Windows 10 now on 75 million devices, says Microsoft Microsoft's corporate veep Yusuf Mehdi reports that Windows 10 is now on 75 million devices, following its general availability four weeks ago. This suggests that Windows 10 is being installed faster than any previous version. Exact figures are hard to come by, but Microsoft took around four months to sell 90 million Windows 7 …
microsoft went for enticing Windows 7 users to the store by offering the free upgrade
If by "offer" you mean "force". My mother's PC has been failing to install it for some time by the looks of it, despite none of us wanting it on there. I've since disabled Windows Updates. Right thing to do? Dunno, but if there's any problems - bam - to Linux she goes...
"Developers will have their eye on one statistic in particular, which is that Windows Store for Windows 10 "has seen 6x more app downloads per device than Windows 8"."
Over what time period? Like, ever? So in 4 weeks win 10 has manged 6 times as many downloads per user from the Store as Win 8 ever did? If so, that's extraordinary... and a little hard to believe. If it's just measuring over the last 4 weeks, then really it's not surprising,
But how many still have it installed?
How many have seen how bad it is and/or how much it spies on you and simply gone back to the previous version?
Now those figures would be really interesting.
cue El Reg stock phrase
We contacted Microsoft for a comment and as yet they have not responded.
install is not download. they could have said downloads but that would be probably in the hundreds. also remember, it is being rolled out in waves as per their other posts so in many ways, it is actually growing slower than it could if they let everybody download.
I installed it during the Tech Preview stage and then the RTM but went back to 8.1 (with a decent Start Menu - Start8) soon after as I feel it's just not ready yet and I don't like the lack of control over what's pushed to (or pulled from!) my own system.
8.1 with a Start menu and SSD is basically 7 on steroids and I don't have to look at any of the Metro stuff at all if I don't want to.
My laptop's hard drive failed here, just out of warranty natch, and I replaced it one of my 256 GB SSD's that I hadn't purposed yet. Complete eye opener on Windows 8.1. If anything was going to see W10, that would have been it as it and the tablet are only Internet connected devices now. I'm going to leave it as is. Amazing. [Win 7 HD to SSD wasn't this good.]
I installed, but after finding out I couldn't stop automatic updates, and finding Windows 10 broke things, I reverted back to Windows 8.1, which will be replaced by Linux as soon as I have time to ensure my hardware is supported, something Windows 10 didn't have! and this is a 5 month old laptop!!!
Seems easy enough. I just can't believe MS have 75 meellion installs of W10 at this point. Out of all of the people I talk to, only 1, yes one, has tried Windows 10, and he loved Windows 8 out of the box... Is it possible they are talking downloads? Multiple by the same people? Many not installed?
I have been tempted to fire up an old winbox and see what all the fuss is about. It fades before I get half way up the stairs.
"I suppose many of those 75M devices used the free upgrade option. "
Display models in stores will account for a decent chunk of proper win10 upgrades. 75m is a meaningless number without proper context. And a good many of that number will be people on the insider programme who may have at least two installs running on different devices or in VMs for testing purposes.
I'm sure I'm an edge case, but I have not less than 6 Lenovo laptops dating back to the original X1 (NOT carbon) from 2006 with Intel 3000 graphics and I've gotten Win 10 to run on each and every one of them with only one major issue on one machine. (One of the X1's doesn't properly handle DID - dual independent displays).
My mom and pop - who are in their 70's - are comin' up for a visit this weekend and they've both asked that I chaperon their upgrades.
I was working at IBM (then Lenovo) in development engineering for the launches of Win2000, Win98, Millenium, XP and 7 and I must say that the Win10 launch has been far and away the best - highest quality - launch of a Windows OS I've yet seen. YMMV, but I wish you luck in your upgrading endeavors.
>>> I'm sure I'm an edge case, but I have not less than 6 Lenovo laptops dating back to the original X1 (NOT carbon) from 2006 with Intel 3000 graphics and I've gotten Win 10 to run on each and every one of them with only one major issue on one machine. (One of the X1's doesn't properly handle DID - dual independent displays).
