{"id":304488,"date":"2025-12-08T05:46:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T05:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/304488\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T05:46:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T05:46:12","slug":"vast-number-of-windows-users-refusing-to-upgrade-after-microsofts-embrace-of-ai-slop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/304488\/","title":{"rendered":"Vast Number of Windows Users Refusing to Upgrade After Microsoft’s Embrace of AI Slop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, Microsoft officially yanked the cord on Windows 10<\/a>, ending support for an operating system that had been superseded by Windows 11 four years earlier.<\/p>\n

But the tech giant\u2019s controversial attempts to shoehorn AI into every aspect of the software appear to have turned off a staggering number of users from upgrading. While it\u2019s to be expected at this point that not everybody will have jumped at the opportunity to update their machine\u2019s operating system, the sheer scale of that refusal is staggering.<\/p>\n

As Forbes reports<\/a>, a whopping 1 billion PCs<\/a> are still running Windows 10 \u2014 despite half of them technically being eligible for an upgrade. <\/p>\n

During PC maker Dell\u2019s November quarterly earnings call<\/a>, the company\u2019s COO, Jeff Clarke, admitted that \u201cwe have about 500 million of them capable of running Windows 11 that haven\u2019t been upgraded,\u201d referring to all PCs, and not just Dell machines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are all rich opportunities to upgrade towards Windows 11 and modern technology,\u201d he said. The remaining 500 million were not eligible for the upgrade.<\/p>\n

In other words, those who own a whopping third of the estimated 1.5 billion PCs worldwide are outright refusing to upgrade, indicating Microsoft is seriously struggling to woo them. That\u2019s likely due to a number of reasons, from simple frustrations over a tweaked and unfamiliar interface to the need to run software that isn\u2019t Windows 11 compatible \u2014 and annoying ads<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But given the widespread backlash over Microsoft\u2019s doubling down on AI features<\/a>, there\u2019s a good chance a vast number of Windows users are also balking at the idea of the company shoving those features down their throats.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an already familiar battle, with AI emerging as a major turn-off for consumers<\/a> across several other<\/a> industries<\/a> as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last month, Windows president Pavan Davuluri announced<\/a> that the operating system would become an \u201cagentic OS,\u201d baking AI features directly into the software. <\/p>\n

Core users, however, were appalled by the notion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s evolving into a product that\u2019s driving people to Mac and Linux,\u201d one user tweeted<\/a> in response.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop this nonsense,\u201d another wrote. \u201cNo one wants this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe you should pay attention to the unanimously negative replies here and adjust your goals accordingly,\u201d yet another tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Besides indicating a widespread refusal to upgrade to Windows 11, the sheer number of machines still running Windows 10 could turn into a cybersecurity time bomb, as Forbes points out. Now that Microsoft has ended support and security updates for the OS, hundreds of millions of PCs could become vulnerable to attacks.<\/p>\n

Beyond a \u201clooking security disaster,\u201d there\u2019s the threat of an \u201cunprecedented amount of e-waste,\u201d as the advocacy group, the United States Public Interest Research Group, warned in a September blog post<\/a>. With millions of computers not being able to upgrade to Windows 11, the group estimates that the end of Windows 10 could \u201cresult in 1.6 billion pounds of electronic waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Microsoft is looking to \u201crewrite the entire operating system around AI, and build essentially what becomes truly the AI PC,\u201d as Microsoft executive vice president and consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi told\u00a0The Verge<\/a> in October. It\u2019s a vision, he said, that apparently involves physically speaking to Microsoft\u2019s Copilot AI, even while sitting in front of the machine.<\/p>\n

All told, it\u2019s also a transformative shift that has countless users considering greener pastures<\/a>, like Linux or even Apple\u2019s macOS.<\/p>\n

Davuluri has since commented on the outpouring of frustration<\/a>, tweeting<\/a> days after his original announcement last month that \u201cthe team (and I) take in a ton of feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davuluri was responding to developer Gergely Orosz, who argued<\/a> that he \u201ccan\u2019t see any reason for [software] engineers to choose Windows with this weird direction they are doubling down on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know we have work to do on the experience, both on the everyday usability, from inconsistent dialogs [sic] to power user experiences,\u201d he added. \u201cWhen we meet as a team, we discuss these paint [sic] points and others in detail, because we want developers to choose Windows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether those reassurances will be enough to convince users to upgrade to Windows 11 remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWritten by Copilot,\u201d one user snarked<\/a> in response to Davuluri.<\/p>\n

More on Windows: As Microsoft Forces Users to Ditch Windows 10, It Announces That It\u2019s Also Turning Windows 11 into an AI-Controlled Monstrosity<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this year, Microsoft officially yanked the cord on Windows 10, ending support for an operating system that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-304488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}