Just a couple of months ago, it seemed like Windows 11 adoption had flatlined. The latest operating system actually dropped a bit of market share towards the end of 2025, hitting 50.73% in December, according to statistics from Statcounter.
Well, that trend has reversed in a major way for 2026. At the start of February, my colleague Sean Endicott covered a massive 12-point gain for the OS that brought it up to a 62.41% market share.
Now, a month later, and with Statcounter displaying numbers for the full month of February, Windows 11 worldwide market share of Windows operating systems has made another significant 10.37% jump.
That puts Windows 11 at a rather healthy 72.78% market share. In the same graph provided by Statcounter, you can see how Windows 10 has also dropped off significantly at the same time to land at 26.27%.
Windows 7, which was holding on to about a 3.8% share of users at the start of 2026, has now basically disappeared into the sub-1% basement alongside Windows 8/8.1 and Windows XP.
It's important to note that Statcounter does not have official numbers from Microsoft as to how many users Windows has. Instead, it gathers its data monthly from billions of page views across about 1.5 billion websites. You can check out Statcounter's methodology page for a more detailed explanation.
Nevertheless, we know that Windows 11 passed 1 billion users thanks to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's comments during the company's most recent earnings call.
Despite what seems like an overabundance of bad press surrounding the state of Windows 11, the newer OS made it to the billion-user milestone in 1,576 days compared to 1,705 days for Windows 10.
Windows 11 is steadily growing despite its pain points
Windows 11 isn't perfect. Anyone who uses it will likely tell you the same thing. And the same goes for any OS on the market. However, I do think that a lot of users would happily overlook some of its flaws if they didn't seem so unnecessary.
For example, this year, Microsoft has already released several out-of-band emergency updates to fix issues introduced with major patches. The OS is only getting more AI, much of it half-baked. And as the OS moves into an online, AI-infused experience, classic tools like Notepad are failing to launch due to server-side licensing service issues.
Add examples like these to the increasing telemetry, forced accounts to use Windows 11, and the (early) death of Windows 10, and you can see why users are starting to get miffed.
Bottom line? Despite a lot of negative press, Windows 11 is proving to be very resilient.
What do you think about Windows 11's growth in 2026?
Do you think Statcounter's numbers are accurate? Are you happy to see Windows 11 growing so quickly? Are the results at all surprising?
Let me know in the comments section and hit the poll below!
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