So this chap gives an honest, frank assessment of his experiences with Win 10 and he gets as many down votes as upvotes (8 of each at time of posting). Lol, you childish muppets.
I support MFP hardware and software from several manufacturers on customers' networks, and the phone hasn't been that busy.
When untrained users, who don't even know how to install a network printer, upgrade to win10, we have to fix the mess.
On these, we need to un-install the rubbish WPS and WSD drivers that Windows 8 and 10 insist on using, (they often end up with a multifunction printer installed as a standalone (not working) scanner).
Then install the correct drivers.
Next, fix the broken network shares, and get job management settings working.
Then fix SMB and email scanning.
The other big problem is the "modern" apps being made default, especially the terminally stupid windows pdf reader.
On networks with sysadmins, they probably do this themselves.
I have it on a VM and on a spare box, the joys of having to support everything under the Sun...
How many Vista Installs were they gloating about back then ?
Is everything in Media a lie meant to boost confidence and sales now ?
Maybe it's time to fire up the old BBS and start our own VPN's again...just sayin...
This post has been deleted by its author
neither xp, nor vista, nor windows 7 ever managed these numbers. For perspective, 7, the best success story so far, managed 60M sales after 60 days. Windows 10 is not technically a month old. And this time they are counting "installs", not sales. Sales mean: sales to dell or OEMs which buy in bulk and still have to find their way to a store and turn into a consumer purchase.
So in fact 10 is MUCH more successful than anything MS has ever released because they haven't even talked sales (remember, windows 10 is free to upgrade, not OEMs on higher end PCs).
I imagine if they added channel sales plus upgrades, they'd easily clock 100M. unprecedented.
I was one of those who didn't manage to complete the update.
I had initially just tapped on the Win10 update logo to see what it was about, as I was expecting a bit of explanatory dialogue before the deed was done - but no - MS practically bit my hand off and I was put instantly on the list, without further ado!
After later reading about the privacy issues I decided I didn't want it after all, and so tried to cancel it using the recommended 'right-click on the Win10 logo' method, but that didn't work for me either (I think I'd uninstalled one of the required updates or something) so I made sure to make an image of my current setup and just take a look at Win10 when it arrived.
I was a bit concerned that MS would install the thing sometime during daytime hours and would thus consume a large portion of my 10GB monthly bandwidth allowance (all I need really), so I tried to install it after midnight using the Media Creation Tool.
This was however unsuccessfull, as the VGA driver was apparently not up to scratch. - I later found that there was a VGA update that should fix the problem but was so thankful that Win10 hadn't installed, and consequently I now appear (I think) to be inoculated against further MS attempts to install it, that I've not bothered to update the driver since.
The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. - Thank God.
If you want to make sure you've excised all the Windows 10 crap from your system, you might want to go into Windows Update/Installed Updates and uninstall and hide the following updates if they're present:
KB2505438
KB2670838 (Windows 7 only)
KB2952664
KB2976978 (Windows 8.x only)
KB3021917
KB3035583 (This is the bastard that puts that "Upgrade to Windows 10" icon in your systray)
KB3075249
KB3080149
Thanks, I'll keep a note of them in case I have to reinstall with the image I made, as they'll all still be on that.
At the moment I'm just trying to stay quietly under the horizon in case "The MS Eye of Sauron" picks up on my continued existence during one of its periodic sweeps from Redmond, and wants to try reinstalling again,
"so like, android and iOS?"
No?
Depending on your device's manufacturer, you might be bloody lucky to get an update to Android. And when you do, it isn't forced. I've had 4 Android devices over the years and have never had the OS update itself without my say so, let alone do everything it can to trick me into updating. Everyone I know with Android has experienced the same.
Until VirtualBox runs properly under W10 I'm definitely not shifting my main PC (currently on W7) onto it - hopefully it won't take Oracle more than 11 months to get it running properly again. I may use a spare hard disk and re-install a clean copy of W7 onto that and see what breaks when it upgrades to W10.
