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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.

77 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Good leadership at the helm... by rwven · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It can't be understated how good of a job MS has done with Win10 and the company's direction as a whole in the past few years. Placing Nadella at the helm, and getting rid of Balmer has been a real boon to the company. I know this probably makes me sound like a MS shill, but having spent multiple years in the Linux desktop scene, macOS, and windows, the current windows OS is by far the best OS I've ever used.

    While the target of 1B devices might be a little bit of a pipe dream, they still have another year to hit their goal, and if they don't, it's not like it's even remotely a failure.

    I still can't deny that Ubuntu 17.10 is very tempting though...

    1. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I have to agree. I'm writing this on a Surface Pro running Windows 10. It's a great OS running on a sweet machine.

    2. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yeah, the management of Herpes has also done a good job, it's not active on 3 billion humans...

    3. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by rwven · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No, it's not embarrassing. They make a better desktop OS than Apple or any Linux desktop at the moment. I don't even view that as an "opinion." Having spent loads of time in all of them, it's just the current state of affairs.

      Maybe if Apple gets their collective heads out of their rears, or if a Linux distro finally decides what it wants to be, that might change.

    4. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by cmaurand · · Score: 1

      It's starting to look more like a MAC. It's now baked into the BIOS on Lenovo and Dell machines. It's still a security nightmare. It does not play nice with Office 2010 or Office 2013 or Office 2016. It now drives advertising at me via the start menu. It's unstable (Don't try to run a workstation for more than week without a reboot -- Linux isn't much better these days since systemctl came about). It frequently eats it's own files. And all the security they added to it, didn't solve the problems that they needed to solve.

    5. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As far as price/utility, Ubuntu 17 is pretty good. It's free. It doesn't send my personal data outside my machine by default. It doesn't try to nudge me to use Microsoft's (or anyone else's) servers for storage of personal info.

      And it comes with a decent (OK, not great) office suite, graphic edition, media software, etc, etc built in. What's really missing is an Outlook equivalent, but with web-based email solutions, this is less relevant. (Strictly for email, I connect Thunderbird to the uni Exchange servers.)

    6. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No, it isn't. Windows 10 stinks, is still slow as fuck, and you can't do simple things (like backing up) easily. Installing software is a nightmare, but of course you are rewarded with not being able to even move an app post install. There is no coherency, with settings shat seemingly at random over different places. It has a moronic welcome screen "Hi..." every time it updates, and the differential between home/pro/ultimate still makes no sesne (why would home users want encryption or to run VMs). The list of installed apps after you've put on some of the usual shit makes no real sense (did I really want VS2013 runtime and can I unstall it?) and you don't really know how to configure it to your liking (since you can't disable some features at all). It's also expensive and uncool. Perhaps this is because of the massive number of untalented hacks all spunking off into the Microsoft codebase, whilst a badly managed corporate behemoth clings on to the sheer momentum which is about the only thing notable about it.

      Apart from that it's absolutely fucking wonderful.

    7. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      I'd leave M$ on the desktop in a heartbeat if my apps would work elsewhere in a reasonable fashion, and the laptop I take into the field runs Mint, but I nevertheless agree with you, especially about getting the heck rid of Balmer. And I have to admit other than persistently nagging me to use Cortana and Edge, (which I now understand can be turned off) Windows 10 isn't all that bad. Microsoft is (at least at the moment) acting like a company that realize that a balance must be maintained between the annoyance of using Windows and the cost of switching to something else. If that's the outcome of Nadella's leadership, good on him.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    8. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by roc97007 · · Score: 2

      Not everyone who tolerates Windows 10 is a corporate shill. For one thing, for anyone who has suffered through Windows 8.X, Windows 10 seems comparatively like the sound of angels, the taste of an expertly made macchiato and the feeling of deep carpeting beneath your feet. That's not shilling, that's just a tremendous feeling of relief.

      Moreover, there's still some of us who's essential apps still run on Windows, and won't run well under Wine, at least not yet, and running individual apps in Virtualbox (a) is clumsy, and (b) doesn't actually achieve the goal of getting rid of Windows.

