this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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Microsoft EVP Yusuf Mehdi said in a blog post last week that Windows powers over a billion active devices globally. This might sound like a healthy number, but according to ZDNET, the Microsoft annual report for 2022 said that more than 1.4 billion devices were running Windows 10 or 11. Given that these documents contain material information and have allegedly been pored over by the tech giant’s lawyers, we can safely assume that Windows’ user base has been quietly shrinking in the past three years, shedding around 400 million users.

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[–] aliser@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago

switched to Linux and don't regret it. fuck copilot, laggy ass UI, terabyte of ram usage, forced updates and any other bullshit they can come up with.

[–] fenrasulfr@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago

As much as I want to joke that it is the year of the Linux desktop, I think it is mostly because the younger you are the less likely you are to have a pc (so Windows, Mac, Linux and BSD for the dozens of you).

As far as I can see most of the time people use their phone for everything and only touch a pc for work or if they have a hobby that requires the use of a pc (gaming, digital art, music, programming, etc...).

[–] VeloRama@feddit.org 13 points 1 day ago

Win 11 got so bad over the last years that Linux is the better option now.

[–] 3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 1 points 18 hours ago

Lots of valid points here, but then I wouldn't imagine a community like this actually liking Windows and/or Micro$oft. But here in the UK Mac usage is miniscule especially at work where my client base is, and is declining not increasing. I'd say that more than the OS the AI hype train is way worse for dropping numbers than the OS. Businesses here are using AI and just firing employees left right and centre. Every week a client says they have either fired a whole department and replaced them with using AI or outsourced the department to somewhere that uses AI to get the job done. If it continues at this rate the UK will have a massive unemployment issue in a few years where nobody, and I mean nobody works with computers like they used to.

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

now they try to backtrack by giving another year of w10 updates if the user:

  1. logs in with the microsoft account
  2. enables backup to onedrive (presumably filling it so they can nag all the time "hey buy our cloud subscription")
  3. uses bing as default
[–] RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.cafe 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (8 children)

It is a shame that the article has been updated and Microsoft is denying the drop. I will get excited when the drop is reflected in Steam data.

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[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 127 points 2 days ago (8 children)

Everyone talking about how it's because of Windows 11 or their greed driving people away, etc. But they're ignoring the big one:

People don't need as many computers these days. You don't have a lot of households with a laptop for every member of the family because smartphones and tablets have replaced the PC for many people for media consumption and basic tasks.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yeah this happened in Japan way earlier. Japan got mobile internet much sooner than the rest of the world it was called i-mode. Which was launched in 1999. The home computer boom never happened there like it did in the West. Since everyone just uses their mobile phone to go in the internet and Japanese PCs were expensive. And doing work after hours at home wasn’t a thing since you do that at the office where your boss can see you putting in the work. The only PCs that sold reasonably well were VAIOs since those were relatively compact.

It’s also why computer literacy is very low in Japan, ask anyone who taught in Japan and they will tell you most Japanese high school students don’t know how to use a computer. Like the problems we are seeing now in the West with computer literacy among students they had for decades already.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 42 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

I think you're right on this. People aren't moving away from MS because of their obnoxious behaviour. They're moving to alternate form factors and dealing with Apple's and Google's obnoxious behaviour instead. People are willing to put up with a metric ton of bullshit so they don't have to actually do anything for themselves.

[–] BreakerSwitch@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Not to mention google has fought to replace real PCs in grade school computer courses with chromebooks, which are glorified tablets. Recent gens simply aren't as familiar with proper computers as phones and tablets.

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[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I keep having to remind people around me that phones are the primary computing device for an ever increasing percentage of the population.

Lemmy wants to rail on Windows 11 AND they talk shit about your average person not understanding filesystems.

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmings.world 12 points 2 days ago

Exactly. My wife hasn't used an actual computer more than a handful of times in the last several years. She does EVERYTHING on her smartphone.