My laptop, which was running 8.1 (yuk!) that came pre-installed, upgraded almost ok - MS shoved the crappy, fail-after-reboot Wifi driver onto it so I had to reload the one that actually works and it now appears to be fine.
Sorry the tweens voted you down.
I guess win 1.o and 3.1 was before their time, nevermind WIN95.
You are absolutely correct that WIN10 reminds of our low end MS past.
WIN10 is crap and an attempt to see how much BS the public is willing to bear.
I'm hoping it goes the way of Vista and they come out with WIN 77 as an apology to us
thinking the public would be stupid enough to embrace a PC OS as invasive as a Phone OS.
Really Windows10 is more like a service pack for Windows 8.1
So the upgrade from 8 or 8.1 should be smooth and easy, shouldn't it?
And as they've re-added some of the stuff they removed from 7, that should be good to go as well...
Free, what's not to like....until you see how much gata they can now slurp from your PC...."free"
I have to say ... I did a full backup immediately before the upgrade and was very worried about games and other applications not running .. I also had some worry about devices.
My main machine was (5 years or so ago) and high end 4Ghz i7 quad with 6GB, GTX580, D2X audio, 256g SSD system drive and two 1TB data drives.
The update didn't download after a couple of weeks of the PC being left on so I forced in Windows Update. Rather worryingly after the apparent completion, Update gave the failed updated message in this article ... but everything was actually fine.
In summary ... it all went fine and is performing beautifully.
The only oddity is that some printers needed removing a re adding and my logitech webcam needed unplugging and plugging in again to get it to work even though it showed as installed ok in device manager.
My first thought was ... nothing has changed. Aside from some very subtle changes to the start / launch / status bar ... it all seemed like W7. That didn't really bother me as I was happy in the main with W7 ... but it is nice now to be current.
It's sad who write history...
I was on the Canadian Release team for WinME and Win2000, our Helpdesk calls dropped by 50%.
That's how good those releases were, but the Noobtech Bloggers panned it and hyped up Vista until Balmer admitted Vista was a washout, and that most sales were to OEM's. Now here come Trojan on a Desktop zero Privacy WIN10 and we're right back at the propaganda fest.....yawn.....
Probably still counted. It depends, I suppose, on what exactly "on 75 million devices" means - ie how they are counted.
For instance, my Microsoft Account says I have it on 4 devices. One of them I haven't a clue about and another is the laptop that I splatted with Mint 17.2 the other day. Only two actually exist and they are in VMs on my Windows 7 machine.
A few weeks ago it thought I had six because I had changed the names of two of the machines and it counted them as new.
Obviously. MS is using its own internal figures (that it never publishes) to justify the PR spiel.
What I'm interested in is the percentage of installs that revert to Windows 7, aka the only Windows worth using. Remember Vista ? Microsoft's PR department went nuts about installs as well, but in the end, everybody (well, everyone intelligent) removed it and put XP back.
I'm waiting for the final figures. Up to now, Windows 1 0 is eating into Windows 8 market share. It would really be quite a slap if Windows 7 didn't shrink in a notable manner.
For perspective windows 7 (also internal figures) didn't manage this many installs, but instead had to count sales into the channel which weren't actual computers sold, but OS licenses bulk sold to OEMs.
buddy, this is a hit. get over it and move on to other things that don't require being in denial.
Besides even if say, half the number was true, it would make it as successful as 7. hear that? 7.
But it works for me - just about.
Upgraded a pretty new Lenovo from 8.1 to 10 and then a 10 year old HP desktop that started as a Vista machine and was then upgraded to 7.
Yes 10 is a bit rough round the edges and a few things behave oddly or don't work, but I can work round these or they don't matter to me (eg Cortana).
Only one application (15 year old Quicken) failed to work in W10 and I found a slightly newer version that did.
Microsoft's updates have sometimes fixed issues and sometimes introduced new ones.