      So praising M$ for Windows 10, which is actually solid and reliable and not too obnoxious to use like XP used to be, can be said by someone who doesn't have SJ branded on their forehead. Really.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    9. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by rwven · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sounds like you're quoting a bunch of ignorant drivel from the Vista days...

      - It's extremely fast. It cold boots for me in 5 seconds after posting is complete. I'd also like to see your competing system run graphics intensive tasks using the latest and greatest graphics hardware and even have a chance of competing. "Slow" is about the stupidest and most ignorant claim about Windows 10 that I've ever heard.
      - Installing software is a nightmare? I guess clicking an icon and clicking "Next" is too complex for some people... Definitely SO much harder than mounting a virtual drive on your machine, extracting an app from it, dragging that app to an arbitrary folder (or running an installer), and then unmounting the drive.
      - "I can't move an app after I install it!" is a fake complaint and probably identifies you as an angry mac user. You never move an app after you install it anyway, and don't lie and pretend you do. They sit right in the Applications folder the way they always have. That's not an issue.
      - Are you really complaining that there's a welcome screen after major OS updates that says "Hi!"? Apple plays a frigging theme video after their major OS updates, and Linux often just indiscriminately breaks or uninstalls half the crap you had installed.
      - The "List of installed apps" is only confusing if you're a toddler. It's an alphabetized list of your installed apps. If that doesn't make sense to you, then you very well may be beyond help. Compare that with a mac, and you end up with garbage files spewed all over your Library that you know nothing about, and are effectively there forever, even if you decide to get rid of the application itself. Even most linux distros do a better job of keeping track of the mess they makes.
      - Windows was free for me, five times over, and whether or not something is "cool" is irrelevant to how good it is at its job. Skateboards are cool. They also suck as cross country vehicles.

    10. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 2

      Not everyone who tolerates Windows 10 is a corporate shill. For one thing, for anyone who has suffered through Windows 8.X, Windows 10 seems comparatively like the sound of angels, the taste of an expertly made macchiato and the feeling of deep carpeting beneath your feet.

      The parts that sucked about Windows 8.x:
      -Non-coherent control panel menus that are half "Metro" style, half Standard Desktop style (fixable with Classic shell, though it shouldn't be required)
      -Full screen start menu with annoying smart tiles, and no tree view of the start menu. Search and completely flat only.

      Windows 10:
      -Same identity crisis control panels
      -Mini version of the same smart tile start menu, with no tree view

      Addition of:
      -Forced updates with automatic restart.
      -Forced upgrades that are somewhere between a service pack and a whole new version, that can break shit.
      -Telemetry.

    11. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

      ... It can't be understated how good of a job MS has done with Win10 and the company's direction as a whole in the past few years. ...

      Yeah, MS came out with an operating system that so few wanted, they tried to give it away. And when that didn't work, they tried to trick customers into installing it. Good Job!

    12. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

      ...While the target of 1B devices might be a little bit of a pipe dream...

      And the back-pedalling begins.

    13. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Well I got to admit that Microsoft has for once been in tune with the times, with the cloud and Facebook and all that it's proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the average user doesn't care that he's being spied on. On mobile phones Android has 85% market share and most of those are loaded with services from Google who is the mother of all data mining companies. Not sure why I thought maybe this time it would be different when they didn't leave over Vista or Win8. I've been forced to upgrade my gaming computer to Win10 to play with my friends, the OS itself is stable and working great. I'd like a box with three features:

      1. It runs Windows applications.
      2. It gets security updates.
      3. There are no other "features".

      Basically I'd pay for an Enterprise LTSB license without the "Enterpricy" bits, like no joining a domain seems to be main home/pro differentiation. Even if I wanted to pay for it now, I couldn't without a volume license agreement. Right now my gaming PC is heading for a future as a Wintendo, unless Microsoft pulls a rabbit out of the hat. Everything else will stay on Win7 for as long as it can and then go Linux, I guess. Like you say, they've been way too successful to turn back now...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    14. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It cold boots for me in 5 seconds after POST'ing

      That was not a cold boot you mooran, Win 10 just hibernates then when you push the power button again, it just loads everything from RAM. Heck my WinNT and Win2K can do that too. Once my Win2K hibernates, I can just tap the mouse trackpad and the OS loads in just 1 second. So your 5 seconds with Win10 is still slower with my 1 second on an old OS.

