Microsoft's Windows 11 now installed on 400 million devices, to reach 500 million in early 2024

Windows 10 reached 400 million active devices just over a year after release, 115 per cent faster than Windows 7.

It has taken Windows 11 two years to reach that same adoption rate.

“This is a significantly slower rate than Windows 10, which reached the same number in just over a year (and eventually 1 billion users by early 2020),” the report mentioned.

Microsoft launched Windows 11 in October 2021 with strict hardware requirements.

Windows 11 was officially supported on PCs made in 2018 onwards (due to TPM security chips), which “cut out all those older Windows 7 and 8 PCs that upgraded to Windows 10 and the first three years of new Windows 10 PCs”.

As a result, Microsoft's internal expectations were set rather modestly, said the report.

Windows 11 has actually been more successful than the company expected from a user base standpoint. As per Microsoft’s internal metrics, Windows 11 is going strong, the report said.

Microsoft’s support for Windows 10 is set to end on October 14, 2025 that will stop security updates and fixes for millions of machines.

The upcoming Windows 12 is anticipated to bring an updated desktop interface. Microsoft is expected to launch Windows 12 in 2024. Intel recently teased a “Windows refresh” for 2024 which, it hopes, will boost its revenues.

Meanwhile, you will not be able to activate Windows 11 with older keys from Windows 7 anymore as Microsoft has now completely blocked those from activating a copy of latest Windows 11.

This loophole existed for years and people upgraded from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10 or 11 free of charge.

Last month, the company had announced to block Windows 7 and Windows 8 keys from activating Windows 11.