The release state and undocumented updates are disgusting and being free is no excuse. But no one is forced to take W10 and I doubt many corporates will adopt it for a long while yet.
I know two other people who have upgraded and found problems so severe they have reversed the upgrade. Whether they could have worked round the problems or fixed them I don't know, but either way they had not the time or skill to persevere with it, I suspect that are lots like them.
My advice for early adopters is make sure you have two machines: one to break and one to Google so you can fix it, otherwise wait a while to upgrade.
Its been nearly a month of whining from the forum members here about windows 10 and how they will stick with 7 yet windows 10 has reached 75 million installs in that time making it the most successful OS launch ever(i know its free but its still impressive).
I'm just curious as to how many people who proclaimed at launch that they were moving to Linux have done so in the last month?? I know that the (insane)people who will stick to 7 have done so(only they know why though).
"I'm just curious as to how many people who proclaimed at launch that they were moving to Linux have done so in the last month??"
.
Why would anyone want to move within the last month anyway?
Surely they mean to move to Linux only when they are forced to in order to avoid Win10?
In the meantime they are quite happy to continue to use (and receive support for) the flavour of Windows that they are currently using.
Meaning that they're not going to jump until they are pushed - they still have value in the systems they have until that time.
Whiners? Insane? Last gasp insults from someone who just can't accept that their view isn't shared by the rest.
I've read many comments here and over on "answers.microsoft.com" from people who are genuinely disappointed in what Windows 10 is vs what it could have been. Many, if not most, of them (me included) have spent a lot of effort and resources to assess the nature of Windows 10.
That we find it wanting is not because we are intellectually challenged. Rather it is because Windows 10 is not a significant advance on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
I could get used to Windows 10 - it isn't that bad to use, but I will not accept the level of monitoring and control that Microsoft have put into it. Ever.
Cardinal above has it right : I will go to Linux when all attempts to keep Windows 7 clean have failed. The moment I feel that Microsoft is looking over my shoulders I will switch, having spent the time to carefully prepare the appropriate Linux configuration.
>Whiners? Insane? Last gasp insults from someone who just can't accept that their view isn't shared by the rest.
75 million installs in less than a month plus brandwatch says 92% of the internet is happy with windows 10. So i'm guessing my views are shared by a LOT of the rest.
There will always be whiners that's unavoidable with anything. And they go on whining a long time after the people who are happy stop celebrating. So i wouldn't be surprised if the brandwatch numbers go down in the coming weeks. Calling them whiners isnt an insult its just who they are.
You can either go on whining or hop on the bandwagon like my friend, who was convinced windows is doomed when he used 8, has. He even got people from his office to upgrade to 10.
One more fun thing about hopping on is you can ruffle the feathers of the whiners with just two words and watch them squirm. For eg: whiners, insane. Because even they know they are only a majority here. Once they log off there computers and step up into the real world everyone else is already dancing along.
> brandwatch says 92% of the internet is happy with windows 10
That is not true. It isn't "92% of the internet', it is a small _self_selected_ sample posting their opinions on facebook or other social media.
https://www.brandwatch.com/2015/08/react-why-thousands-of-people-love-and-hate-windows-10/
"""Unprompted, thousands of people post their opinions of Window 10 online every day."""
The most interesting is that the most number of 'loves' were before it was released and the number has been dropping since. This could indicate a marketing campaign rather than actual users.
https://www.infopackets.com/news/9661/92-percent-love-windows-10-study-suggests
"""However, the methodology of the study is shaky to say the least."""
You should read the article again. The 92% figure is from launch day not before that.
But as i said earlier i wont be surprised if numbers go down. Whiners whine for a long time while happy people celebrate and then move on to find something else to be happy about. I wouldnt be surprised if in december while i'm playing rise of the tomb raider, people here will still be whining over windows 10.
A large proportion of net users are not very IT literate, they just want to use programs, browse the web and print, they have no concept of telemetry, monitoring or computer privacy, they would be more concerned if you moved desktop icons than if the "telemetry was increased to 100%".
