Microsoft is finally fixing Windows 11 under the hood — but new stats suggest it could be too little, too late

• Microsoft is making "behind-the-scenes platform changes" with Windows 11
• These are efforts in preview builds to fine-tune the fundamentals of the OS
• At the same time, a report suggests a sizeable number of people are fleeing Windows 11 – so could this move help turn that around?

Microsoft is beginning the process of making changes to the underlying platform of Windows 11, prompting both hope but also a measure of fear in some respects – and it comes just as we're seeing the adoption figures for the OS drop.

As announced with the latest preview build from Microsoft (flagged by Windows Central), the Windows 11 releases in the Dev channel are now going to be the 26300 series.

These builds are now separate to the Beta channel, Microsoft explains, which will be the 26220 series, but the important bit is the following sentence: "Over time, we will be making behind-the-scenes platform changes in each build so they may have different known issues because of those changes."

What are behind-the-scenes platform changes exactly? If Windows is a house – one that's quite a fixer-upper in some respects, ahem – then the platform is the foundation it's built on. This is the underlying code, essentially, and modifications here aren't made to add new features, or anything that you'll see overtly – but rather to smooth over the inner workings of Windows 11.

So, what Microsoft is aiming to do here is fix that foundational code, and tune it up to ensure better stability and performance. At least that's in theory, and as I just alluded to, this is certainly work that's needed for Windows 11. Desperately needed, even.

Meanwhile, as Windows Central noticed elsewhere, Statcounter's figures on the desktop OS market worldwide show that Windows 11 market share has dropped over the past two months, while Windows 10 has gained users. Indeed, Windows 11 slipped from a 55.18% market share in October 2025, down to 53.7% the following month, and now it's hit 50.73% as of December (the latest figures).

That's a loss of around 4.5% in a short space of time, with Windows 10 getting most of the gains from that shedding (it's up 3% – although notably, Windows 7 has gained 1.3% too, somehow).

Analysis: hope springs eternal (but confidence is barely a trickle, sadly)

There's a lot to unpack here. I'll start by caveating those operating system figures from Statcounter, which we shouldn't regard as the be-all-and-end-all of how user numbers for Windows versions break down worldwide. It's just one source, and there are complications in terms of how that data is collected. Notably it's very odd that Windows 7 is suddenly making sizable (relative) gains out of nowhere – suggesting this could reflect changes in the survey composition to an extent (which is always an issue with these kind of reports).

Still, there's no doubting that it's worrying for Microsoft that Windows 11 should be losing any ground at all – let alone approaching 5% of market share. Remember that Windows 10 dropped out of (official) support a few months back, and so people should be flocking to Windows 11, although again there's an unusual factor here. Namely that extended support for consumers for the first time ever means it's perfectly viable to stay on Windows 10 for an extra year (through to October 2026).

What could be happening with folks leaving Windows 11, then, is a combination of the effects of that availability of extended updates for the older OS, and all the bad press Windows 11 has been getting around bugs of late. This, and the whole 'Microslop' controversy, with the software giant overly keen to push AI in the operating system, might be causing more people to stick on Windows 10 (or maybe even backtrack from Windows 11 and revert to the previous-gen OS).

Microsoft is obviously aware that there are problems with Windows 11 adoption, and the perception of the platform in general due to all these issues. And so I think this latest preview release is the first step Microsoft is taking towards a solution, fixing up the underlying platform, as noted, and smoothing everything over.

That's the hope I referred to at the outset, but there's also the fear I mentioned. The problem is that when Microsoft tries to fix issues, sometimes it just makes things worse – a given solution may fail, or cause side-effects whereby other bits of Windows 11 end up broken. So, the worry is that we'll see some under-the-hood problems resolved, but we'll just be trading those bugs for different glitches.

If you remember the Germanium platform being introduced, which was the new underlying base for Windows 11 required for Arm-based Snapdragon X laptops, you'll recall that the 24H2 update that carried it was an absolute festival of bugs (and a nightmare, frankly, for some).

The good news is that Microsoft is being smarter about its approach this time. We have a new platform incoming to replace Germanium, called Bromine, which has changes needed for another generation of Arm laptops (Snapdragon X2 silicon, and new Nvidia CPUs too).

This time Microsoft is keeping that release separate from the Windows 11 PCs already out there, as Bromine development is in the (earliest) Canary channel, and it'll be for Arm PCs only when released early this year – it's the 26H1 build you've probably heard about by now.

Development for standard Windows 11 PCs will continue in the Dev and Beta channels, keeping all that separate from the Bromine platform, with the next release being Windows 11 26H2 later this year, still on the (current) Germanium platform.

In short, non-Arm PCs will skip moving to Bromine this year (which is why they won't get 26H1), and will be provided with a tweaked version of Germanium (the changes Microsoft is implementing now). It's kind of complicated and confusing, but at the same time, this approach makes sense in terms of avoiding another 24H2 bug-fest.

If Microsoft can pull this off, and successfully fine-tune Germanium without breaking anything, we should see Windows 11's overall stability improve throughout this year. And I'd like to stay hopeful that this is how it'll pan out; but the trouble is that, given the way things have gone with Windows 11 in the recent past, I don't have any real faith or feeling behind that hope.

And that's Microsoft's real problem, I think: it's lost the trust of consumers, and it needs to make a big effort to regain it. Microsoft needs to focus on doing this work on the foundations of Windows 11, and doing it right, while cooling off the relentless promotion of AI, at least for a while.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that getting these fundamentals back in shape is the key to the future of Windows 11 – and not AI agents.

The best laptops for all budgets

➡️ Read our full guide to the best laptops
1. Best overall:
Apple MacBook Air 13-inch M4
2. Best budget:
Asus Chromebook CM14
3. Best Windows 11 laptop
Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch
4. Best gaming:
Razer Blade 16
5. Best for pros
MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro)

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