    15. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      Once my Win2K hibernates, I can just tap the mouse trackpad and the OS loads in just 1 second.

      That isn't hibernation. It's standby.

      If you don't understand the difference, disconnect the power cord/battery and reconnect. Hibernate will boot in the same time, standby will not.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    16. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by Thanatiel · · Score: 1

      Fast ?

      When I was so fed up with Windows 10 and its long list of annoyances (the final one being preventing me accessing every directory on my filesystem, settings the rights back as soon as I specifically set them so I could see their content) I decided to give up playing with a couple hundred games that would not work in Linux ... yet (mostly the 'AAA' ones). It's not like I've much time to play anyway.

      The backup of my disks (a few terabytes) took about 5 days. Just initializing it took the better part of an hour.
      5 Days later, I switched to an Arch (a systemd-free version) and restoring the data took less than one hour.

      Fast ...

      --
      Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
    17. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      What really pisses me off with Windows 10 is its self importance. I play a full screen game and suddenly the game disappears and Windows informs me that I have to choose a time for a restart because some update was installed in the background. I generally hate applications that steal the focus, but this shit goes even beyond that.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    18. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      So, in short, 2024 will be the year of the Windows desktop?

      Not for me, I don't game as I already have a life (and don't need a half-life), so I am sticking with Linux.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    19. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by Wulf2k · · Score: 1

      "It's extremely fast."

      Sure, it can show you icons extremely quickly, but that doesn't mean it's ready to do anything.

      My Win10 machine pegs the disk at 100% for the first 5 minutes after every boot. If I make the mistake of actually trying to open Visual Studio during that time it can take up to 15 minutes to become responsive.

      I honestly haven't seen anything quite like it since the LOAD "*",8,1 days.

    20. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      What really pisses me off with Windows 10 is its self importance. I play a full screen game and suddenly the game disappears and Windows informs me that I have to choose a time for a restart because some update was installed in the background. I generally hate applications that steal the focus, but this shit goes even beyond that.

      Not only that, but don't you notice your game lagging while the update is being downloaded, a process over which you have little control?

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    21. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      So constant telemetry back to Microsoft and forced updates and reboots aren't that bad? Both used to be considered flat-out bugs, often unacceptable ones. This is some grade A astroturfing.

    22. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by jez9999 · · Score: 2

      It reboots uncontrollably.

      It spews telemetry out over the internet.

      Both are unacceptable.

    23. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      I have a 8 core Xeon CPU and a shitload of RAM in my computer (have cannibalised an old server) so there is no lag.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    24. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by Shogun37 · · Score: 1

      Saying Nadella is better than Balmer is saying that being strangled slowly is better than being set on fire. Neither one is good, it just takes longer for the bad aspects to out themselves. Windows 10 itself isn't bad, but the baked-in spyware means it isn't coming near my systems. Windows 7 is working just fine, for now. When it doesn't, there are plenty of linux distros that will.

    25. Re:Good leadership at the helm... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      You know, I have worked on OSes that didn't decide to take over my computer for hours to install updates I hadn't asked for and then hanging so I couldn't just let the blasted thing update itself overnight. But, then, I'm one of those rare people who actually wants to use his computer to do something with rather than run crappy updates. I've also worked with OSes that could actually keep a wireless connection up without needing to be rebooted now and then when it decided to go down. I've even worked on OSes that didn't hang for minutes while not showing any app or process showing excess use on the Resource Monitor.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  2. Had to give it away by Revek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When that didn't work they forced it on you.

    1. Re:Had to give it away by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      Yep, the malware distribution model, courtesy of a major US corepiration.

    2. Re:Had to give it away by DickBreath · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Windows 10 is free.
      Not free as in freedom.
      Not primarily free as in beer.
      But mostly free as in herpes.

      How is this malware running on 600 million machines?

      Did the recently announced Microsoft Sets look like Windows will become another Chromebook?