75 million sleeping people, when questioned, failed to say "yes" if they wanted to retain some of their rights.
So much of this is noise designed to hide the real issue.
I have a masters in software and work as a software architect at oracle. My friend has a bachelors degree in computer science and works as a senior software developer at Altisource. I'm pretty sure we both qualify as "IT literate" and I'm equally sure we were both wide awake when we pressed the button to install windows 10. But neither of us understands what all the fuss is about. It's not like Microsoft is doing anything new. I agreed to the same privacy policy when i booted up my first smartphone for the first time. And frankly i don't much care about it.
I went the non-express route when installing windows 10 just to see the options it offered and the only thing i changed was my default browser (edge just isn't ready). I don't consider what Microsoft is doing as spying. Cortana needs to know what's on my drives for search to work and it needs to scan my email to pickup appointments and mark them in my calendar. As for the key logging and telemetry well, if microsoft wanted my bank password they could pick it up from my windows phone whenever i use the banking app on it. And as far as scanning for illegal software's, i dont use any so whats there to create a fuss about.
But now i finally have some work to do so if anyone has a problem with my outlook please leave a comment(not that i could stop you) but don't expect a swift reply like others before you got.
> The 92% figure is from launch day
The 'survey' appears to be done by searching blogs and social media looking for posts that include the words 'windows 10' and either 'love' or 'hate'. There is no indication of the number of messages searched. It maybe that 99% were completely indifferent or expressed views that were milder, such as 'don't care', 'dislike', or such. In which case a true analysis would be: '0.9% love Win10'.
Also I dispute that any sensible opinion can be formed on launch day. They may 'love' just the fact that it is free because they won't be wasting their money when they revert to previous version.
I cannot say anything about brandwatch, I do not have an account with them, care to share details about your claim ?
This CCN article discusses privacy issues, well, I could not read it without have a video running in the background talking about the best features of Windows 10 - I cut the sound off ...
CNN Windows 10 privacy concerns
The article in question is CNN/ZDNET quality ...
So CNN is advertising for 10, even going as far as pushing concerned users into the bandwagon ...
do you know what is ALSO the last gaps from somebody who can't accept that their views isn't shared by the rest: looking at forum comments versus 75M installs and think: I just know 3 pissed off people on a support board represent people.
Think about this: who goes there. people who have issues. people who don't have issues do not. So for you to imply: windows support issues = everybody has them is not just non scientific, it is outright silly.
How many duplicate installs? I'm sure there are plenty of actual installs on real hardware. But check this out...
So, I installed a WIn10 prerelease into a VM, and once RTM shipped I wanted to know if this VM was portable or if activation would screw it up (I have no intention of moving it around, but wanted to know if it'd blow up if I had to replace any hardware, especially after a year when Win7 to WIn10 upgrade would not work). Installed a prelease, later updated to RTM -- activation failed (turns out, after about a 1 day window where upgrades from prelease to RTM worked, one had to go back to Win7/8/8.1 and do an upgrade to Windows 10. Thank goodness for Virtual Machines). So, this counted as an install. Went to a Win7 VM, upgraded it to Win10 (hardware in VirtualBox was slightly different, so this counted as a new install.) Fiddled SLIGHTLY with VM hardware settings, Windows went unactivated, updated again from Win7 (counted as a new install.) Tried moving this from a 2.4ghz Core2Duo to 3.0ghz Core2Duo system to see if the VM was at all portable -- activation failed. I did a Win7->Win10 upgrade on there (counted as a new install.) I discarded this VM, re-installed the VM from the 2.4ghz, but fiddled with VirtualBox's CPUID settings (activation failed, CPUID was different from the 2.4 *and* the 3.0, so counted as a new install.) Fiddled with more VirtualBox CPUID settings (activation failed, but would have counted as ANOTHER new install.) Then, even though Win10 was already activated on the 2.4, I installed a KMS crack on the VM anyway so I wouldn't have to worry about it (I don't think this will phone home and count as any more installs if it's moved around.)
