Windows 11 was released five years ago today

Windows 11 was released five years ago, on October 5, 2021. It feels like it's been around longer, as Microsoft’s latest OS has generated numerous headlines, mostly concerning the pain it put users through. We’ve all aged with it. Things might be settling down, at last, though, as the 26H2 update started to roll out just a few days ago, and it is not promising a revolution, simply a “predictable and low-disruption” update.

After the crowd-pleasing Windows 10’s return to form, it was all too predictable that Windows 11 would misstep in some unexpected way, or actually in several ways. Microsoft is pretty creative with its misreading of the market. At release, the biggest issue with the new OS was that it sought to force lots of capable hardware into retirement. This issue churned for months, with folks wrangling system files to bypass minimum system requirements, and Microsoft seemingly shifting the goalposts around at the same time.

Another early controversy was Microsoft continuing to push users into setting up Windows using an online Microsoft account, and cutting off avenues of avoidance. Again, communities had to fight the OS to make it work the way they wanted, often with a simple local account. This struggle continues to this day. Microsoft paints the requirement as good for users, providing OneDrive backups, syncing across devices, and providing extra recovery and security features. However, forced online accounts are also a commercial vehicle for selling digital goods and services.

Things had settled down in Windows land by 2024, but Microsoft spoiled the broth again with the introduction of the Copilot+ PC era. In some ways, it showed some foresight in sensing that AI was going to be big. Nevertheless, this was another clear misstep, with gaffes/scares like the AI-centerpiece Windows Recall app.

Copilot+ PC’s failure was confirmed by Microsoft and its OEM partners when they quietly killed off all Copilot+ PC branding earlier this year. For now, built-in AI is being de-emphasized, and Microsoft is looking at a cross-platform agentic model.

A change of direction

This year has also seen Microsoft publicly realize that people need Windows 11 as a foundation for their productivity tasks and gaming fun. The OS isn’t the destination. Thus, in spring, execs promised to clean up and optimize Windows 11 for its basic everyday use. Going forward, Microsoft has dangled the carrot of faster built-in apps, lower memory/resource use, and other foundational OS optimizations.

Windows 11 26H2 was released to consumers last week. As a battle-scarred Windows veteran, I’ve not clicked the update button yet on any of my machines, but there are reasons to be optimistic that it doesn’t deliver new nightmares. Version 26H2 is being distributed with the promise to deliver a “predictable and low-disruption” update. Boring is good.

Despite the aforementioned controversies, as well as the usual collection of silly/scary bugs that needed ironing out, people are still using Windows 11. It is widely adopted and dominates the PC landscape. MacOS and Linux have made inroads in terms of users, but Windows still looks mostly unassailable on roughly 76% of all desktop/laptop computers. Among Windows versions, it holds nearly 72% of the market, with Windows 10 rapidly declining and dipping under 28% at the most recent count.

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