5 things Microsoft needs to do to make people ditch Windows 10 and love Windows 11
Microsoft has a Windows 10 problem. The problem is that despite the launch of the newer, shinier Windows 11, a large section of PC users are stubbornly refusing to upgrade, and instead sticking with the almost 10-year old operating system.
While that might not seem like a huge problem for Microsoft – after all, people are still using a version of its Windows OS, even if it’s not the latest – the company has also announced that Windows 10 is fast approaching its ‘End of Life’ date of October 14,2025.
After that date, Microsoft will no longer provide updates, including security patches for Windows 10 – leading to anyone still using the OS being potentially at risk as new security threats emerge. So, Microsoft’s problem is that it has a hard deadline (which it imposed itself, to be fair) to get people to move from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Unfortunately, it’s currently doing a terrible job of it.
According to GlobalStats’ most recent numbers (from last month), 54.23% of Windows PCs are running Windows 10, while 42.66% are on Windows 11. While the gap is narrowing, the fact that Windows 10 remains the most-used version will no doubt be disappointing to Microsoft. The race is now on to get Windows 10 users to move to Windows 11 – but what can Microsoft do?The old ways aren’t working
Microsoft has so far taken a carrot and stick approach to tempting people to move to Windows 11, though it has tended to be more stick-heavy than I’d have liked.
Carrot-wise, Microsoft initially offered the Windows 11 upgrade for free for people moving from Windows 7 and Windows 10. While this was only a limited-time offer, various methods remained that allowed people to continue to upgrade for free, and up until recently it seemed Microsoft was happy to turn a blind eye – I assume as it at least meant people were moving to Windows 11.
To be fair, it was a good move – offering it for free took the sting out of having to upgrade to a new operating system after being told repeatedly by Microsoft that Windows 10 would be ‘the last version of Windows’. It’s also similar to Apple’s approach with its rival macOS operating system, which releases new versions every year, but which are always free.
The free offer was enough to make me upgrade my Windows 10 PCs to Windows 11, and while I’m sure it also tempted people who would have otherwise stayed on the older version if they had to pay, clearly it wasn’t enough to get everyone to shift.
For a start, due to some odd system requirements for Windows 11, there were people with perfectly good Windows 10 machines that could not upgrade due to their device not coming with a TPM (Trusted Platform Model). In those cases, they could either buy a new Windows 11-compatible device or stick with their current device and stay on Windows 10. That was obviously an easy choice for a lot of people.
Also, while Windows 10 is far from perfect, it is also a very solid operating system, so I completely understand people who are perfectly happy to keep using Windows 10 as they know it works well, and they are familiar with using it. Windows 11 is very similar to Windows 10, but there are a few things that could be frustrating for people coming from Windows 10 (especially how the Taskbar works).
And moving to a new operating system always brings some degree of risk. If your PC is running great with Windows 10, would you really want to jeopardize that by upgrading to Windows 11 and introducing problems due to incompatibilities and other bugs?
So, with some Windows 10 holdouts not being tempted by the carrot, Microsoft switched to the stick.
