It's been nearly two years since Windows 11 first launched, and it has apparently picked up a lot of momentum. This is because a new report claims that Microsoft's newest operating system is powering nearly 400 million monthly active devices.

Citing "internal Microsoft data" the report from Windows Central's Zac Bowden claims that Windows 11 is now on 400 million active devices, and can easily reach half a billion by 2024. While that might seem like a huge deal, it's important to note that such a pace isn't as fast as Windows 10 adoption was, since it was offered as a free update for more eligible devices running Windows 7 and Windows 8. The older operating system reached the same feat in a year and then hit the 1 billion mark in 2020. Still, Bowden believes that Microsoft set a "modest" expectation for the Windows 11 usage base, and the number we reported today has "blown past these goals."

When you account for the fact that Windows 11 was plagued with lots of controversy when it first launched, the numbers do tell a great story. Windows 11 wasn't compatible with some devices that ran Windows 10, mainly due to the TPM issue, limiting its reach a bit. But Microsoft has since positioned the operating system in a way that's quite enticing for even new and existing devices. It's always getting updated with new features, like Copilot, and there are new ways to preview updates before they're available with little risk to your device.

Microsoft hasn't really talked much about official Windows 11 usage stats. Instead, they like to combine Windows 10 and Windows 11 together at once when reporting on numbers during earnings reports. So these numbers are indeed cool to see out in the wild, even if it's just leaked internal data.