Microsoft’s Windows 11 gains traction, surpassing 400 million monthly active devices and anticipated to reach 500 million by early 2024, exceeding company expectations.
According to a report by Windows Central, relying on “Microsoft internal data,” Windows 11 has now been installed and is active on nearly half a billion devices, a milestone achieved ahead of the company’s initial projections.
Windows 10, its predecessor, reached 400 million active devices just a little over a year after its release, exhibiting a growth rate 115 percent faster than its antecedent, Windows 7. In contrast, Windows 11 has taken two years to achieve a similar adoption rate.
The report highlights this pace as considerably slower compared to Windows 10, which achieved a comparable number in a little over a year, ultimately reaching 1 billion users by early 2020.
Microsoft introduced Windows 11 in October 2021, imposing stringent hardware requirements. Official support for Windows 11 was limited to PCs manufactured in 2018 onwards, primarily due to the necessity of TPM (Trusted Platform Module) security chips. This policy effectively excluded older PCs upgraded from Windows 7 and 8 to Windows 10, along with the first three years of new Windows 10 PCs.
The report notes that Microsoft’s internal expectations were set modestly given the restrictive hardware criteria, making Windows 11’s actual success in terms of user base surprising.
Windows 10’s support is scheduled to end on October 14, 2025, marking the cessation of security updates and fixes for millions of machines.
Looking ahead, Windows 12 is anticipated to bring an updated desktop interface, with Microsoft expected to unveil it in 2024. Intel has teased a “Windows refresh” for the same year, aiming to boost its revenues through this anticipated launch.
In a recent development, Microsoft has completely blocked older Windows 7 keys from activating Windows 11, closing a loophole that allowed free upgrades from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10 or 11. This move was announced last month, indicating a shift in activation policies for the newer Windows iterations.