This means their methodology would count my single install of Windows 10 as 6 unique installs. How many people have fiddled with VirtualBox or (god forbid) something like VMWare VMotion where a virtual machine can *automatically* migrate to another computer?
dear lord in heaven I did it. Several weeks ago. And it's not bad. A few weird quirks like when it goes to shut down, the display turns off but you can tell the system is still thrashing away because the HDD like is solid on for about 2 minutes.
But, it's only a games rig. I'll do all the real computing on my Linux system.
We really don't know how well MS is doing exactly. Unlike most other companies, MS doesn't report their sales count. Xbone? Nope - nothing after 10m... but apparently, sales are still down, even thou its $50 cheaper than the PS4. Looking at the attach rate of games, PS4 sells 3 copies vs 1 for Xone... selling also 1 for a 360. MS is also not stating which xboxes are being sold. So they are likely inflating.
Even if the Xbone was $200, I'd still not waste my time with it.
2 desktops upgraded. 3 tablets this week, 2 laptops to go. At work we got about 50% of the office so far and the other 50% next month. So far very little issues other than the usual teething problems with a driver that needs an update.
Other than the FUD from people who seem to hope they can scare people off it and onto...linux LOL, windows 10 seems to just keep rolling.
to convince us that their monopoly hasn't come crashing down around them..
How many SATISFIED Windows 10 users are there. My guess, a few that feel it's an upgrade from the truly abysmal Windows8.x and that's it.
Perhaps this is the new way forward, make something really really bad, and then give everyone a free upgrade to a slightly less naff version a few years down the road. Pretend everyone is going to have to pay soon, but they are special and get it for free, and for added effect, increment the number by more than the usual .1 version. to these idiots, the higher the number, the better it is.
I installed Windows 10 on my spare Dell M17 on the 23rd - just to see what all the fuss was about.
I can happily confirm that all my expectations were met by Windows 10. So much so in fact, that as of the 24th, the same laptop now runs only Linux Mint 17.2 "Rafaela" (Cinnamon) and will never see another Microsoft OS ever again.
Thumbs up Microsoft.
Microsoft is creating more and more dissatisfied customers. Spent hours and hours trying to download W10 on my wife's W8.1 laptop, all to no avail, total waste of time. The good thing that has come out of this pathetic experience is that I have finally convinced my wife to join me and switch to Linux. End of Windoze in our household. What a relief!!!
Sorry - my comment above was in response to:
"J.J.Carter: Watch the skys! They're coming... "
I cocked up the placement and thought I'd explain, as it looks like an orphan when read on its own.
Plus
Pooh-poohing the idea completely, given the recent (and ongoing) wave of revelations, and not just about Win10 of course, is ludicrous.
@Defiant
"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talking... you talking to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? Oh yeah? OK."
Only kidding - just couldn't resist the De Nero line from Taxi Driver.
This is The Register, tech news for grumpy IT people, by grumpy IT people. Nothing is spared negative press when it's warranted here, even their advertisers.
If you're looking for like-minded "Win10 is the bees knees" people, try the MS forums. I should think the last of the remaining free-thinkers with valid criticisms have been chased out by now.
I have spent hours and hours trying to download W10 on my wife's W8.1 laptop, all to no avail, total waste of time. The good thing that has come out of this pathetic fiasco is that I have finally convinced my wife to switch to Linux. End of Windoze in our household. Great relief!!!
I don't believe it. M$ is losing ground all the time as PC users become more literate and realize that other options are available out there, Linux is one of them. It'll take time but they are definitely on the decline and the monopoly they enjoyed a decade or so ago is crumbling fast. The end of their empire will end when OEMs start shipping naked computers allowing users to choose their preferred operating systems.
I've a used and abused 9 year old Dell Inspiron 6400 with 3GB Ram which is my mule for stuff and also acts as backup music production/mixing/masterin machine running Reaper.
Win 10 installed without glitch, needed to reinstall an Epson Photo R340 driver and that's about it. Even obscure VST plugins and ancient USB audio interface drivers run without a problem.
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