back to article Official: Windows 10 has hit the 400 million device mark

Microsoft’s self-installing Windows 10 operating system has reached the 400 million mark, the firm announced at its Ignite conference in Atlanta this week, up from the previous high of 350 million in August. This adoption rate means the firm’s self-imposed target of a billion devices by mid-2018 looks increasingly unlikely, …

  1. hplasm
    Holmes

    How many

    reversions in those 400 Million?

    1. psychonaut

      Re: How many

      yes exaclty. ive done about 50 so far, so its actually no more than 399,999,950.

      businesses may be buying pc;s with win 10 on them, but i bet most of them get sent straight to the imaging machine for a lovely windows 7 repaint.

      1. azaks

        Re: How many

        >> businesses may be buying pc;s with win 10 on them, but i bet most of them get sent straight to the imaging machine for a lovely windows 7 repaint.

        Its actually 400 million active devices, but nice try anyway.

        No doubt when it hits 500m, 600m, 700m it will still be the unmitigated disaster, hated by all and only days away from the start of a rapid decline. I admire your tenacity in sticking to your rhetoric after being proven wrong time and time again - the adults that make the decisions just don't swallow your bullshit...

        1. psychonaut

          Re: How many

          no, they swallow MS's bullshit.

          yeah, i got my numbers wrong there. still, ive done 2 more this evening so thats something....

          im sitting on the small business coalface and i can tell you win 10 is a disaster. go 10 if you like, its your customers' funeral

          1. psychonaut

            Re: How many

            there we go...sage borked by win 10 update. not that sage have any great things to shout about, but any more evidence needed for the win 10 "oohh its great it works on my machine and i can do email and everything!" brigade?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How many

      12% apparently...

      https://blogs.which.co.uk/technology/promoted/one-month-left-should-you-upgrade-to-windows-10/

      I guess that's only the ones that know how to, as there isn't an annoying popup telling you how to revert back. It's likely to be much higher if Microsoft nagged them after a month with "do you want to roll back"...

      1. psychonaut

        Re: How many

        who are the fucktards downvoting this? SHILLS i tell you! SHILLS!

        1. Geoffrey W

          Re: How many

          RE: "who are the fucktards downvoting this?"

          Probably penguin angries for daring to call any version of windows lovely (Win 7 in your case). For shame...

          1. Fungus Bob
            Linux

            Re: How many

            "Probably penguin angries..."

            No such animal. We Linux users really do like Microsoft and Windows - they amuse and entertain us.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: How many

              Linux users remind me of the lift/elevator doors in hitch hikers guide - They generate a sense of smug contentment and superiority at a job well done, while being oblivious to how annoying they can be. I like to poke their buttons and watch them go up, and watch them go down, in their little linear ruts. They're adorable.

    3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: How many

      Yep. The three systems that got downgraded to W10 are all now running Linux.

      No more Microsoft OS at all. The GWX debacle was the last straw.

      Be gone Microsoft, be gone and don't come back or (see Icon)

    4. Grifter

      Re: How many

      You will all succumb in the end. It is inevitable.

      1. psychonaut

        Re: How many

        you may be right.....fuck knows what im going to do after the midle of 2020. unless windows 9 comes out.

        i named my son, Rico,,after a penguin, so maybe theres a hint there

  2. excollier

    whoopee

    like the flu - it infects millions

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Thumb Down

        Re: Windows 10? So What?

        what about the 2D FLUGLY? what about the FORCED UPDATES? (and other irritating stuff, naturally).

        there are SIGNIFICANT differences between 7 and 10 that exceed "just the start [thing]", MOST of them VERY irritating.

        At least with PRO you can UPgrade it to 7 if you want, right???

        1. WP7Mango

          Re: Windows 10? So What?

          2D? What 2D? All my windows appear 3D with shadows. My Start menu has an Aero type effect, as does the Notifications bar on the right. Looks great.

          What about the forced updates? You can defer with the Pro version, but it's a good thing to make sure everyone is up to date.

