The big picture: Despite a launch surrounded by several notable problems, just over five percent of PC users have now installed Windows 11. To help boost the install base, Microsoft reportedly employed the rather unconventional method of force-installing the PC Health Check on Windows 10 devices.

AdDuplex, the largest cross-promotion network for Windows Store apps and games, surveyed around 60,000 systems running either Windows 10 or 11. Following the October release, the study showed the latest Windows revamp had reached 4.8 percent of "modern PCs." Windows Insiders running beta versions of Windows 11 accounted for the remaining 0.3 percent of the user base, thus driving the overall figure to 5.1 percent.

The survey also shows that most systems are still running various versions of Windows 11's predecessor. The Windows 10 M21U (21H1) build is found on 37.6 percent of PCs, while Windows 10 O20U (20H2) is installed on 34 percent of systems. Overall, over 90 percent of Windows 10/11 PCs are now on 2020-2021 versions of the OS.

Aiding the adoption rate of Windows 11 is Microsoft's recent rollout of the operating system to older devices. The Redmond giant predominately offered the initial launch to newer PCs last month.

"The availability of Windows 11 has been increased and we are leveraging our latest generation machine learning model to offer the upgrade to an expanded set of eligible devices," the tech giant detailed. "We will continue to train our machine learning model throughout the phased rollout to deliver a smooth upgrade experience."

Additionally, Microsoft has begun force-installing the PC Health Check application on devices with Windows 10. The tool assesses if a system is eligible to upgrade to Windows 11, but BleepingComputer notes that users have reported their computers reinstalling the app, despite uninstalling it several times.

In any case, the upcoming 21H2 version of Windows 10 that releases this month should give us a better idea of how many users are willing to migrate to Windows 11.

While the adoption rate for Windows 11 is gaining some momentum, controversial system requirements may ultimately impact that progress moving forward. In particular, Microsoft's decision to integrate the need for TPM 2.0 has been met with a harsh reception. However, users can bypass it in a few minutes. And when there's a will, there's a way: an enthusiast recently managed to run Windows 11 on a single-core Intel Pentium 4 chip from 15 years ago.

Image credit: AdDuplex