Summary

  • People are moving back to Windows 10 from Windows 11, creating a problem for Microsoft's upgrade plans.
  • The trend of returning to Windows 10 began in January 2024.
  • Microsoft's push for Copilot in Windows 11 may be causing users to actively downgrade their systems to Windows 10.

Are you using Windows 10? Turns out, you're not alone. Despite the operating system approaching its end-of-life date in October 2025, people aren't just sticking with their guns. As the metrics show, more people are actually turning back from Windows 11 to return to the older operating system, giving Microsoft an issue as to how it can get people to upgrade and stick with the newer version.

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People are migrating back from Windows 11 to Windows 10

As spotted by Neowin, the software-tracking website StatCounter reveals a bad pattern for Microsoft. Since March 2023, the number of Windows 10 computers being used has slowly decreased, with Windows 11's usage slowly rising by about the same amount. This is to be expected, as people either upgrade their Windows 10 PC to Windows 11 or purchase a new PC with the newer operating system pre-installed on it.

That's where the story should have ended, but the pattern has begun to reverse. The trend continued normally until January 2024, when the Windows 10 userbase hit a low of 66.47% users. Since then, the number of active Windows 10 PCs has slowly increased, while Windows 11's stats have decreased at the same rate. Now, with April 2024's statistics available to see, Windows 10's share has grown to 70%, meaning that people aren't just sticking with Windows 10; they're actively downgrading their systems.

Why are people downgrading from Windows 11 to Windows 10?

Of course, it's impossible to tell exactly why people are downgrading; that would require a huge survey of everyone who made the return. However, given the timing of when the returns began, we can make an educated guess.

The key here is the date when the pattern reversed; January 2024. Around this time, Microsoft was beginning to go all-in on its Copilot strategy. This was the time when we learned that Copilot Pro was now an option, that laptops were getting a dedicated Copilot key, and that Microsoft wanted the Copilot key to be the next Start button. As such, there's a good chance that, as Microsoft implements more and more Copilot features into Windows 11, it's driving people to downgrade to Windows 10 to avoid it. If this is true, this is dire news for Microsoft, which is going all-in on an AI experience in the Windows 11 24H2 update.