Wednesday, August 7th 2024
Steam Survey July 2024 Update: Windows 10 Usage Records Uptick, Windows 11 Drops
Interesting things are happening in the gaming community, as Windows 10 operating system has seen an increase in its user base on the Steam platform, while Windows 11 has dipped below the 46% mark for the first time since its launch. According to the latest July data from Steam's hardware and software survey, Windows 10's share rose to 47.69%, marking a significant uptick that contrasts with Windows 11's decline to 45.73%. This trend highlights a growing preference among gamers for the older operating system, which is often praised for its stability and compatibility with a wide range of games and hardware. Many users have expressed concerns over Windows 11's performance and its stringent hardware requirements, which have made it less accessible for some gamers, especially those without the TPM 2.0-enhanced system.
The shift in user demographics is particularly interesting given that Windows 11 was designed with gaming enhancements in mind, including features like DirectStorage and Auto HDR. However, the adoption rate appears to be hampered by issues related to compatibility and performance, leading many gamers to stick with the more familiar and reliable Windows 10. This trend could prompt Microsoft to reevaluate its approach to Windows 11, particularly in terms of addressing user concerns and enhancing compatibility with existing hardware. Other OSes are seeing stagnation, especially with Linux-based distributions recording zero change. Apple's OSX stands at 1.37%, a +0.06% increase from last month.
Sources:
Steam Survey, via NotebookCheck
The shift in user demographics is particularly interesting given that Windows 11 was designed with gaming enhancements in mind, including features like DirectStorage and Auto HDR. However, the adoption rate appears to be hampered by issues related to compatibility and performance, leading many gamers to stick with the more familiar and reliable Windows 10. This trend could prompt Microsoft to reevaluate its approach to Windows 11, particularly in terms of addressing user concerns and enhancing compatibility with existing hardware. Other OSes are seeing stagnation, especially with Linux-based distributions recording zero change. Apple's OSX stands at 1.37%, a +0.06% increase from last month.
58 Comments on Steam Survey July 2024 Update: Windows 10 Usage Records Uptick, Windows 11 Drops
I'm quite happy with my 11 so far, I can even align the start menu to the left hand side of the screen, so all is well... :D Not too demanding am II also remember the Service Pack 1 and onwards Windows 7 woes though. That wasn't pretty either and even if you had it installed, you were still downloading security updates all the time nonetheless. I do prefer the current way they deploy Half yearly builds, and as long as you were on max postpone (semi annual / 365 days behind schedule) it was bug free too.
The reality is that Win 7 is still overall a better OS for what it does and I can know the difference between the rigs. There is still part of me wanting to go back to Win 7 on my main rig.
Learn how to use private browsers. Find one.
Chrome, Edge and other Chromium-based crap piles are not installed on my PC :)
In regards of your ISP: just change the DNS to 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare) - if your really paranoid use Proton VPN followed with Secure Core ON.
Just live with the idea that any communication your throwing online can be read by third parties. Even whatsapp, who claims to have E2E but does have backdoors for the police on their ends lol.
I break out in cold sweat just thinking about moving to win11.
It's worse at gaming, sometimes by double-digit percentages.
The UI is worse for non-touch mouse-based users.
The amount of unwanted content in the form of nagging, advertising widgets, ad-laden web results for local start menu/explorer searching. Disabling some of this can completely break Start/Search/Explorer.
The relentless push of control towards Microsoft's SaaS subscription services, removing control from the user,
The injection of AI into everything as an opt-out rather than an opt-in process that actually harms core functionality if you opt-out.
The removal of even more classic control-panel/MSC configuration options without properly migrating all essential functionality to the modernUI/settings replacement drives me to powershell/CMD even more frequently.
The push towards mobile-first web apps for more and more first party applications. Why would anyone prefer that to just using a (cross-platform, cloud-synced, more accessible and more convenient) browser, ffs?
There's no reason why the couple of good improvements in W11 couldn't be just applied to W10:
More details in Task Manager
Window management and virtual desktops
Microsoft haven't bothered, but it doesn't matter, there are better third-party solutions than even W11's to those things, so if you really want an improvement you don't have to go to W11 to get them.
