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Windows 12 release date in 2026 possible, with AI features that may force CPU upgrades
(www.notebookcheck.net)
this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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Dude, they're still struggling with Windows 11 adoption because of the unreasonable requirements of a TPM 2.0 capable motherboard/CPU... and they are asking people to upgrade their CPUs again?
They only started seeing real growth in Windows 11 numbers as of January of this year. Windows 11 finally hit 73% last month while Windows 10 is down to 27%. Linux continues to gain marketshare, and there's no telling if the reason that Win 11 is finally gaining marketshare is from people dumping Windows entirely for other options. Mac and Chromebook shares have been growing as well! It took Microsoft four and a half years from release to break 50% Win 11 adoption and they want to release Win 12 on year five while forcing more upgrades when half the people who got in just upgraded?
This on top of trade wars, actual wars, and an AI arms race that is making buying PC parts obscenely overpriced... and they think people will fucking go for this?
The suits at Microsoft are out of their fucking minds. Even businesses won't want to upgrade this soon after many only just making upgrades to meet Windows 11 requirements just recently.... because businesses are also facing the same increased costs due to the above issues!
So we're not out of the woods yet
The OS desktop environment has stagnated over the past 15 years.
Many businesses have transitioned from a 3-4 year rotation on desktops/laptops to every 5-6 years today. Hell my work laptop is 6 years old and I don't forsee replacing it for another 3-4 years. For work functions there is no significant improvement to upgrading more frequently today.
So if they launched W12 next year, widespread adoption will likely not occur until 2032-2033 or at the Win11 EOL whichever comes first.
The developers today are working on a system that will not become mainstream for 8+ years. They want to launch in the next 2 years knowing it will not be adopted for years.
They ignoring the reality of today's market and building to meet the latest fads. It's Windows 8 all over again.
Yeah, most peoples needs have largely plateaued IMO.
I think it is why AI (Mostly just LLMs) have gotten so much hype. It's something different. Desktop environments aren't going to get much better. Mobile phones have been black rectangles for a decade with very little improvement. AI is something new, and feels like an advancement, even if 99% of the proposed use-cases have failed to actually work.
god i hope they fuck this up
Wish granted (wiggles nose)
They're already fucking this up with vibe-coding Windows 11, so if they seriously go all-in on this, Windows 12 will be a bigger disaster than fucking Windows Vista and Windows Millennium Edition combined.
vista was great on compliant hardware. w11 is very much not.
Right, but that's just it, they're basically pulling another Vista if they release Windows 12 later this year.
As the article reasonably posits, it's way more likely that they'll just degrade the experience for people without NPUs, which in other words means decreased performance on older hardware, a la Vista on non-compliant hardware.
whoof. i still don't understand what makes an npu different from a vector coprocessor (except the proprietary api) so if they're smart about it they'll fall back to gpu use. they will not be smart about it.
Yes. They are stupid and don't deserve their huge paychecks.
They could've done basically nothing. Maybe security updates. And they would've had a decent brand that kept bringing in money. Their leadership is worse than doing nothing. A dog would make a better ceo.