Windows 7 and XP still more popular than Windows 11

Less than half of business PCs are capable of running the latest Microsoft Windows operating system (OS), according to a Lansweeper audit. In a scan of 30 million Windows devices across 60,000 enterprises, Lansweeper found that 44.4% were Windows 11-ready, while 55.6% were not.

The results also showed that the number of machines running end-of-life operating systems had fallen to 6.6%, compared with 9.75% in January 2022. A significant portion of these were running Windows XP (1.71%) and Windows 7 (4.7%).

While most (91%) PCs have enough memory to run Windows 11, Lansweeper found that only half of the workstations had trusted platform modules (TPMs) that met the requirements for the operating system. Over 19% failed and 28% of the workstations audited were not TPM compatible or did not have the function enabled.

Lansweeper’s audit also showed that two-thirds (66.4%) of devices had enough installed RAM to meet the system specifications for running virtualisation on Windows 11. When Lansweeper checked the TPM support in virtual machines, however, it found that only 0.23% of virtual workstations had TPM 2.0 enabled.

“TPM has never been required for Windows and while TPM passthrough (vTPM) exists to give virtual machines a TPM, it is rarely used,” Lansweeper stated. This means most VM workstations will need to be modified to get a vTPM before they can upgrade to Windows 11, according to Lansweeper.

TPMs on physical servers only passed the test 1.49% of the time, the audit found. This means 98% of existing servers would fail to upgrade if Microsoft created a server operating system with similar requirements in the future, according to Lansweeper. For virtual servers, it found that there were no TPM-enabled servers.

“Although the rate of adoption is increasing bit by bit, it’s obvious that Windows 11 upgrades aren’t going as fast as Microsoft had hoped, especially within the business environment,” said Roel Decneut, chief strategy officer at Lansweeper.

“Many organisations have been put off from having to buy new machines that meet these conditions, while others are simply happy with the current existence of Windows 10 which continues to be supported until 2025. This situation will likely continue in the future unless businesses are given a compelling reason to upgrade,” he added.

“For those looking to adopt Windows 11, the first step is to assess which of their existing devices are capable of upgrading. It’s the reason why IT asset management is so important for organisations, capable of running in-depth device audits that can tell IT teams the hardware specs of machines so they can weigh up how many devices are capable of upgrading and the potential cost of such a move,” said Decneut.