Some users would rather downgrade to Windows 7 than upgrade to Windows 11, market share stats suggest
End-of-life for Windows 10 is just around the corner. Microsoft confirmed long ago that support ends on October 14, 2025, which means it’s a good time to upgrade to Windows 11. We’ve already seen a trend of gamers jumping ship in the monthly Steam surveys, and research also shows PC gamers are scrambling to upgrade their hardware before the big day arrives.
Another trend is a surprising uplift in Windows 7 users. This isn’t evident at all in the gaming space, at least based on Steam’s latest stats, but evidence from StatCounter highlights a drop in Windows 10 users worldwide by 5% and, conversely, a 6% rise for Windows 7 between August and September this year.
Windows 7 usage worldwide has risen 6.02% in the past month
According to StatCounter, worldwide usage of Windows 7 has been flatlined for the last year, but an uptick has suddenly appeared. The popular operating system met its end-of-life date on January 14, 2020, over 10 years after its introduction in 2009. Windows 10 has had a similar support lifespan, having been released in July 2015.
This curious statistic seems to suggest that Windows 10 users are experimenting by going back to a version of the operating system they prefer, though it’s hard to determine the primary reason. We could speculate that, since both versions are losing support, why not use the one with less bloatware? The lack of security updates is an obvious reason to avoid Windows 7, while Microsoft will be running an Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for Windows 10 for another year.
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The interesting part is that Windows 11 usage has remained more or less the same in the past couple of months, which seems to suggest those Windows 10 users are either downgrading to Windows 7 or, as an alternative, giving Linux a spin.
| Month / Year | Windows 11 | Windows 10 | Windows 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 2025 | 42.22% | 53.19% | 2.48% |
| June 2025 | 47.98% | 48.76% | 2.19% |
| July 2025 | 53.51% | 42.88% | 2.02% |
| August 2025 | 49.08% | 45.53% | 3.59% |
| September 2025 | 48.94% | 40.5% | 9.61% |
Windows 11 finally overtook its predecessor in July of this year, reaching a peak of 53.51% worldwide users. For comparison, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows XP, and other older Windows versions hold a negligible market share.
