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A Five-Year-Old Transition That Never Fully Finished
Five years after Microsoft introduced Windows 11, the operating system transition is beginning to look less like a clean replacement cycle and more like a long-running migration that refuses to end. Windows 11 is now the default operating system on virtually every new PC, Microsoft has spent years encouraging users to upgrade, and Windows 10 has officially entered the final chapter of its supported life.
Yet millions of machines remain on Windows 10.
The surprising part is not that Windows 10 is still alive. The surprising part is who is still using it, why they are refusing to move, and how difficult the final stage of Microsoft’s migration has become.
For consumers, upgrading an operating system can be relatively simple. For businesses, hospitals, manufacturers, retailers, transportation companies, and other organizations, it can be an entirely different story. A Windows upgrade can involve hardware replacement, application compatibility testing, regulatory requirements, employee downtime, specialized equipment, security validation, and enormous deployment costs.
That is why the final Windows 10 holdouts are proving much harder to move than the first wave of users.
Windows 11 Won the Battle, But Windows 10 Survived the War
There is little question that Windows 11 has become Microsoft’s dominant desktop platform. Enterprise hardware data from Lansweeper indicates that Windows 11 accounts for approximately 78.8% of Windows clients in its monitored environment, while Windows 10 still represents around 16.9%.
At first glance, 16.9% may not sound significant.
Across millions of business computers, however, nearly 17% represents an enormous installed base. It also represents the machines that are generally the most difficult, expensive, or politically complicated to replace.
The easy upgrades have already happened.
The users who wanted Windows 11 moved years ago. New PCs increasingly arrived with Windows 11 preinstalled. Hardware refresh cycles pushed more organizations toward Microsoft’s latest platform. And the approaching end of Windows 10 support created another powerful incentive to migrate.
But the remaining machines are different.
They are often attached to systems that businesses cannot simply replace overnight.
The Final 17% Is the Hardest Part
Lansweeper’s data provides an important perspective because its measurements come from enterprise hardware discovered through IT management and network scanning rather than ordinary web traffic.
According to the figures cited in the original report, Windows 10’s enterprise share has fallen dramatically from roughly half of monitored PCs in early 2025 to approximately 40% around October 2025 and then to about 16.9% in the latest measurements.
That is a massive decline.
But the speed of migration is slowing.
Lansweeper’s description of the remaining population is particularly revealing: the “easy migrations” have already happened, leaving devices that either cannot move or will not move.
That distinction matters.
A company may want to upgrade 10,000 PCs, but if 500 of those computers run specialized software that has not been certified for Windows 11, the organization cannot treat those 500 machines like ordinary office laptops.
Healthcare and Retail Are Among the Biggest Holdouts
The distribution of Windows 10 machines across industries makes the situation even more interesting.
Healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations reportedly have about 23% of their monitored PCs still running Windows 10. Consumer and retail organizations follow at roughly 22.7%, while small and medium-sized businesses sit around 21.4%.
Manufacturing is around 18%, and larger enterprises are closer to 16.6%.
These numbers illustrate why Windows 10 is proving difficult to eliminate.
Healthcare environments can contain specialized medical equipment and software that require lengthy validation. Manufacturing facilities may depend on industrial systems that were never designed around rapid operating-system changes. Retail environments can contain point-of-sale terminals, inventory systems, kiosks, scanners, and embedded hardware.
In these environments, “just upgrade Windows” is not a realistic IT strategy.
Windows 10 Is Becoming a Security Liability
The most serious problem is not
It is security.
According to the Lansweeper figures presented in the report, Windows 10 machines average approximately 1,903 active CVEs, compared with around 652 on Windows 11.
That creates a reported vulnerability gap of approximately 2.9 times.
The number should not be interpreted as meaning that every Windows 10 computer is actively exploitable or that every Windows 11 machine is secure. CVE counts are indicators of exposure, not direct measurements of compromise.
Nevertheless, the direction is concerning.
As security updates increasingly concentrate on supported operating systems, unsupported or insufficiently protected Windows 10 installations can accumulate unresolved vulnerabilities.
Extended Security Updates Change the Equation
Microsoft anticipated this problem by offering Extended Security Updates, commonly known as ESU.
ESU effectively gives organizations additional time to migrate by continuing to provide selected security updates after Windows 10 reaches its normal end of support.
That is useful, but it does not make Windows 10 equivalent to Windows 11.
It creates a bridge.
According to the figures cited by the report, roughly 14% of the approximately 17% Windows 10 population is receiving ESU protection. That leaves around 2% of PCs potentially running Windows 10 without that additional protection.
Two percent may sound small.
