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During a Dell earnings call, the company mentioned some staggering numbers regarding the amount of PCs that will not or cannot be upgraded to Windows 11.
"We have about 500 million of them capable of running Windows 11 that haven't been upgraded," said Dell COO Jeffrey Clarke on a Q3 earnings call earlier this week, referring to the overall PC market, not just Dell's slice of machines. "And we have another 500 million that are four years old that can't run Windows 11." He sees this as an opportunity to guide customers towards the latest Windows 11 machines and AI PCs, but warns that the PC market is going to be relatively flat next year.
↫ Tom Warren at The Verge
The monumental scale of the Windows 10 install base that simply won't or cannot upgrade to Windows 11 is massive, and it's absolutely bonkers to me that we're mostly just letting them get away with leaving at least a billion users out in the cold when it comes to security updates and bug fixes. The US government (in better times) and the EU should've 100% forced Microsoft's hand, as leaving this many people on outdated, unsupported operating system installations is several disasters waiting to happen.
Aside from the dangerous position Microsoft is forcing its Windows 10 users into, there's also the massive environmental and public health impact of huge swaths of machines, especially in enterprise environments, becoming obsolete overnight. Many of these will end up in landfills, often shipped to third-world countries so we in the west don't have to deal with our e-waste and its dangerous consequences directly. I can get fined for littering – rightfully so – but when a company like Microsoft makes sweeping decisions which cause untold amounts of dangerous chemicals to be dumped in countless locations all over the globe, governments shrug it off and move on.
At least we will get some cheap eBay hardware out of it, I guess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03 2025, @08:27AM (11 children)
> that we're mostly just letting them get away with leaving at least a billion users out in the cold when it comes to security updates and bug fixes.
And why should MS be required to support years-old, end-of-life'd software, for which they announced the end-of-life date ten years ago?
Are they still selling Windows licenses for new PCs? if so, isn't there some minimum window for which they must support it? 30 days? 90 days? 3 years? Did MS meet that window of support and warranty of fitness?
Where do OEMs fall into this, selling hardware that can't be supported? Why nothing on/against them, for failing to support the software that they sold with their computers?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Dr Spin on Wednesday December 03 2025, @08:32AM
Don't worry. MS is finally promoting OpenSource better than millions of us have managed over the last 30 years.
I cannot see how MS will survive this PR disaster, even if they reverse the policy now.
Who ever came up the the sales strategy of alienating almost a billion users deserves the software equivalent of a Darwin award!.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03 2025, @03:29PM
Because we still give them copyright privileges. As long as they have that, they should be required to support the software. So,either support or license the software or forfeit copyrights and patents. Problem solved
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday December 03 2025, @08:46PM (3 children)
And why should MS be required to support years-old, end-of-life'd software, for which they announced the end-of-life date ten years ago?
Well, quite. If the customer isn't willing to pay... Microsoft is not a charity.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03 2025, @09:03PM
:-) The comment above yours should make it clear that compulsory licensing would make the problem go away. The software would be forced open for third party support and distribution, and Microsoft can collect royalties. All perfectly fair. Screw them if they don't like it. Copyrights/patents should have a price, call it a "property tax" if you like
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Thursday December 04 2025, @07:56PM (1 child)
Then, they also shouldn't be allowed to require it to be bundled with the machines. It goes both ways, if they're going to be allowed to have it bundled, then it should be required to be supported for the life of the machine. It's not like anybody has any idea how much they're paying for the copy of Windows that comes with their computer or necessarily have a viable choice. IIRC, they were issueing refunds of like $30 at one point for people that rejected the terms and I'm skeptical that they're only making $30 a copy on those licenses.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04 2025, @08:09PM
$30... times more than a billion
Not too shabby
There are a lot of people up and down the supply chain to pay off
(Score: 2) by Captival on Wednesday December 03 2025, @09:56PM (1 child)
They have a new, free OS that would work on most of those 1 billion PCs, but they're arbitrarily deciding who can or can't have it based on specious reasoning.
I don't think Microsoft should be legally forced into supporting old software, but I do think they're acting in bad faith here and have ulterior motives.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03 2025, @10:03PM
If they want to keep their copyrights on that software, they should be! All part of the social contract
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday December 04 2025, @03:42AM
I dunno, but yesterday my Win7 laptop received 2 security updates.
And I was like... what year is this??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by KritonK on Thursday December 04 2025, @08:33AM (1 child)
The real question is why does MS refuse to support hardware that is still current.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04 2025, @08:00PM
Really?! Of all the things to ask, that would be it? I always thought the real question was, *Why don't we solve the problem?* I mean, the answer is right in front of us, but apparently we just bump into that old cliche about leading a horse to water