Windows 10 silences doubters as OS adoption picks up speed again

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There’s some good news for Microsoft as Windows 10 has turned its recent floundering around, with the latest stats for adoption of the OS showing a sizeable uptick this past month.

According to Netmarketshare’s figures for November, Windows 10 has captured 23.72% of the desktop PC market, compared to 22.59% in October, representing a rise of 1.13%.

That’s important for Microsoft because for the two months preceding November, Windows 10 appeared to hit a wall: in September, it actually lost almost half a percentage point of market share, and the OS essentially flat-lined in October, with a marginal increase of 0.06%.

So this is the first time we’ve seen any gain since August, when the operating system put on a very healthy 1.86%.

Good but not great 

Approaching the 2% level is a good boost for the OS which we’ve seen in a number of months over the course of this year, and while November’s rise of 1.13% isn’t quite so impressive, it’s still a good step forward. And doubtless a relief for Nadella and chums.

Speculating about why the operating system winds have changed is always a tricky matter, but presumably new hardware being sold with Windows 10 installed is a growing part of this picture – particularly given that there were some tempting Black Friday discounts to be had on loads of laptops last month.

Microsoft can quite possibly expect some further gains with Holiday sales this month, even given the weak state of the PC market (there are bright spots such as convertible laptops in particular).

Of course, in the overall picture, Netmarketshare still has Windows 7 on top and well ahead of Windows 10 with a 47.17% market share, although it did decline by 1.21% in November.

Windows 8/8.1 is languishing well behind with 9.97%, and isn’t actually that far ahead of Windows XP, which is still persisting on a share of 8.63%.

• Looking to buy a laptop? Most of the best ones come with Windows 10