Across a huge enterprise ecosystem, however, even a small percentage can represent hundreds of thousands or millions of machines.
The Most Dangerous Windows 10 Machines May Be the Ones Nobody Notices
The biggest security problem may therefore not be the organization that openly acknowledges its Windows 10 legacy environment.
It may be the organization that has lost track of it.
Old computers can disappear from asset inventories. Forgotten endpoints can remain powered on in remote offices. Specialized machines may be excluded from normal patch-management systems because administrators are afraid to interfere with them.
These machines become ideal candidates for attackers.
A forgotten Windows 10 workstation connected to an internal network can become much more important than its age suggests.
The device itself may not contain valuable information. Its importance could come from what it can reach.
Windows 10 Vulnerabilities Can Become Network Problems
A compromised endpoint can potentially provide attackers with credentials, session tokens, internal network access, or a foothold from which additional systems can be targeted.
This is why legacy operating systems are not merely a desktop-management issue.
They are an attack-surface issue.
The longer unsupported systems remain connected to corporate networks, the more carefully organizations need to isolate, monitor, restrict, and eventually replace them.
Windows 10 may be old, but an attacker does not care about the age of a machine if it provides useful access.
HP Confirms the Legacy Problem Is Bigger Than It Looks
Lansweeper is not the only signal.
HP also reportedly told investors in May 2026 that approximately 30% of its installed base was still running Windows 10.
That is an important data point because HP sits directly inside the PC ecosystem.
The company has a commercial interest in hardware refreshes, and Windows 11 migration is one of the forces capable of encouraging customers to purchase new PCs.
Yet HP is not expecting the remaining Windows 10 population to disappear instantly.
That reinforces the central argument: the Windows 10 transition is no longer primarily about convincing ordinary users to upgrade. It is about replacing the difficult machines that survived the first migration wave.
Windows 11 Is Also Being Sold as an AI PC Platform
Microsoft and PC manufacturers have another argument available now: artificial intelligence.
The PC industry increasingly markets newer machines around dedicated AI acceleration, including NPUs and other hardware designed for local AI workloads.
HP has described the transition toward AI PCs as another driver of personal-systems growth, reporting double-digit growth across consumer and commercial segments in the cited discussion.
This creates a new reason to replace aging Windows 10 machines.
Instead of saying, “You need a new PC because Windows 10 is old,” manufacturers can increasingly say, “You need a new PC because modern AI workloads require modern hardware.”
That is a much stronger commercial argument.
The AI PC Strategy May Accelerate Hardware Refreshes
The important question is whether AI will actually convince organizations to replace machines that have survived for years.
There are reasons to believe it will help.
Businesses are experimenting with local AI assistants, transcription, document processing, security analysis, developer tools, content generation, and increasingly sophisticated AI agents.
Modern AI workloads can benefit from dedicated hardware.
That means the next PC replacement cycle may be driven by two forces at once: Windows 10’s aging support position and the industry’s push toward AI-capable hardware.
But there is a catch.
Not every organization needs an AI PC today.
If an employee spends most of the day working in a browser, email client, ERP system, or legacy business application, the economic justification for replacing a perfectly functional machine may remain weak.
Microsoft’s Windows Numbers Remain Surprisingly Opaque
Microsoft itself does not provide the detailed Windows version breakdown many analysts would like to see.
The company has highlighted an enormous installed base, including its statement that Windows 11 is running on approximately 1.6 billion active PCs.
That figure is impressive, but it does not answer the most important question.
How many Windows PCs are still running Windows 10?
Without an official version-by-version breakdown, analysts have to assemble the picture from third-party measurements, enterprise-management platforms, hardware manufacturers, and financial disclosures.
That makes the Lansweeper and HP data particularly valuable.
Why StatCounter Should Be Treated Carefully
StatCounter is frequently used to estimate operating-system market share, but its methodology is fundamentally different from enterprise asset discovery.
Web analytics can tell researchers what operating systems appear in web traffic.
It cannot necessarily tell them how many PCs exist inside corporate networks.
That distinction becomes critical when measuring Windows 10.
A corporate computer may spend most of its time accessing internal applications and services that do not generate the same kind of public web traffic measured by conventional analytics.
Consequently, a sudden change in web-based operating-system statistics should not automatically be interpreted as proof that millions of enterprise computers have changed operating systems.
Independent measurements should be compared rather than blindly accepted.
Microsoft’s Own Financial Results Tell Part of the Story
There is another clue hiding in
The company reportedly said Windows OEM and Devices revenue declined by 7%, while Windows OEM revenue declined by 5%.