          I've not come across anything irritating in Windows 10. I've come across some sandal-wearing nerds who think it's rubbish and spout FUD about it, but that's about the only irritation I have encountered.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Windows 10? So What?

            "What about the forced updates? You can defer with the Pro version, but it's a good thing to make sure everyone is up to date."

            OK, tell me where you can defer the updates then, or even be notified that they're waiting? Right now, my Pro version has removed all options of whether I want the updates or not. The only thing I can do is set a (no greater than) 12 hour period each day where it promises it won't restart.

            The only hacks I've seen are to disable Windows Update entirely (!), or set the connection to be a metered one, which only works if it's a wifi network, not ethernet.

            I'm actually really pissed off with MS over this one. My machine is mostly running 24x7 doing large transcodes etc and I've twice had it reboot itself in the last month. Win 7 is going back on this weekend.

            I hear your argument that it's good to make sure everyone is up to date. But I'm old and ugly enough to remember the crap patches that MS unleash on the world, and I'm cautious enough to want early adopters to find out if they work properly before they're allowed on my machine.

            1. Roland6 Silver badge

              Re: Windows 10? So What?

              The only hacks I've seen are to disable Windows Update entirely (!), or set the connection to be a metered one, which only works if it's a wifi network, not ethernet.

              How to set LAN as metered connection:

              https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-networking/how-to-set-an-ethernet-connection-as-metered-to/ecdaca08-d413-4a6a-9e33-b4afb337fc18?auth=1

              Not sure whether Win10 times out after n days and demands to be connected to an unmetered connection. However, be warned if you connect the system to an unmetered connection expect it to crash as it attempts to do 6+ months of updates...

            2. Alan Brown Silver badge

              Re: Windows 10? So What?

              "My machine is mostly running 24x7 doing large transcodes etc "

              For that, you want Linux or BSD - and as a nice side effect those transcodes will go much faster.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Windows 10? So What?

                "For that, you want Linux or BSD - and as a nice side effect those transcodes will go much faster."

                Thanks. Though I said transcodes etc :-)

      2. Avatar of They
        Meh

        Re: Windows 10? So What?

        I agree, I thought I would give it a go. I had a dell laptop with windows 10. After three hours of scurrying through all the areas to turn off, like the advertising ID and the "default to" the cloud settings, and the "local account" please settings and the EDGE online marketing area that is stored in the cloud, and the security settings to basic (so they can't dial in) And Cortana's laughable breaks DPA if you use it setttings, and whatever else I could find.

        I then had to unpick mirror.co.uk and candy crush that had been bundled to name a few.

        THEN I wanted to add a windows feature (hyper V). Or rather check it was there. And I found myself in DISM, or powershell to the non windows users. That is when I realised after five hours of making the laptop mine (most time was spent hunting the internet) I realised that I was in an OS on a command line.

        So it went back to the shop and I went back to Linux. Same experience without the hassles.

        It is probably brilliant and anyone not caring about things like privacy or the law, it is fine and pretty. To everyone else is just a few headaches you don't need.

      3. Carl D

        Re: Windows 10? So What?

        "So I can only assume that the W10 bashing here is by people that never, ever used the OS? I'm as guilty as the rest of you, I bashed W10 even though I never tried it. Now I've tried it. What's the big deal? Why all the objections if it's basically Windows 7 with a SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT start menu?"

        - AC.

        The big deal (apart from the privacy issues and things getting broken every Patch Tuesday) is that Windows 7 doesn't change all of it's settings back to MS defaults every time there's an update like 10 does.

        And, yes, I have used Windows 10 - for a short time.

      4. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Windows 10? So What?

        I expect when you don't care about privacy or updates or compatibility problems because it's a work machine and that's usually taken care of for you then it's great. The rest is more-or-less fixable except the UI which was last in the queue when they were handing out themes.

      5. Ilsa Loving

        Re: Windows 10? So What?

        No, it's being bashed by people who know a hell of a lot more about operating systems than apparently you do.

        Unless you buy the Enterprise version, you basically lose control of your own computer. You lose your privacy.