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    3. Re:Had to give it away by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Informative

      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..

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    4. Re:Had to give it away by Revek · · Score: 1

      Same truth.

    5. Re:Had to give it away by Revek · · Score: 1

      I'm glad you got paid for all that work.

  3. And they still haven't gotten a clue by ilsaloving · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      Which Linux distro(s) will frequently and automatically try to install the sorts of malware you described during their normal update process?

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    2. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Exactly.

      Just let me *gasp* buy a valid Windows 7 key for $20 each (I don't even need a stupid USB nor DVD) and I'll immediately buy 6 copies just so I can stop with the shenanigans of deleting the WPA registry setting just to run indefinitely on my spare machines and VMs.

      1. Reboot - Repair - Command Line
      reg load HKLM\MY_SYSTEM "\Windows\System32\config\system"
      reg delete HKLM\MY_SYSTEM\WPA /f
      reg unload HKLM\MY_SYSTEM

      2. Reboot
      slmgr /upk
      slmgr /cpky
      slmgr /ipk HYF8J-CVRMY-CM74G-RPHKF-PW487

    3. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      ;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.

      Windows 10 has full downgrade rights. The last few PCs we bought came with Windows 7 preinstalled. It had a Windows 10 key downgraded to Windows 7.

      It was an option, I believe Microsoft killed it in 2017, but you can still downgrade - OEMs just cannot ship Windows 7 machines preinstalled.

      Just let me *gasp* buy a valid Windows 7 key for $20 each (I don't even need a stupid USB nor DVD) and I'll immediately buy 6 copies just so I can stop with the shenanigans of deleting the WPA registry setting just to run indefinitely on my spare machines and VMs.

      Don't know where you get off dictating the price, but there are still new old stock ocpies of windows 7 retail out there, and windows 10 has downgrade rights

    4. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by UnixUnix · · Score: 1

      That's a good company approach. As for personal use, to the extent one still needs Windows, Win7 laptops are inexpensive nowadays and quite serviceable if you up the hardware. They typically have 4Gig of RAM, make that 8Gig, add storage and they are good to go for the foreseeable future. I have two of them. Some refurbishers have caught on and are doing it already.

    5. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by Woldscum · · Score: 1

      Exactly.

      Just let me *gasp* buy a valid Windows 7 key for $20 each (I don't even need a stupid USB nor DVD) and I'll immediately buy 6 copies just so I can stop with the shenanigans of deleting the WPA registry setting just to run indefinitely on my spare machines and VMs.

      1. Reboot - Repair - Command Line
      reg load HKLM\MY_SYSTEM "\Windows\System32\config\system"
      reg delete HKLM\MY_SYSTEM\WPA /f
      reg unload HKLM\MY_SYSTEM

      2. Reboot
      slmgr /upk
      slmgr /cpky
      slmgr /ipk HYF8J-CVRMY-CM74G-RPHKF-PW487

      Look on Kinguin. Win 7 pro is $25 and win 10 pro is $30. I bought a dozon or so keys there. Just use the 1-800 # to activate.

    6. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by danomac · · Score: 1

      It's probably a good idea to use Windows 10 LTSB if you can...

    7. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by guacamole · · Score: 1

      Windows 10 has full downgrade rights.

      Absolutely not. Certain OEMs have chosen to include a Windows 7 license on their new Windows 10 desktops. This was done by including some kind of a valid Windows 7 key in the BIOS or by other means. But Windows 10 by itself does not give you any downgrade rights.

    8. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by Darkling-MHCN · · Score: 2

      So if you're that worried about telemetry, do you block Google analytics and Facebook?

      And have you done any research at all into how to disable Windows 10 telemetry, or what that telemetry is doing and whether it might actually be beneficial?

      To me you sound like you're letting your own personal biases get in the way of doing your job properly.

    9. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      They've rolled out updates which report data back to Google

      The first one you mentioned was literally the only example I could think of, and obviously it was controversial and much criticised. What have they done that sends stuff to Google?

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    10. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Let me guess... you didn't even read your own links, did you?

