Windows 10 Now Runs On 270 Million Monthly Active Devices

At its developer conference, Build 2016, Microsoft announced on Wednesday that Windows 10, the latest version of its desktop version which it released on July 29 last year, is now being used on over 270 million active computers worldwide. "Windows 10 is off to the fastest adoption of any release ever," said Terry Myerson, executive vice president for Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group. The company also announced that it will be releasing Windows 10 Anniversary Update this summer for all Windows 10 users free of charge.

Comments

Windows 10 Forced Onto 270 Million Devices

[Anonymous Coward]

FTFY. I can't wait to see what "Windows 10 Anniversary Update" is, but I bet it's nasty!

Re:Windows 10 Forced Onto 270 Million Devices

[The Real Dr John]

Forced updates that also force the upgrade to Windows 10 are a great way to boost adoption rates. Also a great way to destroy what infinitesimal amount of good will and reputation you have left Microsoft. I put the emphasis on infinitesimal.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

All my computers still run Windows 7 and are protected with GWX Control Panel. One of the major consequences of MS forcing updates and upgrades on people is that people who still have Windows 7 have all shut off automatic updates. Good going MS. Apple sales and Linux converts will continue to grow.

PT Barnum was right

[BarbaraHudson]

There's a sucker born every minute. People who believe this is a free gift never heard of a Trojan Horse, and the people following the cheerleaders never heard of a Judas Goat.

Re:PT Barnum was right

[kheldan]

No kidding. To call this the 'fastest adoption of any release ever' is about as valid (and laughable) as some authoritarian dictatorship holding 'free elections' where there's only one candidate, and you're detained if you don't go and vote for him, then claiming a 'landslide victory' with 'record voter turnout'. It's a sham, it's a joke, it's a complete fabrication, it's utter bullshit, and it means NOTHING.

Re:PT Barnum was right

[Penguinisto]

I think it's funny that in spite of all the nagging, trickery, and even (in some cases) forced installs of the damned thing, they only got 270m devices to actually do it out of what, billions globally?

Re:PT Barnum was right

[hoggoth]

Are you f'ing kidding? Right now I am looking at that damn 'UPGRADE TO WINDOWS 10' popup on all three of my computers. I've gone into the registry to remove it but it keeps coming back. Several times a day this thing interrupts my work. I dread accidentally clicking the wrong button and having Windows 10 force-fed down a feeding tube onto my computer Guantanamo style.

Re:PT Barnum was right

[bluefoxlucid]

Fewer support calls from development shops trying to make stuff work with 6 versions of Windows. Faster deprecation path for Windows 7 and 8. Broader access to the App Store. The ability to just make IE12 work with Windows 10 and tell everyone else Windows 8.1 doesn't support the new Web standards and may fuck up with your Web application.

Ubuntu has two active LTS and a third lagging behind every other year; they have a 9 month support cycle for the 6 month release. That means you get 5 years to update an LTS, and 3 months to update anything else. They only ever have a maximum of three LTS and two non-LTS to support, and a minimum of two and one; there's always a three-month span of time where any and all resources devoted to supporting an old release are reassigned to working on a new release, and there's a one-year span of time where any and all resources devoted to supporting a new LTS are directed toward the next *two* releases (a lead-up and an LTS).

Do you think Microsoft wants to support Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 2008r2 server, Windows 2012, and Windows 2015 for the next 15 years? Do you think they want to backport the app store and Windows Container Services, or get called out for heavily advertising these features while 80% of their OS products don't actually support them?

If I were Microsoft, I'd be pushing for a consolidated platform with a Windows core (2015, 2018, etc.) running a Windows desktop (Windows 10) or a Windows server (Windows Server 2015) application suite. There would be one system with one set of core services and libraries; and there would be applications available on each type of installation. If you write it for Windows 10 Desktop, it runs on Windows 10 Server; if you want to use local AD or HyperV and that's a Server feature, maybe it doesn't run on Windows 10 Desktop. Either way, what you're talking about is software, and not potential compatibility issues between operating systems.

I'd also have a campaign to compact my profile to two core releases. I don't want to support 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2018 software while I'm releasing 2020 software.

If that means getting my users to upgrade to the latest and greatest for free, then so be it. The cost savings for getting all these people moved up will offset the lost profits, especially when you consider none of these people were ever going to get Windows 10 until they got new machines--which they're going to do at likely the same pace anyway. The actual lost income from giving the damn OS away is going to be fractional, possibly too small to measure, and the total cost is only going to amount to the bandwidth.

Did you think it would cost MS anything? Sometimes a free gift really is free: the person giving it to you has absolutely nothing to gain by withholding it, and nothing to lose by giving it. It may or may not have actually cost them anything; it might have cost them a lot and turned out both useless and impossible to resell. We like to think of things in terms of us getting stuff, and not in terms of what the other guy is losing or gaining from it; so of course one man's garbage becomes another man's treasure.

Re:PT Barnum was right

[kheldan]

I'll be honest with you: If they weren't actively installing spyware along with their gods-be-damned OS, I'd probably just scratch my head at the rest of their antics and move on. But that's what they're doing: They're actively spying on users, taking control of their computers, forcing updates, and generally disregarding the private ownership rights of end users. THAT IS THE PROBLEM: Taking away CHOICE. I don't CARE what their reasons are, I don't want anyone taking away my right to choose. Luckily I have choice, still: I can run something other than Windows. Of course the news we see lately also points towards Microsoft infiltrating the FOSS community to annex and subvert Linux as well. Microsoft wants to own ALL computers and have NO other choices that they don't directly control. THEY CAN GO TO HELL. I'd rather have NO computing devices at ALL than have anything forced on me.

