Valve data shows Windows 10 is losing ground on Steam

Mar 2, 2017 08:42 GMT  ·  By

While overall adoption of Windows 10 slowed down worldwide, Microsoft’s latest operating system is losing ground on Steam, where users appear to be moving back to Windows 7.

Valve data for the month of February shows that Windows 10 declined on Steam, while Windows 7 was the only version that actually increased its share last month.

Specifically, Windows 10 64-bit dropped 0.78 percent to 47.71 percent, while the 32-bit version declined 0.12 percent to 1.06 percent. All the other Windows operating systems lost users the past month, with one exception: Windows 7.

According to Valve, the 64-bit version of Windows 7 posted a substantial increase of 1.67 percent in February to return to 31.41 percent share, while the 32-bit version also experienced a growth, this time smaller, of just 0.03 percent, to achieve 5.40 percent.

Downgrading to Windows 7

As for the reasons that might have pushed users from Windows 10 back to Windows 7, there’s no information in this regard, but there’s a chance that more gamers decided to stick with the 2009 operating system after previously performing the upgrade, thus making sure they can return at any given moment without paying for a license.

Microsoft’s free Windows 10 upgrade offer that was available in the first 12 months after the launch of OS allowed Windows 7 and 8.1 users to install the new operating system without paying.

If the upgrade to Windows 10 was performed in these first 12 months, they could always downgrade and return to this OS version at any given moment without paying, as the license was already activated and associated with their computer.

On Steam, Windows is now powering 95.96 percent, so Microsoft barely sees any competition from Mac and Linux. Apple’s platform dropped 0.14 percent the last month to 3.17 percent, while Linux declined 0.05 percent to settle at 0.75 percent.

All the other Windows versions lost share points in February, and Windows 8 32-bit is currently the last one in the chart with just 0.08 percent.