Windows 10 Now on 600 Million Active Devices (geekwire.com)

Windows 10 has found its way onto 600 million active devices, says CEO Satya Nadella. From a report: CEO Satya Nadella referenced the new number for the first time moments ago at the company's annual shareholders meeting. The number is up from the 500 million devices touted by Microsoft earlier this year, but it's still well short of the company's original goal of 1 billion Windows 10 devices within two to three years of its 2015 release.

Comments

And they still haven't gotten a clue

[ilsaloving]

And the most important thing to remember is that if people had the choice of installing Windows 7 on new machines, the Win10 numbers wouldn't even be THAT high.

The only reason people are installing Windows 10 is because they have no choice. Not only is it not that particularly compelling, but there are so many downsides, that people are actively resisting using it.

I know I won't allow it at our company until we've implemented a full deployment plan including blocking all of Microsoft telemetry IP addresses, and set up a WSUS server with a VERY conservative update schedule. Microsoft has fucked up SO many updates, SO regularly, that they cannot be trusted. This probably also means we'll be forced to subscribe to their Windows 10 Enterprise nonsense since they removed so much of the GPO functionality from Pro.

windows 10 ...

[b0s0z0ku]

Is not a bad OS... but stop nudging me, Microsoft.

I want a local account with locally-saved password, not one that's tied to a Microsoft account. Yes, it can be done, but the amount of nudging to get me to create a cloud account is infuriating. I don't want my settings in the cloud, and to give you power to change them. My computer is mine -- I don't want to be on a worldwide AD domain. Nor do I want WiFi passwords "cared and shared" with the world.

I want UX updates when I request them, not when you think I should have them.

I want one switch to turn off all telemetry. It's not that difficult to set a flag that all parts of your OS would respect.

I don't want to be nudged into using cloud storage when I can be saving and backing up locally. Oh, and I want ad-free, unpaid Solitaire back already :)

Windows 10 is a good, relatively-stable OS that's also a monetization platform -- it makes me feel like my device doesn't belong to me.

Re:windows 10 ...

[b0s0z0ku]

Of course there are, but having to resort to them to do something that should exist out of the box is ridiculous.

Re:Had to give it away

[Dutch Gun]

Windows 10 is not free now, and in fact was never really free. It was a free upgrade only for already-paid-for versions of Windows, and that offer has long since expired. If you want to install it today on a new machine, it will cost you $120-$200. Buying a Windows license doesn't give you a perpetual lifetime license either. It only gives you a license for the lifetime of your machine.

Microsoft probably realized that the vast majority of people buy a machine and never upgrade Windows. So, they just changed their business model to better fit this reality, and at the same time, made things easier on themselves by ensuring they're only supporting one OS version going forward.

I'm always a bit surprised by the "Windows is free" mantra. Microsoft only eliminated paid updates, which I suspect wasn't a huge money-maker anyhow, and will likely be partially offset by reduced maintenance costs. With those numbers, assuming only half those are desktop PCs, and even with an average of once a decade machine replacement, Microsoft is still likely grossing several billion a year on new license fees alone..