        Furthermore, Microsoft has so heavily gimped Windows 10 that Windows 10 Home may as well be the equivalent of Windows 7 Starter edition. You can't even connect to a password protected network share with it, or do *anything* that requires authentication because they've completely disabled it. It's basically useless for anything more advanced that watching Netflix or playing Minesweeper.

        Windows 10 Pro is the equivalent of Windows 7 Home, and Windows 10 Enterprise (which costs $400-ish, give or take) is what you need to settle on if you want to keep what you were used to with Windows 7 Pro.

        And heaven forbid you update and the update destroys your install. Which happened to 1/3 of the people in our small test deployment.

      6. zen1

        Re: Windows 10? So What?

        I've used just about every OS microsoft has deployed since DOS 2.1, except MS-BOB and ME and I have to say that this one sucks the most. Plus, I was even less pro windows 10 once I received kb3185614. Once that sucker was pushed to my machine, I lost the ability to map any shared drives. The only way for me to recover was to remove that "fix" and disable automatic updates, because every time I rebooted, it took me 30 minutes or so to undo the damage it caused.

        So, while you are certainly entitled to your opinion, I can't say I agree with your glowing approval and would very much love to punch MS's CEO and the pinhead manager/director in charge of this piss poor excuse for an operating system.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Windows 10? So What?

          Windows 10 is one of the very best recruiting tools for a Linux conversion that I can think of.

          That said, it's ok for a Consumer OS. Just don't expect to keep your privacy. If it's free than YOU are the prodict.

          1. Geoffrey W

            Re: Windows 10? So What?

            RE: "That said, [windows 10 is] ok for a Consumer OS. Just don't expect to keep your privacy. If it's free than YOU are the prodict."

            Errrr...How much did Linux cost you again?

          2. d3vy

            Re: Windows 10? So What?

            "Windows 10 is one of the very best recruiting tools for a Linux conversion that I can think of"

            I would disagree, Linux is fine if you have time to spend working out how to do things, or if you want to fiddle with the OS but its still not quite there for the consumer market.

            As an example, I have worked in IT for 15 years now mainly with windows, though I have also used linux/unix from time to time.

            I decided to give linux another go a few weeks ago, I spent about 20 minutes doing an install of mint, then about 6 hours trying to get mono develop to install, when it did install there were bits missing, After some digging around online I found a decent guide to installing it from the command line, the guide offered little explination as to what the commands did or why to run them, it was pretty much,

            1. Run this command,

            2. Add this repo,

            3. Run this command, ...

            Got it all installed and running, nuget package manager doesn't work, all the settings are right but something somewhere must be missing...

            I gave up on mint, and installed ubuntu, bit more luck there as it installed from the software manager.. All seemed good nuget worked, I could build a test console app.. Happy.

            So, the kids will want to play minecraft, lets get that going... It needs JAVA, Java isnt in the SW manager... Look online, sun no longer supports it on this distribution so you have to use Open JVM or similar... Cant remember what the problem with that was but it caused me to go back to a similar guide as before.. add this repo, install this package... Then I hit a brick wall, the guidence online was to download and compile some module for open JVM.

            You know what I did? I dropped back into windows, installed Xamarin studio (Basically Mono Develop), it took a double click and a few button presses. Minecraft was even easier.

            Linux has its place, Its great if you have a specific task and its been configured to do that task, if you want to play with the OS, or you have time to spare to learn how to bend it to your will.

            For me however, its not a suitable replacement, I'd much rather just get on with work rather than spending my life trying to get the machine configured correctly.

            Im sure that someone who knows what they are doing could have sorted the above issues without any problem then im sure mint would have met my needs perfectly, however thats the problem.. it doesn't "just work" its more difficult to get started with than its competition so its always going to fall short in the eyes of consumers who just want to switch their PC on and do stuff.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Windows 10? So What?

              @ d3vy

              There are linux distros - e.g. Mint - that simply install and work (at least on the various machines that I've tried). On the other hand it takes time to "move in" to a new Windows 10 machine.

              It is very strange to be in a situation where setting up Linux is less hassle than Windows.