I have never owned a laptop, because my desktop unit is where I do most of my business stuff, and when I'm away from that, my smartphone is good enough.

Of course, the most important thing isn't that we account for two less computers than a few years ago, but the smartphones that we have replaced laptops with, run Android. So that's actually a net loss of 4 MS products.

And after all these years, Windows products still make me frustrated and infuriated. You'd think they would have honed it to a perfect product by now, but every few years they completely reconfigure the UI, and make us have to navigate a whole new, buggy system.

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[–] gveltaine@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

Windows 11 overheated my CPU so harsh that nearly destroyed my computer. Unneeded features and frustrating updates pushed me over

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Best gif ever. Download!

[–] cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works 61 points 2 days ago (5 children)

The search function has never been the same since vista. I'm not doing a web search from the search bar. I am specifically searching for files on my computer. F-off. And now I'm constantly asked to save to some cloud I don't give a shit about.

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[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 81 points 2 days ago (13 children)

We're in the process of moving to Linux in our company, entirely because of how aggressively awful Windows 11 is. We'd have been perfectly happy staying on Windows 10 forever, but last week our head of development woke up to discover that Windows 10 had spontaneously chosen to "upgrade" itself during the night without him agreeing to it.

[–] nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br 28 points 2 days ago

Wish you success in the migration

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[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What a well earned drop. They keep forcing their bullshit on us, of course we're interested in other OS's as a result.

I do use windows for most things, but my servers will never run anything but Linux at this point.

[–] AlphaOmega@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Funny thing. Back in the day, and possibly today, all windows Hotmail/Livemail servers were Linux.

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[–] Sillyglow@lemmy.ca 44 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Forcing people to buy a new computer for nothing more than a security chip on the motherboard will do that

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[–] secretlyaddictedtolinux2@lemmy.world 97 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (9 children)

Hey, I have an idea that will help Microsoft:

why not add even more AI that logs everything and then reports it to the government through additional telemetry?

then they could even require the next edition to include a dedicated advertising GPU to take those logs and create tailored ads on the wallpaper as well as occasionally parse the logs and generate summaries for safety purposes!

that will bring the customers back and boost short-term profits too!

[–] Pirate@feddit.org 39 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You mother fucker... You're hired.

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[–] lupusblackfur@lemmy.world 185 points 3 days ago (10 children)

If this calculation proves true, one would think losing close to 1/3 of its customers would cause M$ to rethink some of its business policies/plans...

Such as forcing folks to retire perfectly good hardware and buy new if they wish to run Windoze11.

But then again, it's M$... 🤷‍♂️ 🤦‍♂️

[–] 3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 2 points 1 day ago

they already have an their AI division earns way more than the Windows division. Matters little to them about Windows numbers dropping because in reality PCs as we know it are declining far more rapidly that anyone wants to say

[–] FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 94 points 3 days ago (16 children)

1/3 of its Windows customers, not of all of its customers. I bet they still make plenty of money with Azure and Office 365.

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 48 points 2 days ago (2 children)

good. fuck. microsoft.

they had the choice of not being fucking awful and they had no reason to. im glad its crumbling for them even if wayyy too late.

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[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Just pure greed and giving users less and less control of an OS will push people away. It did for me outside of work. I don't have any reason to touch Windows that often.

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[–] Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 43 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Just want to say, Google Docs is NOT free. Just because you don't send them money doesn't mean you aren't paying.

[–] hietsu@sopuli.xyz 34 points 2 days ago

What is free though is LibreOffice, or some Nextcloud document addons (to a degree) if ”cloud” is the thing.

[–] herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.ml 52 points 2 days ago (15 children)

This aligns with statcounter data here: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-200901-202505

Windows market share on desktop has been slowly but steadily declining. From 95+% in 2009, to almost 70% today. In the same time period Linux went up from 0.6% to 4%, which is not bad.

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[–] WhyYesZoidberg@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Enshittification will do that, yep

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