For the basic tasks of adjusting your hardware settings, launching software, and finding/browsing drives - Windows 7 was a superior solution to 10 and 11. The improvements to Explorer's functionality in particular have come poisoned by the unwanted injection of web-searching, data-harvesting, AI suggestions, and advertising - which will cause poor explorer performance and even timeouts if those unnecessary web-requests and respective web-served bloat aren't working or their servers are overloaded.
I've been daily-driving W11 since it released and it's still inferior to W7 in so many ways despite me neutering as much of the BS as possible. Since I build and deploy machines I'm frequently exposed to Microsoft's idea of what W11 should be - ie, the out-of-the-box experience and it's terrifying in so many ways.
That said I wanted a one-time install, didn't feel great doing that on an OS that's on the way out. And yeah... if I didn't have access to an LTSC (IoT most notably, because it kills all those stupid services I don't want nor ever need including the Store) I would certainly have opted for 10.
But I will say that an uptick of windows 10 is mostly a change in the sampled users.
I'm only going to be stopping using win10 when steam itself drops support or the games i play drop support for it which is going to be years and years after 2025, judging by how long it took for steam to end support for win7 from its end of service date.
EVEN if i upgrade hardware, i'm going to stay on win10 as it's much faster and pleasant to use than win11.
Businesses and industrial machinery still uses win 7 and winxp connected to the internet with no airgap or any nonsense, and they don't "explode" because they're "OHH INSECUUUUURE", security can be properly managed regardless of support.
That is my start menu (with a heavy blur applied for privacy) and the main reason I will not leave Win 10 until I absolutely have to. Right now it takes me two clicks or one keypress and one click to launch any one of my most used applications and I already know where they are so I don't even have to think about it. Total time from "I want to launch X application" to that application running is under a second.
I know for a fact the Win 11 start menu works better for some people, but unfortunately the "search for what you want" paradigm feels slow, inefficient and stupid to me. I don't expect any changes in Win 12 either so I'll use Win 10 until I no longer can and then I'll find some paid Win10-style star menu to install on whatever version of Windows I'm forced to use afterwards.
Stuck to Server 2012 for as long as possible before adopting Win10 because I needed similar levels of control.
That's what it took to extend the life of my Phenom II X4 system.
The way the OS treated memory was different enough that I preferred the old way.
Also that was part of the 2009-2017 time period when I was still maxed at 4GB.
Things sure went 0-200 in a hurry. 2017: 8GB. 2019: 16GB DDR3/32GB DDR4. 2020: 64GB.
What did we learn? The size and speed matters. My next system will probably use 128GB UDIMMs.Lol the same survey that says everyone is on the 3060 while you have to SCROLL just to find a crumb of RX 580 appear. That's hilarious.The net cafes all throughout Asia are most likely driving up the figures on this and that appearing out of left field.WEBM/WEBP previews in Explorer and other oddities seem tied to it somehow. I still haven't fully looked into it but it's another Internet Explorer situation. There's kind of a lot to cover. Take a look at program defaults.
I haven't been able to adopt Win11 for personal or professional use. Everything about it is either such a massive resource hog or the design so insufferable that I'd rather just stay out of it. I jumped back and forth between Server 2016/2019/2022 all throughout the Win10 timeline while trying to commit to some adoption of Win10. Only 2016 stood out as ready for prime time but the design is so old now that in a creator situations it fights some apps, can't integrate containers or psuedo-VMs of any kind and the service gotchas are annoying. I fully trust it for production though. Runs great on the 1c/1t eMachines in Core and Nanoserver versions. If I went back to cloud development I would be remastering a copy of Nanoserver for my FX rack to be full power 24/7 duty. 2022 has way too many teething issues to be fully adopted and not suitable for creation. I'll stick to Win10 for general purpose stuff until something serious pushes it out. With any luck that won't be until 2030 at the earliest. Some newer hardware driver models appear to be supporting Win11 only so that might be the first thing to break rank. I'm expecting it.