Windows 10 Is Now The Most Popular PC Gaming OS

Since Microsoft started offering free upgrades to Windows 10 last year, a lot of people have been upgrading. Sure, there are plenty of people that are still holding onto their beloved Windows 7 installations, but that number continues to dwindle. So just how popular is the latest version of Windows? Well it's now the most-commonly used OS, at least for playing games.

Every month, Steam conducts a survey to see what users have running in and on their machines. The information is published every month, so that you can see the current trends. Windows 7 64-bit has held the top OS crown for quite some time now. But for the first time, Windows 10 64-bit has edged it out, appearing on nearly 37% of all systems surveyed.

This is probably the fastest adoption of any operating system that I've seen. The reason for the adoption rate is pretty easy to speculate. Since it's a free upgrade, it's far easier for people to justify it. Plus, for gamers, there's the appeal of access to DirectX 12. Granted, there aren't a lot of games that support it yet, but since the free upgrade option has an expiration date, gamers may want to go ahead and jump on it, to make sure that they get access to all of the DX12 features, when more games do arrive.

If you've thought about upgrading your machine to Windows 10, and aren't sure how to do it, just make sure you have automatic updates turned on. Microsoft will then pester you with notifications until you finally update your machine, just to make them stop.