Windows 11 crushes Windows 10 on Steam

Microsoft ended Windows 10 support in October 2025, and even though you can still get 12 months of security updates technically for free, there is no denying that the operating system is now going away, particularly in certain corners of the PC industry. On the gaming market, Windows 11 is doing quite well, and Valve reports that in December 2025, Windows 11 crushed its now-unsupported predecessor by reaching a new all-time high market share.

According to the latest Valve report (participation in the survey is optional), as of early January 2026, 70.83% of all survey participants run Windows 11 on their systems. In only one month, the operating system jumped by 5.24 points, reaching a new record high. As for Windows 10, it dropped by 2.36 points to 26.70%. Although Windows 10's share is reducing, the operating system will most likely stick around for a while, given that many users cannot update their PCs officially (you can try this guide) and building a new PC right now is quite a task in light of astronomical memory and storage prices.

December 2025 is also the first month to lack Windows 7 in its stats. Now, the Windows part in the OS section has only Windows 11 and 64-bit Windows 10, which, when combined, total 94.95% of all survey participants (+0.16 points).

Linux is the second most popular operating system on Steam. Calling it popular is a bit of a stretch, given it only has 3.19% (-0.01 point), but the ever-growing dissatisfaction with what Microsoft is doing to Windows may change things in the long term. We have already published a more detailed breakdown of Linux performance on Steam, and you can check it out here.

Finally, macOS is third with a modest 1.86 (-0.16 points), with macOS 26 Tahoe being the most popular release.

When it comes to hardware, the most popular picks include 16GB of memory (40.14%, -0.8 points), a six-core processor (30.8%, +2.36 points), the NVIDIA RTX 3060 (6.26%, +2.1 points), 8GB of video memory (32.53%, -0.83 points), and a FullHD monitor (53.68%, +0.85 points). You can find more information on the official Steam website.

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Posted Saturday 3 January 2026 at 4:34 am AEST (my time).

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