Windows 11 steals market share from world's most popular OS ahead of official support severing

Microsoft has been put in a tough position as the severance date for support for the world's most popular operating system is approaching, and users don't seem to be upgrading at the rate the Redmond company would like.

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We have known for quite some time that Microsoft plans to officially cut support for Windows 10, the world's most popular operating system, in October of next year. Following the cut-off date, Windows 10 machines will no longer receive security updates from Microsoft, putting them at exponential risk of security breaches. It was only recently that Microsoft began offering users a $30 one-year continuation of Microsoft updates, with Enterprises needing to pay $61 and the education sector $1 (for the first year).

There is also the massive looming issue of what happens to all of the Windows 10 machines that don't meet the system requirements for Windows 11. Those machines will effectively be rendered useless as they will no longer be eligible to receive critical security updates. There are an estimated 240 million working computers soon to be thrown into landfills, according to technology firm Canalys, which issued a warning about this very problem back in December 2023.

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As for market share, recent statistics sourced from StatCounter indicate Windows 11 accounted for 35.5% of the Windows desktop market throughout October. By comparison, Windows 10 dropped to 60.79%, which is a continuation of its downward trend from 69.9% in April this year. Continuing at this rate by the time October arrives next year there will still be hundreds of millions of Windows 10 machines.