Windows 11 celebrates its one-year birthday in almost exactly two months. Specifically, the release of the latest operating system from Microsoft on October 4th. Reason enough to see how the successor to Windows 10 is doing. the monthly Steam hardware survey has a small surprise in store, but one that should not be underestimated:
Windows 11 is losing players for the first time since its release. To be precise, his share of Steam users in July 2022 was 21.12 percent, 0.11 percentage points less than in June. Windows 10, on the other hand, was able to record an increase of 1.91 percentage points in the same period and is thus at a still overwhelmingly large share of 73.17 percent. But why is Windows 11 losing players instead of winning them?
Windows 11
Microsoft learns from the release problems
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First of all: There is no blanket and unambiguous answer to this question. It should also be noted that the Steam hardware survey relates exclusively to customers of Valve’s internet distribution platform and is therefore not representative of all players.
At the same time, it is not entirely clear how high the monthly participation in the survey is – participation is also voluntary. Nonetheless, for years it has provided us with reliable clues about the hardware and software configurations of the vast majority of gamers.
Where are the new players from?
Before we look at the possible reasons for switching to Windows 10, let’s take a look at where the new players are coming from in the first place. A small part of the 1.91 percentage points (up to 0.11 percentage points) may actually be attributable to former users of Windows 11. Although this could also be within the margin of error, since Steam does not survey every individual player every month.
However, if the information is approximately representative, it is rather unlikely that it has migrated towards Windows 7/Windows 8 or even Linux or macOS. Because macOS lost a total of 0.71 percent of its Steam players and Linux only gained 0.05 percent. Since Linux is only used by 1.23 percent of all Steam users anyway, 0.05 percent of this is practically negligible.
At the same time, Windows 7 and 8 are recording slight losses, which is why the majority of new Windows 10 users are probably recruited from their ranks. From the point of view of Windows 11, this is still questionable. Why doesn’t the new operating system succeed in convincing more gamers?
Why is Windows 11 so unconvincing?
One reason and possibly even the most serious could be the many problems
Broken start menu after Windows 11 update
This is how you fix the error quickly and easily
Windows 11 also offers players practically no benefit (yet). Theoretically, it should benefit from a slightly larger range of functions in terms of DirectStorage technology, but in practice there are almost no advantages, especially since the storage technology has not yet been fully exploited by any PC game. Speaking of gaming performance – you can find out what Ultra Performance mode brings to Windows 10 and 11 here:
In addition, Windows 11 struggles with many nested menus. For example, in order to access programs such as the Nvidia Control Panel via the context menu (right-click on the desktop), you must first click on More options.
Even if it is fundamentally surprising for a new Windows to lose users compared to an older version. In this special case, our surprise is limited!
Whats your opinion? What do you think are the reasons why many users are still using Windows 10 and why people who are switching to the new operating system are apparently avoiding it? Write it to us in the comments!