Official support for Windows 10 ended back in October, but it seems that a billion users have chosen to ignore Microsoft’s celebration. According to Dell’s latest quarterly report, approximately 1 billion PCs in the world are still running Windows 10. It seems that it was not as easy as the corporation thought to transfer all these faithful “tens” to Windows 11, and even Dell’s COO Jeffrey Clarke confirms that the process may take a long time.
Geoffrey Clarke clarifies that the situation is almost evenly distributed: about 500 million PCs could technically upgrade to Windows 11, but decided to stay loyal to Windows 10, probably due to their own preferences and skepticism about Microsoft’s intentions to make the system more “agent-based.” Another 500 million or so devices simply can’t handle the new OS – they’re more than four years old and don’t meet the strict hardware requirements for TPM and CPU. This includes all Windows PCs on the market, not just Dell. In total, Dell estimates that about 1 billion devices continue to run Windows 10 despite the end of official support. And this is even progress: back in July, a study showed that half of all PCs in the world remained on Windows 10, and Windows 11 first surpassed it in terms of desktop share only in June of this year, so the transition is slower than Redmond expected.
Even if all 500 million compatible PCs are eventually upgraded to Windows 11, there are still as many devices doomed to remain on Windows 10 due to hardware incompatibility. According to Clarke, this generation gap opens up a “great opportunity” for the introduction of modern technologies, including AIPCs – computers with hardware accelerated AI. At the same time, some users have decided not to upgrade to Windows 11 at all: the developers of the Linux distribution Zorin OS reported that approximately 780 thousand users have already switched from Windows 10 to Zorin OS after the end of support. Some people don’t like the Windows 11 interface, some complain about bugs and crashes, and some find the new OS too “heavy”. At Microsoft’s Ignite conference, Windows chief Pawan Davuluri said that nearly 1 billion people use Windows 11, but he kept silent about the fact that this number could easily double to 2 billion if Microsoft reduced hardware requirements or managed to convince the owners of 500 million compatible PCs to switch to the new system.
The situation with the transition to Windows 11 shows that even the largest corporations cannot always force users to upgrade. Half of the PCs remain on