      Your link to "disable Windows 10 telemetry" is actually not what it says in the label... what it says in the label is "disable telemetry for Service Management Automation, Service Provider Foundation, and Service Manager Self-Serve Portal", which is not exactly the same thing.

      On your second link, go to "Telemetry levels" and notice that there are 4 levels (from less snitch to more snitch): Security, Basic, Enhanced, Full. Notice that there isn't a "None" level. Also, notice that the lowest level ("Security") is not enabled for most versions of Windows 10.

      It's clear who has a bias here...

    11. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      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.

      You're talking like a geek. What is actually important to remember is that people don't give a shit what OS is on their machine and will run with whatever works / what comes with their device.

    12. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by PingSpike · · Score: 1

      Also, what about Hitler? Think about Hitler and all the bad stuff he did for a minute. Can you really complain about Microsoft data mining when Hitler?

      I rest my case.

    13. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by Miser · · Score: 1

      ... and that's why we won't be upgrading to W10 until absolutely needed. All that extra $ for Win10 Enterprise to be able to control it how we want to, not at Microsofts whims. The powers that be here really do not like being controlled by other companies, so it's going to be interesting. Microsoft will bend to us, not the other way around or we'll search for alternatives. Seriously.

    14. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the link to https://www.kinguin.net/ !

    15. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      Even if they did, that still won't necessarily help you because Microsoft cripples Windows 7 if you use it on a processor >= Kaby Lake or Ryzen. And there is hardware now where there arn't even drivers available for Windows 7.

      They're basically trying to pull an Apple, but as usual they botch up the whole thing and end up making it look so bad that Apple actually looks reasonable by comparison.

    16. Re:And they still haven't gotten a clue by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      That argument is stupid and you know it.

      No one is forced to use Google. No one is forced to use Facebook. If I did block access to them, then it wouldn't hurt anyone or hinder anyone from doing their jobs.

      Further, if Google or Facebook botches an update, no one cares, because they are not essential.

      Windows is a locked in requirement of doing business. You don't have a *choice* but to use Windows. That puts it in a completely different league. As a system administrator, I both have control of, and more importantly, and *responsible* for the machines under my control. Microsoft wants to take my control away, but they refuse to take responsibility. Almost every major update they've put out has hosed countless machines across the world. They took out most of Europe due to a bad DHCP update, for example. We had a pilot of Windows 10 laptops, and their Anniversary update trashed *all* of them, requiring us to revert and/or reimage them.

      They want to do all that telemetry crap, consuming our bandwidth, but we derive zero benefit from this. Furthermore, they have already been slapped in Europe for the obscene amount of unnecessary data that they collect, which is completely counter to their protestations.

      Between the two of us, it's clear that YOU are the one who hasn't done enough research on the issue.

  4. Active or activated? by OffTheLip · · Score: 1

    I installed Win10 in a VM to test it and didn't like it. Does that count?

    1. Re:Active or activated? by donaldm · · Score: 1

      I installed Win10 in a VM to test it and didn't like it. Does that count?

      I did the same thing and after confirming (with Wireshark) that Windows 10 loves to phone home even though I told it not to, I shut it down and have not used it since and that was over a year ago. I haven't missed it but then again I really have not used MS Windows seriously for over ten years.

      --
      There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
  5. What type of devices? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Xbox One, Windows Phone, Surface, various 3rd party tablets and netbooks, laptops, servers and virtual machines, IoT devices, Raspberry Pi...

    That increases the numbers beyond what we would think of as a traditional Windows 10 application environment. It doesn't mean we can easily target those 600M active devices in any meaningful way.

    https://winblogs.azureedge.net...

    Microsoft loves to throw this graphic around but they're delusional if they think it's that simple.

  6. 34 million of them are currently updating by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And 34 million of them are currently locked on a forced update in the middle of the workday. Thank you Jesu^b^b^bMicrosoft!

    1. Re:34 million of them are currently updating by darkain · · Score: 1

      This problem has long since been fixed: https://www.google.com/search?...

    2. Re:34 million of them are currently updating by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

      Seriously? Working hours is "the fix"? When it will still force an mid-day update after X days if the user was unlucky enough to not leave their machine on during the grace period?

