With 10 months of support remaining, Windows 10 still dominates
Microsoft's 2025 is off to a bad start amid statistics that show users are still giving Windows 11 a wide berth as Windows 10 continues to dominate the desktop operating system market.
Figures for December 2024 from Statcounter – used because Microsoft rarely shares usage data unless it has something to boast about – confirm Windows 10's market share has inched up to 62.7 percent compared to the previous month while Windows 11's share fell back to 34.12 percent (from 34.94 percent in November 2024).
Even though Windows 11's percentage of the pie is still bigger than it was this time last year (when Statcounter pegged it at 26.54 percent), the fact the new OS is still nowhere near to overtaking Windows 10 may alarm some Microsoft executives.
The problem isn't so much the well documented complaints over Windows 11's hardware compatibility requirements – users need a relatively recent CPU and TPM 2.0 to run the operating system – but rather the increase in the market share of Windows 10. One theory is the earlier, higher numbers logged for October were partially down to users who were "trying out" Windows 11, but then decided they did not like what they saw, and went back to Windows 10.
