Microsoft launched its newest operating system Windows 11 back in October 2021 to mixed reviews. Its predecessor, Windows 10, held the top spot firmly at the time while Windows 7 and Windows 8 were reaching the official end of life dates. While companies could extend support of Windows 7 by three years, Microsoft did not give home users such an option.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced during the company’s FY26 second-quarter earnings call that Windows 11 has officially surpassed one billion monthly active users.
Windows reached a big milestone: One billion Windows 11 users, up over 45% year-over-year.
In about four years, Windows 11 managed to reached the coveted one billion users mark. Windows 10, which was equally criticized when it launched in 2015, took longer to reach the important milestone.
How much longer? Not that much, it turns out. Let us take a look at the official dates that Microsoft provided for Windows 10 and Windows 11 first.
| Windows 10 | Windows 11 | |
| Launch Date | July 29, 2015 | October 5, 2021 |
| 1 Billion Users Date | March 16, 2020 | January 2026 |
Windows 10 reached 1 billion monthly active users 1,706 days after it was released by Microsoft. Windows 11 managed to cross the one billion monthly active users mark in 1,576 days.
That is 130 days faster. While not impressively faster, it is important to note that Windows 11 had a handicap all along: new system requirements prevented a sizeable chunk of Windows 10’s userbase from upgrading directly to Windows 11.
While Microsoft never released numbers, estimates suggest that several hundred million devices can’t be upgraded directly. While a high percentage of these devices can be upgraded by skipping the requirements checks, the technical nature of the process likely prevents this on the vast majority of devices running Windows 10.
For users, it does not really matter how fast or slow an operating system growth, provided that it manages to reach a number of users that is sizeable enough to warrant continued support.
Windows 10 Home and Pro editions will reach end of servicing later this year. It will be interesting to see what the millions of home users will do when that time comes.
Shameful Microsoft trying to grab whatever “positive” press they can even if the devil is in the details here.
Killing off Windows 10 support and pushing windows 11 had nothing to do with it right?
Hardware becoming more expensive so the rush to buy laptops/notebooks was probably high as was probably the case with build ones own computer as people were told that the prices are only going to higher and higher.
I am also relatively sure that the uptake for Linux has been higher than ever before and even if they just tried it and returned back to windows it speaks volumes as they are obviously looking for something better which suggests that there are problems.
The leap from windows 7 to 10 was a grind. Windows 10 was much less compelling to windows 7 users as it (windows 7) was a fine operating system for its time. Windows 10 to windows 11 is pretty much same same but magnitudes of orders different in terms of its trash value differences and a greater push for AI and other such trash.
Windows 10 users have already half invested into the system and resigned to the fact that they are getting screwed by Microsoft so the transition is not that much of a hard decision.
I would also not put it past Microsoft to fudge the numbers here either just to help push Windows 11 with positive press given the vast amounts of negative press circulating windows and Microsoft and their idiotic push for AI, online accounts, recall, etc.
@Mystique–Would be interesting to see how many users switched to Linux–for the long term. I’ve read in the past how companies and schools switch to Linux attempting to eliminate Windows dominance, but they eventually return, as most individual users do, to Windows.
https://xtendedview.com/linux-statistics/
May be one reason why Linux fails: “There are over 600 active Linux distributions.”
I didn’t have any issues with the Windows 10 to 11 transition; one computer went to the LTSC version; there are plenty of high quality 3rd party programs to tweak Windows 11, so whatever cosmetic changes were made in Windows 11 were easily switched.
Working with the LTSC version is wonderful; I think, “This is how the base Windows system should be for all users; those interested can add the bloat as they desire.”
Numbers are numbers–we read into them what we like. Yes, agreed, in this instance, many users on Windows 11 are there by force, not by choice. Windows isn’t the main project for MS; it’s not the product that grabs market share and value; the value in MS is in AI development and Azure.
@VioletMoon
I am a bit older now and can relate to how this works in this scenario. During my schooling the requirement was that we had a scientific calculator and it specifically be a CASIO brand however some people used a SHARP brand which of course seemed more technical than the Casio brand and in many cases the SHARP branded calculator was superior but because the teachers were familiar with the casio brand they pushed that brand specifically not to mention the fact that the casio branded calculators were sold through the school.
Eventually those people with SHARP calculators or whatever other brand had to switch to a casio brand because the majority where using them and it made it difficult to work with.
Institutionalized membership is what these companies are after. You grew up with it so it is what you know and what you use. Google is attempting to do the same things with their Chromebook line by virtually giving them away. It’s not a case of your friendly corporation trying to help society and learning, nope its about marketshare and creating that base.
Windows and Microsoft is far too entrenched in society and the order of the system so it will be difficult at best to change that as many homes already have windows based computers.
The hesitation to transition to windows 11 is based on trust first and foremost, bloat second and worse functionality in many cases. It’s why few people on windows 7 wanted to move to 10 and whilst 10 is bad its not windows 11 bad and that is what is holding some people back but ultimately they do what they have to and are told to do.
Sooner or later we will all have to chose to move to windows 11/12 or Linux some people have already taken that leap and its more than likely your windows 10 early adopters.
The transition itself isn’t difficult but people just know they are getting screwed. We have become more aware and less trusting of these corporations and Microsoft has only proved that recently with their bitlocker shenanigans.
I absolutely agree with you that Windows should be stripped back from the start. They can even opt to prompt a user upon entering windows on the first install (once) with a windows agent (absolutely not windows store because that is a telemetry laden garbage cesspit) kind of like UnigetUI to allow people to install whatever bloat they feel their computer needs that way you are working towards bloat and not trying to desperately remove it.
Hell they can even prompt with a launcher on first install with some interactive tutorial pitch as to why you need to install that extra bloat such Co-pilot but leaving it up to the end user to decide.
You are correct, Windows is just the car to deliver AI and Azure these days.
AI should be completely optional and we should have all learned how fragile things like Cloudflare and Azure are so we should not even be depending on these services as much as we do.
As much as I would like to say that Linux is on this amazing trend to overtake windows then it simply is not and as it is it never will be but we can enjoy the fact that Microsoft is under a lot of pressure right now to do better (even though we know they shall not) but at the very least the additional stress maybe shaving off years of these clowns lives so they can limit their stupidity and impact to less generations because quite frankly they are doing more harm than good.