      From:
      https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-restart

      "Limit restart delays - After an update is installed, Windows 10 attempts automatic restart outside of active hours. If the restart does not succeed after 7 days (by default), the user will see a notification that restart is required."

    3. Re:34 million of them are currently updating by guacamole · · Score: 1

      "Active hours" does not fix shit. Depending on day of week, I can be using my personal desktop any hour of the day. Moreover, MS active hours only allows 8 hours to be designated as active, which implies that the other 16 hours are inactive? Moreover MS has installed updated and rebooted my PC in the middle of running background tasks, like trans-coding or downloads. What a piece of junk. Did microsoft pay you a lot for this post? A free license?

    4. Re:34 million of them are currently updating by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      34 million people changed the default settings which were to update in the evening and not in the middle of the day to something that disrupts them, and then don't acknowledge the notification that the system gives them that it will happen and they have a chance to avoid it?

      Holy shit, man. Since we're over populated I think I found 34million dead weights we could eliminate. The CO2 savings alone make it worth while.

    5. Re:34 million of them are currently updating by Wulf2k · · Score: 1

      I had a streaming PC running a TwitchPlays for over a month.

      No, this is not standard usage for most people.

      Yes, it eventually rebooted without my permission.

  7. MS always say this by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2

    Even with Vista and 8 they claimed each had 'sold better than any previous Windows version'.

    Of course that will be the case given that

    1) PC shipments increase globally with time
    2) Most PC OEMs have a contract which says they must install an OS on each machine

    It's the reason Dell sold machines with FreeDos on them for a while. Their contract with MS stopped them selling machines with no OS.

    3) PC OEMs get a discount on Windows
    4) Most customers prefer Windows to any alternative OS.

    So something like Vista or 8 which was relatively unpopular sold better than something like XP, 7 or (arguably) 10 which was relatively well received. In fact you could argue that each release of Windows since 2000 has been controversial once it started coming on new machines by default. Still each one sold better than the last one.

    Still MS will continue to claim that everything is fine, regardless of whether an OS release is well received - 7 springs to mind after the disastrous Vista, or very badly received - 8 or Vista.

    It's what happens when monopolies take the fact that people have to accept what they're doing as a sign that people like what they're doing.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    1. Re:MS always say this by donaldm · · Score: 1

      4) Most customers prefer Windows to any alternative OS.

      4) Most customers don't know of any alternative OS and stick with the OS (ie. MS Windows) that is pre-installed on their PC.

      There fixed it for you.

      --
      There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
  8. windows 10 ... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:windows 10 ... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      There are third party hacks out there to disable telemetry.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    2. Re:windows 10 ... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 3, Informative

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

    3. Re:windows 10 ... by vux984 · · Score: 1

      "I want a local account with locally-saved password, not one that's tied to a Microsoft account. Yes, it can be done,"

      I just did a fresh install of the fall update on a system. It's a lot less obnoxious than it used to be. Yeah, it still steers you towards a microsoft account, but the path to not do do that is now pretty clearly marked, where before at its worst, you practically had to "fail" to connect to the microsoft cloud before it would grudgingly offer to let you use a local account.

      "Nor do I want WiFi passwords "cared and shared" with the world."

      I thought that had been killed.

      I agree with the rest of your post.

    4. Re:windows 10 ... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      That's the reason I didn't buy a Windows 8 laptop to be honest. I knew I could install Classic Shell but it irked me that I had to do that. So I kept my Windows 7 laptop.

      Actually I think Windows has a Good/Bad release strategy. I.e. it's tolerable if you skip every other release, at least post Windows 2000 which I also liked.

      Windows XP - Good
      Vista - Bad
      7 - Good
      8 - Bad
      10 - Good

      Admittedly I don't have any Windows 10 machines either. I do run an unactivated copy in Parallels VM on my Macbook though. And it's ... OK. It is to 8 what 7 was to Vista. They've toned down the most irritating stuff and it's reasonably fast.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    5. Re:windows 10 ... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Windows 10 isn't all that bad. I'd say it's about as well received as XP or 7.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    6. Re:windows 10 ... by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      Anyone who calls an OS that reboots uncontrollably for forced updates "stable" is flat-out certifiable.