Microsoft attributed part of the weakness to lower PC market demand and a difficult comparison with the previous year, when Windows 10’s approaching end of support helped create a stronger upgrade cycle.
That explanation is significant.
If Windows
The strongest upgrade incentive has already been used.
The Windows 10 End-of-Support Deadline Was
Microsoft had several tools available to accelerate migration.
It could promote Windows 11.
It could make new hardware increasingly attractive.
It could establish stricter hardware requirements.
It could allow Windows 10 to approach its end of support.
And it could offer ESU as a temporary safety net.
Together, these mechanisms created an enormous incentive to move.
Yet they still did not eliminate Windows 10.
That is perhaps the clearest indication of how deeply Windows 10 remains embedded in the real world.
Windows 10 Was More Than an Operating System
Part of Windows
Businesses spent years building procedures around it. Employees were trained on it. IT departments created deployment systems for it. Vendors certified applications against it.
An operating system can become infrastructure.
Once that happens, changing it is not merely a technical decision.
It becomes an organizational decision.
A company has to ask whether the migration introduces operational risk greater than the security and support risks of staying behind.
For some organizations, that calculation has delayed migration.
Hardware Compatibility Is Still a Major Barrier
Windows 11 also introduced stricter hardware requirements, including requirements around TPM 2.0 and supported processors.
That means some older Windows 10 machines cannot simply be upgraded through Microsoft’s supported path.
The choices then become more expensive.
Replace the PC.
Perform an unsupported installation.
Keep Windows 10 and accept the associated risks.
Or redesign the surrounding environment.
For an individual consumer, replacing one PC may be manageable.
For a multinational organization with thousands of endpoints, the cost can become enormous.
The Real Windows 11 Migration Is Therefore a Hardware Cycle
This is why Windows
Every time a Windows 10 machine reaches the end of its useful life, the probability of it being replaced with Windows 11 becomes extremely high.
That means Windows
Time itself becomes the migration mechanism.
The question is simply how long the final machines survive.
Businesses Cannot Keep Legacy Systems Forever
There is also a practical limit to the Windows 10 strategy.
Organizations can postpone replacement.
They cannot postpone it indefinitely.
Hardware eventually fails. Components become unavailable. Vendors discontinue support. Security requirements become stricter. Cyber-insurance policies change. Compliance requirements evolve.
Eventually, the cost of maintaining the old environment exceeds the cost of replacing it.
That is when the final Windows 10 holdouts will begin disappearing much faster.
The Security Gap Will Become More Important Over Time
The 2.9× vulnerability difference cited in the report should therefore be viewed as a warning about direction rather than a permanent ratio.
Security exposure is dynamic.
Every Patch Tuesday changes the landscape.
Every newly discovered vulnerability can alter the risk calculation.
Every unsupported endpoint creates another potential exception in an organization’s security architecture.
The longer Windows 10 machines remain in production, the more difficult it becomes to treat them as ordinary endpoints.
Deep Analysis: How Administrators Can Find Remaining Windows 10 Systems
The first step for organizations is simple: find every Windows 10 machine.
On Windows, administrators can quickly inspect the local operating-system version with:
Get-ComputerInfo | Select-Object WindowsProductName, WindowsVersion, OsBuildNumber
A shorter command is:
winver
For enterprise environments using PowerShell remoting, administrators can query multiple machines:
Get-ComputerName -ComputerName PC01,PC02,PC03 |
ForEach-Object {
Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem -ComputerName $_ |
Select-Object PSComputerName, Caption, Version, BuildNumber
}
For a single machine, Windows Management Instrumentation can also provide the operating-system information:
Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem | Select-Object Caption, Version, BuildNumber
Organizations should not stop at identifying Windows 10.
They should classify each machine.
Which systems are business-critical?
Which machines cannot run Windows 11?
Which systems contain sensitive information?
Which endpoints are receiving ESU?
Which devices are isolated?
Which machines have administrative privileges?
And which endpoints have not checked into the organization’s management platform recently?
Deep Analysis: Check Hardware Readiness Before Migration
Administrators can also inspect TPM information:
Get-Tpm
Processor information can be checked with:
Get-CimInstance Win32_Processor | Select-Object Name, Manufacturer, NumberOfCores, MaxClockSpeed
Secure Boot status can be inspected using:
Confirm-SecureBootUEFI
These commands do not replace
The most important objective is not simply to create a list of old machines.
It is to create a migration map.
Deep Analysis: Segment Legacy Windows 10 Endpoints
A mature migration strategy should divide Windows 10 systems into categories.
Machines that can immediately upgrade should be migrated first.
Machines requiring application remediation should enter a testing program.