Re:PT Barnum was right

[DNS-and-BIND]

Dear Microsoft Social Media representative: you hit all the right talking points, but you left out the issue of consent. All of these issues are from Microsoft's point of view. They make MS's life easier. What about us, the people who actually use the damn things? Did you assholes even bother to ask us what we wanted?

If you're not a paid shill, you should be. You write well, hit all the main points, and are shockingly pro-Microsoft. They're a horrid evil corporation that spies on its users, WTF? Why would anyone do this in their spare time?

Re:PT Barnum was right

[Kjella]

You can wrap it any way you will, but either you're stuck supporting old cruft or you stop supporting it and break existing apps that rely on that cruft. Linux distros do this quite a lot, every release they ship a new set of applications and what used to work for you last release in KDE3 now doesn't work - or at least the same way - in KDE4. Both are supported but they didn't promise to take you from A to B in a smooth ride with no regressions. That's why we have releases in the first place and don't go on an eternal rollercoaster of rolling changes. That's why we have LTS releases even though every upgrade is free.

Win10 has pretty much said fuck that, we're strapping you in and you're coming with us where Microsoft wants to go. They make UI changes you don't like? Tough. They break some of your existing software? Tough. There's no staying behind, no picking and choosing unless you pay extra and even then in a very limited fashion unless you're an enterprise. Forget having legacy software that continues to work, anything without a running support agreement you're likely to be fucked by Win10 sooner or later.

It seems you really don't get it, why am I holding on to my Win7 install when the upgrade is free? Same reason I might not want to upgrade from an LTS release, it's about predictability. I know that for about four years more my desktop will stay just the way it is. If I upgrade, I have no idea where Win10.x will be in 2020. I know Microsoft doesn't care about that. Or rather, I know Microsoft wants to get rid of that so the next time they pull a Win8 you're along for the ride whether you want to or not. It's not a free gift, it's a free trojan horse.

Re: PT Barnum was right

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Setting the update system to auto-install security fixes is a reasonable default for the average computer user who doesn't know (or want to know) any better and just wants their computer to work.

Shoving out non-security updates under the security update label is a horrible breach of trust and a line they should never have crossed. Pushing an entire new OS as an update that would be automatically installed by default isn't far behind in the scummy moves list.

Re:PT Barnum was right

[Zontar The Mindless]

A few thoughts of my own:

1, 2, 3: I own and operate my work computer. I'm surely not the only one.

4: Hoggoth said nothing about not liking Windows. Hoggoth said he didn't want to be upgraded to Windows 10 from a previous version of Windows against his wishes. Again, not the same thing.

5: That may well be, but that issue is completely orthogonal to this discussion.

6: Again, completely orthogonal to the current discussion. Neither Hoggoth nor anyone else I'm aware of has claimed that they were forced by Microsoft to install Windows 10 over a completely different operating system such as Linux or Mac OS X.

Why you are so anxious to defend Microsoft's upgrade trickery while vilifying users is anybody's guess. But I can make a couple of good ones.

Read between the lines?

[Nidi62]

The company also announced that it will be releasing Windows 10 Anniversary Update this summer for all Windows 10 users free of charge.

Which of course not so subtly implies there is a possibility that future updates will not be free of charge....

Adoption?

[KlomDark]

That's some double-speak right there. Not like people had to put down money for it.

This is more like waking up in the morning to find an abandoned baby on your front porch. Wouldn't call that adoption.

....Free?

[duke_cheetah2003]

The company also announced that it will be releasing Windows 10 Anniversary Update this summer for all Windows 10 users free of charge.

Why does this statement make me nervous...? It really hints at the possibility that updates will not be free at some point in the future...

Re:Linux isn't any better. Look at systemd.

[MitchDev]

Linux users CHOOSE to use Linux and CHOOSE which updates to install.

Re:Linux isn't any better. Look at systemd.

[Immerman]

It's only hypocritical if you're also implying that Linux is considerably better. You can be perfectly consistent and point out that ALL OS distributors doing such things suck, or even ignoring the competition entirely because you just don't care about anything except Windows. "This Microsoft maneuver sucks" in no way implies that anybody else is better, any more than "this politician is corrupt" implies that any of their peers are honest.

That said, I've heard of comparatively few recent problems with clean installs of systemd based distros. And I'm not at all surprised that trying to shoehorn it into an in-place upgrade causes problems for so many people. System and infrastructure initialization has always been a bit finicky on Linux, trying to replace it on a live system brings to mind completely replacing the foundation of a house while you're living in it - no matter how good the new foundation, you're likely to have issues.

Then there's the fact that systemd is still rather immature - the old startup and infrastructure modules took HOW many years of tinkering to get as stable as they are? So there's bound to be corner cases not yet properly handled by SD. Still, I can understand the motivation to adopt it - maintaining and updating that web of crusty old support structure is a huge draw on precious manpower, by switching to SD they essentially outsource most of that work to a centralized project where the workload and benefits can be shared by all. Yes, it would absolutely be nicer for us users if they had waited until systemd were fully mature to make the switch - but it's like buying an X.0 version of any program. or a new version of Windows in the first couple of years: it's going to have issues that can only be found and fixed with the benefit of widespread adoption and testing. Sucks for users who get stuck as "beta testers" during the maturation pains, but almost everyone benefits in the long run. And there's a chicken and egg problem as well: if the big distros wait too long to adopt it they risk it losing steam, and then they'll be stuck maintaining the old, crusty, increasingly overtaxed labyrinths themselves indefinitely. Could someone have made a better alternative to systemd? Absolutely! But the key point is that nobody did. Or at least nobody else succeeded in building enough momentum to become a credible option.

Well, there's my troll-chow ration for the month all used up. Good thing it's almost April.