              Unfortunately work is now issuing W10 laptops, but hey ho I'll only use mine to remote into the Linux box where I do my real work...

              1. Geoffrey W

                Re: Windows 10? So What?

                @AC

                Its a slightly odd response to claim that Mint "Simply install(s) and work(s)" when d3vy relates a tale of attempting to get that same Mint to work. Its almost as if you didn't read his post, but that can't be. If it always has worked for you then great, but it hasn't done that for me (or him). Likewise windows often does install and work but sometimes it doesn't. The biggest source of problems, it seems to me, in both operating systems come from device drivers which isn't entirely down to the OS. Can't say I've noticed Linux being less hassle to install than windows. In my experience windows enjoys better driver support than Linux but that isn't Linux's fault.

              2. d3vy

                Re: Windows 10? So What?

                @Anon.

                "There are linux distros - e.g. Mint - that simply install and work (at least on the various machines that I've tried). On the other hand it takes time to "move in" to a new Windows 10 machine."

                Have a look back at my comment, I was using Mint, and Ubuntu, two distros renowned for their ease of use.

                My point exactly is that if I cant get a tool working in what is meant to be the easiest version of the OS without resorting to the command line then something somewhere has gone wrong. Dont get me wrong, I like linux, if I didnt need to do actual work and just wanted to play around and learn the OS I'd be using it full time, however because I need to work Im going to be on windows for the forseable - simply because everything I need works in windows without hours of configuration.

      7. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Windows 10? So What?

        But then I got a new laptop at work, and against my wishes it has Windows 10 Pro installed.

        ...

        So I can only assume that the W10 bashing here is by people that never, ever used the OS?

        Whilst Win10 in desktop mode isn't too dissimilar to Win8, the big issue I've found is keeping it working, particularly with major build updates, such as Nov 2015's Cumulative update and July/Aug Anniversary update. For both of these updates, I've had clients with systems that had to have a full factory reset before they would update to a fully functional OS; only problem these systems had other applications that also needed to be reinstalled and reconfigured and user data that had to be saved and restored...

        Whilst it isn't perfect (and yes you do need iTunes to backup some stuff that doesn't get sent to iCloud), I do think Apple got the whole update process a whole lot better with iOS.

      8. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Windows 10? So What?

        "Start menu is different, and with the big tiles I see this as a good thing for older people like me."

        If you're still working then you're almost certainly younger than me. I had the preview running briefly. The tiles were the first thing to go.

  3. djstardust

    Why oh why

    Would any sane person actually PAY for something that is riddled with ads, is in permanent Alpha, Beta, whatever and lacks features from previous versions?

    MS really need to have a think about this because as much as they wave figures around the only way is down for this rotten piece of adware, spyware, junk (delete as appropriate)

    It's funny when you visit JL or Dixons and look at PCs. The assistant tries their best for a sale but as soon as you ask about Windows 10 they sort of back down and admit it's rubbish. There are some nice machines around just now but there's no way I would buy one with Windows 10 on it. Full stop.

    Sky TV get away with charging a monthly subscription then adding advertisements. MS might not be so lucky.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why oh why

      What ads?

      1. Mage Silver badge
        Big Brother

        Re: Ads

        Only in Skype I think?

        The issues are: privacy, forced updates, rubbish GUI, poor compatibility with older windows programs (for some people the only reason the are not using MacOS or Linux).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Ads

          ...unschedulable updates, lock-in, poor hardware compatibility, reduced functionality, rolling-alpha quality, black-box "security" [sic], advertising in the launcher-come-nagware, lockscreen-come-nagware and wherever else, gimped launcher...

        2. smot

          Re: Ads

          > Only in Skype I think?

          No - I get regular "notifications" asking me to try Office 365 for 30 days for free". Are these really notifications? I think not.

          The start menu is littered with soft ads - Candy Crush, MS Solitaire Pack, and a few other doorways which lead to items for sale.

          One may argue that I got Win10 for free, so MS are entitled to push ads. However the price of the laptop (or desktop etc) included the MS licence, and so is not really free at all.