Hardware-incompatible machines should be scheduled for replacement.
Critical systems that cannot yet be replaced should be isolated and closely monitored.
Machines without legitimate business justification for remaining on Windows 10 should be removed from the network or upgraded.
This approach is much safer than treating every Windows 10 computer identically.
Deep Analysis: Reduce the Attack Surface While Waiting
Organizations that must temporarily keep Windows 10 should consider network segmentation, least-privilege access, application control, endpoint detection, strong authentication, vulnerability monitoring, and aggressive removal of unnecessary software.
The objective should be simple:
A legacy endpoint should have fewer opportunities to become an entry point.
If a Windows 10 workstation only needs to communicate with one internal application, there is little justification for giving it unrestricted access to an entire corporate network.
Security architecture can compensate for some of the weaknesses created by legacy software.
It cannot eliminate them completely.
Deep Analysis: The Most Important Command Is Sometimes Inventory
One of the most overlooked cybersecurity controls is knowing what exists.
An organization cannot patch a computer it does not know about.
It cannot isolate a machine that is missing from its asset inventory.
It cannot replace a device whose owner has not been identified.
It cannot evaluate the risk of a legacy system that does not appear in its management database.
Therefore, the Windows 10 migration should be treated as an asset-management project as much as an operating-system project.
What Undercode Say: Windows 10 Is Not Dying — It Is Aging Out
The most important conclusion from these numbers is that Windows 10 has already lost the mainstream battle.
Windows 11 is the dominant platform.
New PCs overwhelmingly favor Windows 11.
Microsoft’s ecosystem is increasingly designed around the newer operating system.
But dominance is not the same as complete replacement.
Windows 10 has entered the most difficult phase of its lifecycle: the period when the remaining users are disproportionately expensive to migrate.
The first 80% of a migration can be surprisingly easy.
The final 20% can consume most of the effort.
That is exactly what appears to be happening now.
The approximately 17% Windows 10 enterprise share cited by Lansweeper is therefore more significant than the raw percentage suggests.
These machines are not necessarily sitting around because their owners forgot that Windows 11 exists.
Many remain because they are connected to complicated business environments.
Healthcare equipment can be difficult to replace.
Industrial machines can require certification.
Retail systems can depend on specialized software.
Small businesses may simply lack the IT budget to replace functional computers.
Some users also see no compelling reason to upgrade if Windows 10 continues doing everything they need.
That last category is particularly important.
Technology companies often assume users will upgrade because a newer product exists.
Users do not always think that way.
If a computer works, runs the required applications, receives adequate security protection, and does not create obvious problems, many people will continue using it.
Windows 10 benefited enormously from this psychology.
It became familiar.
It became stable.
It became predictable.
And for millions of users, those qualities are more valuable than a redesigned interface or a new set of AI features.
Microsoft therefore faces a very different problem today than it faced when Windows 11 launched.
The company no longer needs to convince the majority of users that Windows 11 exists.
It needs to convince the remaining users that staying on Windows 10 is no longer worth the risk or expense.
That is a much harder argument.
The emergence of AI PCs could help.
If businesses believe that local AI processing, productivity agents, security assistants, and other AI workloads provide measurable returns, new hardware becomes easier to justify.
But AI alone is unlikely to force every Windows 10 machine into retirement.
The strongest driver will remain hardware failure and business necessity.
Every aging PC eventually becomes a replacement opportunity.
Every unsupported application eventually becomes a migration problem.
Every security incident involving a legacy endpoint makes the business case for modernization stronger.
This means Windows
The operating system will not disappear because Microsoft flips a switch.
It will disappear because the machines running it gradually become too expensive, risky, or inconvenient to maintain.
There is also an important lesson here for cybersecurity teams.
End-of-support dates are not magical security boundaries.
A company can announce that an operating system is obsolete, but millions of devices can continue operating long after the announcement.
Attackers understand this.
They do not care whether an operating system is officially “dead.”
They care whether vulnerable systems remain connected.
That makes legacy operating systems a long-term security problem rather than a simple product-lifecycle problem.
The Windows 10 story also demonstrates why enterprise technology adoption is fundamentally different from consumer adoption.
A consumer can buy a new laptop in an afternoon.
A corporation may need months or years to migrate thousands of endpoints.
The technology may be ready long before the organization is.
This is why the final Windows 10 percentage will likely be stubborn.
The remaining systems represent the complexity of the real world.
Microsoft can continue pushing Windows 11.
HP and other manufacturers can continue selling new PCs.
Security teams can continue recommending migration.
Analysts can continue tracking market share.
