Steam Survey August 2024 Update: Windows 11 Crosses 50% Share, Blows Past Windows 10

[AleksandarK]

The latest Steam hardware and software survey reveals a significant shift in the gamer's operating system landscape, with Windows 11 gaining 3.36% among Windows OSes and finally surpassing the 50% mark in August 2024, now standing at 50.81%. This milestone is a notable achievement, considering the OS had been experiencing a decline in popularity just a month prior. The sudden surge in Windows 11 adoption can be attributed to users transitioning from Windows 10, which lost 3.29% of its user base in the same period. Additionally, a few users on older Windows versions, such as 8.1 and 7, have also switched to Windows 11.

Despite Windows 11's growing popularity, Windows 10 remains a formidable presence, with 48.66% of Steam users still preferring the older OS. Its success can be attributed to 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. However, with Microsoft set to discontinue security updates and technical support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, users will need to consider upgrading to Windows 11 or another supported OS in the near future. The periodical resurgence of Windows 10 suggests that some users are hesitant to give up the older OS, but the writing is on the wall. As the deadline for Windows 10 support approaches, more users will likely make the transition to Windows 11.



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[FoulOnWhite]

So more people switching to win 11, imo i don't think its that bad with a debloat and offline setup(no M$ account)

 

[Tomorrow]

And next month it will swing the other way again...

 

[Chry]

To those transitioning to 11 on their main's, consider using this tool or the other tools mentioned in the readme:

GitHub - memstechtips/UnattendedWinstall: Personalized Unattended Answer Files that helps automatically debloat and customize Windows 10 & 11 during the installation process.

Personalized Unattended Answer Files that helps automatically debloat and customize Windows 10 & 11 during the installation process. - memstechtips/UnattendedWinstall

github.com

You can have an 11 that by default comes without Defender, Cortana, Edge, MS Store and all the other (Cr)apps and telemetry. Depending on your skills it can take around a couple hours to set up the installation the way you like but afterwards you'll have a squeaky clean 11 with none of the cancer remaining.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Nearly 3 years since launch, and Win11 is just barely edging out Win10.

 

[eidairaman1]

So more people switching to win 11, imo i don't think its that bad with a debloat and offline setup(no win account)

Yeah gutting it of Windows update and using powershell to only install security updates is the way to go

 

[R0H1T]

Blows past? 2.15% difference or just above 6% swing is that big of a deal? Also steam "surveys" again

 

[Daven]

Again I cannot stress enough that this data is not high enough quality to be a news article. Look at the increase in Chinese users. Every single time there is a significant change in CPU, GPU, OS, etc. there is an equivalent change in the language for Simplified Chinese. This is not a coincidence but simply a big data dump out of China with no useful analytics to be gained from that data. If I were to guess, a bunch of new game data farms are accessing Steam with new generic system builds using Windows, Intel and Nvidia.

Those little spikes in the GPU and CPU graphs are each accompanied by a spike in Simplified Chinese of the exact same percentage.

 

[b1k3rdude]

"Blows past Windows 10" - this would suggest the difference was noteworthy, but its only 2% fella... And as Darmok-n-Jalad pointed out, its taken nearly 3 years since launch, and Win11 is only now just barely edging out Win10.

This is not news worthy.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

Maybe if someone else epic/gog etc published the same kind of data, it might help but until then, it is a good rough indication of software/hardware trends.

 

[b1k3rdude]

imo i don't think its that bad with a debloat and offline setup(no win account)

I think you meant to say no m$ account.

 

[MacZ]

Gamers tend to use better/more recent hardware than general users.

This leads to having to install Windows 11 more than general users.

I don't think this indicates increased adoption of Windows 11.

In my mind it indicates hardware upgrades and that's it.

 

[64K]

Steam Survey August 2024 Update: Windows 11 Crosses 50% Share, Blows Creeps Past Windows 10

It's inevitable. Gamers will move to Windows 11 because next year they will have no choice but if they had a choice? MS will glow with happiness about the success of Win 11 and we will begin the march towards being forced off Win 11 onto the next Windows whatever in the hell they cook up next.

