Survey of 33,000 Users Finds 19% Positive on Microsoft's Windows 11 Changes

As of September 2026, six months had passed since Microsoft pledged to improve the Windows 11 experience. The survey options were clear improvement, slight improvement, no noticeable change, and actually worse, which received 6.3%, 12.6%, 43.4%, and 38.1% of votes, respectively. Clear improvement and slight improvement together accounted for about 18.9%, while no noticeable change and actually worse together accounted for about 81.5%.

During these six months, Microsoft's improvements to Windows 11 included UI adjustments, with changes to the Start menu, taskbar, and right-click menu, more customization options for users, and a shift of the UI to the WinUI3 framework. Microsoft reduced ads and marketing prompts and reduced AI entry points. Microsoft had also previously promised to optimize gaming performance and to carry out underlying optimizations benchmarked against SteamOS. Features related to performance optimization include low-latency configuration LLP, which can accelerate CPU frequency to its turbo peak within seconds to improve the performance of components such as the Start menu.