Despite having launched in 2021, adoption of Windows 11 has been somewhat slow-going, with Microsoft's latest desktop OS only overtaking Windows 10 nearly four years after launch and only reaching 1 billion users in 2026. If Valve's Steam Hardware and Software survey is anything to go by, it looks as though Windows 11 adoption has continued to grow in recent months. The survey results for May 2026 point to a 2.02% increase in the number of PC gamers on Windows 11, with Windows 10 losing 1.64% and Linux losing 0.53%, despite Valve's ongoing work on SteamOS and the never-ending proclamations of "the year of the Linux desktop."

Overall, however, these changes have barely moved the needle, with Windows gaining 0.38% of Steam's user share, and macOS gaining 0.15%. It's worth noting that English-language users are somewhat overrepresented in this particular Steam Survey, with 2.71% more English users than in the previous survey. These sorts of biases have previously skewed results, as certain groups may have status quo biases that play into their choice of operating system and hardware. The rest of the Steam Hardware and Software Survey results are more or less business as usual, with 16 GB of RAM and 1080p monitor resolution continuing to be the standard, although the latter has lost a negligible amount of market share. The same is true for GPUs, where the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 continues to be the most popular GPU on Steam. It appears as though the fix for Steam's recent faulty detection of Radeon GPUs has been released out of beta, though, as the survey reports that the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT has gained 1.24%.