But the final machines will move according to business economics, hardware lifecycles, software compatibility, and security requirements.
Windows 10 may have lost the platform war.
It has not yet lost the installed-base war.
And that distinction could keep Windows 10 relevant for considerably longer than Microsoft originally expected.
✅ Windows 11 Is the Dominant Windows Platform
The enterprise figures cited from Lansweeper place Windows 11 far ahead of Windows 10 in its monitored environment, with approximately 78.8% versus 16.9%.
This supports the broader conclusion that Windows 11 has become Microsoft’s primary desktop platform.
However, these figures should not be treated as a universal global market-share measurement.
✅ Windows 10 Remains Widely Deployed
The cited Lansweeper data indicates that Windows 10 still represents roughly 16.9% of monitored Windows clients.
HP has separately indicated that approximately 30% of its installed base remained on Windows 10, reinforcing the idea that significant legacy deployment remains.
The two figures measure different populations, so they should not be directly combined.
✅ Windows 10 Has a Significant Security Disadvantage
The
However, CVE counts do not automatically mean that every listed vulnerability is exploitable on every machine.
They should be treated as an exposure indicator rather than a direct measurement of compromise risk.
⚠️ StatCounter Should Not Be Treated as a Perfect Enterprise Measurement
Web analytics platforms can provide useful indicators of operating-system trends.
But web traffic does not represent the complete population of corporate endpoints.
Enterprise asset-management telemetry such as
✅ Windows 10 End-of-Support Has Influenced PC Refreshes
The transition away from Windows 10 clearly became an important driver for PC replacement activity.
Microsoft itself has linked Windows OEM performance to the previous-year comparison that benefited from Windows 10 end-of-support demand.
The effect naturally weakens as the easiest upgrades are completed.
⚠️ Windows 10 Is Not Automatically Unsafe on Every Computer
A Windows 10 system receiving appropriate security updates and operating within a controlled environment is not equivalent to an abandoned, unmanaged machine.
The risk varies dramatically depending on patching, ESU status, network exposure, privileges, applications, and security controls.
The greatest danger comes from unmanaged or inadequately protected legacy endpoints.
Prediction
(+1) Windows 10 Will Continue Declining, But Much More Slowly
Windows
The decline, however, is unlikely to be as dramatic as the first migration wave.
The remaining machines are the difficult ones.
(+1) Hardware Replacement Will Become More Important Than Software Upgrades
The next major reduction in Windows 10 usage will probably come from PC replacement rather than mass in-place upgrades.
Organizations with incompatible hardware will eventually have little choice but to refresh their fleets.
(+1) AI PCs Could Create a New Upgrade Catalyst
The growing demand for local AI capabilities could strengthen the business case for replacing older Windows 10 systems.
If AI productivity tools demonstrate measurable economic value, organizations may accelerate hardware refresh cycles.
(+1) Cybersecurity Pressure Will Accelerate Legacy-System Retirement
As vulnerability exposure grows and security teams become less comfortable with unsupported operating systems, Windows 10 machines will increasingly be treated as exceptions requiring additional controls.
That will raise the operational cost of keeping them alive.
(-1) Windows 10 Will Not Disappear Quickly
Despite
Some systems will remain in healthcare, manufacturing, retail, transportation, and small-business environments for years because replacement is complicated or expensive.
(+1) The Final Windows 10 Machines Will Be the Most Expensive to Replace
The percentage will become smaller, but the difficulty of each remaining migration will increase.
The final machines are likely to require specialized software testing, hardware replacement, network redesign, vendor coordination, or regulatory approval.
(+1) Windows 11 Will Eventually Become the Near-Universal Enterprise Standard
The direction is already clear.
Windows 11 dominates new PC deployments, Windows 10 support is winding down, and hardware refreshes naturally favor Microsoft’s newer operating system.
The question is no longer whether Windows 10 will lose its position.
The real question is how long the last generation of Windows 10 machines can survive.
Final Verdict: The Operating System Is Dead on Paper, Not in the Real World
Windows
Microsoft can declare an operating system outdated.
Manufacturers can stop shipping it.
Security teams can recommend replacing it.
Analysts can announce its decline.
And yet millions of machines can continue running it because real-world infrastructure moves at a different speed.
Windows 11 has already won.
But Windows 10 has demonstrated something Microsoft cannot ignore: an operating system can be obsolete commercially long before it becomes irrelevant technically.
The remaining Windows 10 machines are no longer the mainstream.
They are the stubborn final chapter.
And for Microsoft, cybersecurity teams, PC manufacturers, and enterprise IT departments, that final chapter may be considerably harder to close than the first five years of Windows 11 suggested.
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