7 hours Ago
Microsoft has a major problem on its hands, as a fast-approaching deadline for 850 million Windows users to update their PCs looks like becoming an inevitable security nightmare. Those users have been inundated with a combination of warnings and feature promises , but also an implied threat of unexpected costs. And maybe that’s why some 40 million hold-outs have suddenly upgraded their PCs in the last 31 days.
We’re talking Windows 11, and the Windows 10 die-hards still stubbornly refusing to make the switch. After a steady transition to the newer version of Windows through 2024, Windows 10 reversed that trend in the last two months of the year. Not good news for Microsoft, but also for those users facing down October’s end-of-support.
Windows 10 users can upgrade to Windows 11 for free — if they have a compatible PC, with the right security hardware. They can also pay Microsoft a one-off fee of $30 to kick the can down the road for another 12 months to October next year. That’s all fairly well understood.
But Microsoft muddied the pitch last month, “ signal[ing] the free upgrade path to Windows 11 could eventually expire .” That blogpost was deleted for its “inaccurate information and a misleading headline,” but maybe it had an impact nonetheless. The January stats are now out, and according to Statcounter , the Windows 11 upgrade trend has now un-reversed itself, and some 40-million users have switched from Windows 10 over the course of the month, with 2.
5% of the overall Windows install base swapping Windows 10 for Windows 11. This is some good news in an otherwise tricky period for Microsoft, with repeated Windows 11 update fails complicating the picture even more than it was already. These have affected a range of accessory and software installs, the latest being various audio drivers.
But that hasn’t stopped the upgrade trend righting itself, which is good. But the math isn’t good. 40 million users per month over the next nine months — assuming it continues — will still leave around 500 million users exposed.
That’s a little more than the number of PCs believed to be unable to move to Windows 11 without one of various workarounds to bypass hardware security checks. And so there’s a hard line in there somewhere, and it still needs a solution. Microsoft has encouraged users to see 2025 as the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh , with the push to Copilot AI-enabled PCs being central to that push.
But while that might drive some upgrades, it won’t solve this problem. As things stand, we still expect to see an unprecedented number of Windows PCs lose security support in October, at a time when the threat landscape has never been worse. So, will we see radical options as the October deadline nears? Maybe.
As I’ve suggested before, this could include forced upgrades for compatible PCs or even an “upgrade light” for those without the right hardware. I can’t see the situation being left unmanaged given the security nightmare that will then come true..
