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Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining
(www.neowin.net)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Speculation on my part (so was my parent comment to be fair), prior to Windows 11 and even the later major updates to Windows 10, Windows had a horrible rep for physical security. It was well known that if someone stole your computer, all your data is compromised and whoever stole it just needed a YouTube video on various lock screen bypasses.
Microsoft wanted to do something about this, so Windows 11 relies on the TPM so that BitLocker can be enabled, and having the TPM makes it entirely transparent to the user. Enforcing the Microsoft account requirement gives a recovery avenue should something go wrong like the TPM changes.
Unfortunately, they would rather that the image of Win11 is this really secure OS, rather than let users who don't have a TPM upgrade anyway, which really will just leave more users insecure on Win10 and overall in a much worse spot from a security perspective.
(This is in no way an indictment of what you've said here, it is entirely directed at MS.) If that's their objective, they've done an absolutely horrific job of making that clear. I guess part of that is they claim everything they do is for security, so no-one believes them.
Not to mention, I'm pretty sure the vast, vast, vast majority of Windows users aren't concerned that if their PC gets stolen people can get into it. They're much more concerned with the lost PC itself.
Either way, they look, frankly, incompetent. The OS is maligned by users, and they've stuffed so many embarrassing things like ads in the search bar or whatever, that any illusion of its benefits are lost behind a wall of garbage.