they had to bring back the tool bar)? But another release is likely needed to fix some of the Win 11 performance and bloat issues now.
They’ve cut too deep, for some good reasons, but at the cost of making everything slow.
^ Note I haven’t even talked about AI here.
They thought they were too ingrained in everything for people to leave so they could start enshitfying and everyone would just have to deal with it. They knew they would lose some market share by doing so but are gambling on the increased profits from targeted ads and AI training data would make up for it.
It’s also likely that for a single glorious quarter stockholder value was slightly increased, therefore it was a complete success.
I think it’s more that they’re not really making money on Windows anymore. The money is in cloud services like Office 365. So Windows is just being used to push people towards what actually makes Microsoft money, disregarding whether they actually want those services.
Windows 11.1 anyone? lol