  9. MS does better than Linux even when MS falls short by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    As a long time Linux user I find it pathetic how even when Microsoft falls short of their goal, they still manage to do so much better than the entire GNU/Linux community has managed to do.

    Windows Vista, Windows 8, and even Windows 10 gave the GNU/Linux community great opportunities to get some significant market share. But instead of doing that, the GNU/Linux community screwed itself over with nonsense like GNOME 3, PulseAudio, NetworkManager, systemd, and Wayland.

    The only success we've seen with the Linux kernel is when the users have absolutely no idea at all that it's there, like in embedded devices or in Android. That has nothing to do with Linux itself, though. Those embedded devices could have just as easily, and perhaps even more successfully, used NetBSD's kernel instead. Android is successful because of its apps. Even for server use we see Linux taking a beating, with there being significant movement to FreeBSD (for stability), to OpenBSD (for security), and even to Windows Server (to benefit from .NET).

    Here we have Windows 10 with almost half a billion installations, which is probably around 800 to 900 times more installations than GNU/Linux (including all distros) has on desktops or laptops. Microsoft and Windows 10 haven't failed. They've been wildly successful. If anything should be considered a failure, its the lack of GNU/Linux to capture any meaningful desktop or laptop market share.

  10. Re:totally brainwashed by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

    I addressed all of those complaints in my post as ways to improve it. As it stands, the only way I'd run it on my own machine is in a nice, padded cell, courtesy of VirtualBox.

  11. are they sure by bobmajdakjr · · Score: 1

    are they really sure and are just not counting the reinstalls insider fast ring builds do every week? i am the only pro w10 person (within reason, and not out of the box) person i know so 600mil seems high.

  12. No other choice by sanf780 · · Score: 1
    For some reason, laptops require up to date drivers. Installing Windows 7 on a brand new laptop is similar as installing an old Ubuntu distribution. It might or might not compute, and even so, you might be missing peripherals.

    The company I am working for took the plunge and is now delivering laptops with Windows 10.

  13. One...Billion...Devices by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    Next they will want devices with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!

  14. Just bought a brand new Win10 laptop by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
    It is horribly loaded with crap ware. Disk bus was at 100% thrashing the hard disk

    It is a 12 GB machine, the pagefile was 2GB. I have a 1TB hard disk. In unix/linux side my swap disk has always been twice the RAM. OK raise it, still it was too slow, disk activity 100%.

    OK find and disable one drive. Mild help, still over 90%

    Find and disable superfetch. Ding ding ding! Pay dirt. Disk started idling.

    These are not some crap ware loaded by the Vendor. IT is microsoft pushing useless things that leads to such bad user experience.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Just bought a brand new Win10 laptop by DogDude · · Score: 1

      You're wrong. You should read some more. Superfetch is pretty cool. You just have to let it index, initially.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
  15. Doesn't make sense by dreamygeek · · Score: 1

    I really don't get their policy. They let users upgrade to Windows 10 for free and then they just shut the free upgrade down. Now they say people with disabilities can upgrade to Windows 10 for free. But any other user can simple go to that link and avail this opportunity too. Why can't they just let everyone upgrade for free.

  16. Home users use mobile by Munich+Munchkin · · Score: 1

    The office worker may not have the choice but to use Windows 10 but most home users I know use mobile devices and probably couldn't tell you what O/S is running on it. It just works for what they want it to do. I have both a work Windows 10 laptop and a personal Linux Mint laptop. For leisure purposes I don't use either half as much as my tablet or mobile phone.

  17. Win10 best desktop OS says MS shill by najajomo · · Score: 1

    "It can't be understated how good of a job MS has done with Win10"

    What good job, a good job in maintain a monopoly on the desktop PC, seeing as no one has a choice in 'upgrading' to Win10 ..

    "I know this probably makes me sound like a MS shill"

    Yes ..

    "but having spent multiple years in the Linux desktop scene"

    Appeal to authority .. here it comes ...

    "the current windows OS is by far the best OS I've ever used".