 

[Easo]

Yeah gutting it of Windows update and using powershell to only install security updates is the way to go

You are aware that it's all cumulative updates (for years already) and the only way to install a security update is to install the whole package?

 

[Ruru]

Is it just me but why people are even using a soon-EOL OS? Reminds me so much of those who were on XP and 7 for so long.

 

[MacZ]

Is it just me but why people are even using a soon-EOL OS? Reminds me so much of those who were on XP and 7 for so long.

Why were people staying on 7 rather than going to 8 ?

Because it was crap.

11 is a downgrade to 10. There is nothing worth switching for, even if it has a bigger number.

I know : I have both.

 

[Ruru]

Why were people staying on 7 rather than going to 8 ?

Because it was crap.

11 is a downgrade to 10. There is nothing worth switching for, even if it has a bigger number.

I know : I have both.

8 was indeed crap but 8.1 was okay.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

I think you meant to say no m$ account.

I did yes, corrected

 

[TheDeeGee]

It blows alright.

 

[randomUser]

I VERY doubt win11 adoption is driven by popularity.
It is most likely because win11 is now the default OS preinstalled in all prebuilt PCs. People just have no choice or knowledge about how to change OS. A lot just don't care what they get.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Is it just me but why people are even using a soon-EOL OS? Reminds me so much of those who were on XP and 7 for so long.

EOL is still over a year away, and there might be a lot of folks who can't update to Win11 thanks to dubious system requirements rendering their hardware "incompatible."

 

[ViperXZ]

It’s not switching it’s mostly people who use new PCs and laptops who ship with Win11. I didn’t switch and I’m not planning to, useless sidegrade/performance decrease with various problems that weren’t fixed until a week ago, I’m happy I didn’t switch. I’ll switch when Win10 is unsupported / or I need a new directX, so probably Windows 12 then, gonna skip Windows ME, uh Win 11 I mean.

 

[phints]

Using Windows 11 now on my home built gaming/work PC and work laptop. It's not perfect but easily the best OS Microsoft has ever made. For a few reasons I noticed: faster Ryzen gaming performace now, file explorer has tabs (finally!), supports all compression formats by default now, much nicer UI, much nicer animations on my 165Hz VRR, terminal is a solid CLI now. WSL2 works well enough too for a built-in Linux distro. Very fast and mostly modern looking OS overall.

Here the things I did for anyone doing a clean install of Win11:

1. Right click on taskbar, settings, hide/disable the 4 junk items at the top
2. Install all Windows updates, reboot
3. Install chipset drivers, reboot
4. Install GPU drivers, reboot
5. If you game, disable memory integrity as per: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ndows-11-a255f612-2949-4373-a566-ff6f3f474613
6. Regedit, add key: Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer DisableSearchBoxSuggestions 1

Done, great overall OS with that. I dualboot Linux too btw but that's another convo.

 

[_roman_]

Well everyone games on Windows. Well everyone games with Steam. *sarcasm*

My hardware will hardly be found in a steam survey. There are plenty of "free games" or games with AMD hardware to choose from.

I do play games on computer at least for 35 years. I hardly ever used Steam. I use Windows 11 Pro, before 10 Pro, steam and epic games Launcher when I am forced to because of free "garbage" games like the last of us Part I, star conflict. Steam just annoys me since forever I can think about it. Just bloatware, mass advertisement, and watching a stupid update window everytime I run that software. Most software like webbrowser can be opened, the update thing can be disabled, the software still runs. Steam enforces updates and mass pop up windows. I think I usually got at least 3 big pop up windows since ages whenever I opened steam in average

 

[Ruru]

EOL is still over a year away, and there might be a lot of folks who can't update to Win11 thanks to dubious system requirements rendering their hardware "incompatible."

Those can be bypassed?

edit: My 6700K is also "incompatible" but with a TPM module it installs and works perfectly fine on that system.