          If it were just ads - offered in a small quiet corner of the OS - I might, just might, go with it. But it's the data gathering that accompanies it that really bothers me, so I use Win10 as little as possible, and certainly avoid Cortana.

          On a positive note, whilst I still prefer Win7, Win10 is miles better than Vista and 8.x.

          I mostly use Linux OSs these days, but need the odd (virtualised) MS device for apps that only work that way. If it weren't for my work, these VMs would go too.

      2. Annihilator

        Re: Why oh why

        "What ads?"

        Off the top of my head:

        "You don't have the latest version of Office..." (the Get Office 365 app, that despite removing 3 times has reborn - I'm fine with my still-supported Office 2013 thanks...)

        Candy Crush, Twitter, Minecraft and the fucking Daily Mirror appearing in the "life at a glance" section of the start menu

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Why oh why

          "Candy Crush, Twitter, Minecraft and the fucking Daily Mirror appearing in the "life at a glance" section of the start menu"

          Oh I thought any tech person would of removed that. Silly me.

          1. Annihilator

            Re: Why oh why

            "Oh I thought any tech person would of removed that. Silly me."

            Quite. I did. Several times. One of the many windows updates keeps bringing it back.

            1. psychonaut

              Re: Why oh why

              citation? theres not a wikipedia entry for it numb nuts. it happened to my customers, against my advice. do you think i am making this up?

              if you have a sample size of 1 pc, and win 10 works, happy fucking days.

              if you look after many hundreds of them day in day out, you might have a different opinion, like mine, which is based on what i see from a large number of pc's from individuals to companies with 30 odd machines in them.

              1. d3vy

                Re: Why oh why

                @psychonaut

                "citation? theres not a wikipedia entry for it numb nuts. it happened to my customers, against my advice. do you think i am making this up"

                Not at all, I was wondering what Business crippling event happened as a result of an upgrade from an older version of windows to win 10.

                My point was that I am not aware of anyone who has had problems with upgrades from windows 7/8/8.1 to 10.

                Give some examples of the issues that you have encountered that are unique to or caused by windows 10.. I am genuinely interested.

    2. WP7Mango

      Re: Why oh why

      OK, so I deleted as appropriate and ended up with this -

      "MS really need to have a think about this because as much as they wave figures around the only way is down for this".

      Not sure that makes any sense, since it appears to be going up in popularity, which reflects my experience in the work place (and outside of work). Not sure what all the fuss is about - I really like Windows 10 - much prefer it to Windows 7.

      1. psychonaut

        Re: Why oh why

        its not going up in popularity. its been force fed to johhny dickhead who has no idea how to stop it from installing, or where to buy a new machine that doesnt have it on.

        its crippled several small businesses that i know of who against my advice decided to "upgrade". then they had to pay me lots of money to sort it out. dfor that read "reinstall win 7, redo all the networking and file permissions, reinstall the security that it had removed"

        its a festering pile of shit,. the upgrade process is a joke and causes all sorts of headaches, the recent anniversary update also), file permissions, software, drivers... the inability to not have updates ....jesus, network drivers....theres a realtek nic that disconnects every 5 minutes on win 10. they only released a win 10 driver that doesnt fall over every 5 mins 2 months ago.

        it might be fine if you go browsing and check your yahoo email and use MSE but if you do anything else, expect trouble.

        cold dead hands win 7 middle of 2020 my

        rearrange to make a slightly coherent sentence.

        1. WP7Mango

          Re: Why oh why

          As a professional software developer, I'm much happier using Windows 10 than Windows 7.

          By all means keep your festering pile of Windows 7 shit. I'll gladly continue to enjoy the superior Windows 10.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Why oh why

            As a professional software developer, I'm much happier using Windows 10 than Windows 7.

            Would you be so kind and share with us, the low peasants, what kind of software you develop? Failbook apps? Candy crap clones?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Why oh why

              > Would you be so kind and share with us, the low peasants, what kind of software you develop?

              I'd gladly chance a tenner on the answer to that being "Windows 10" ;)

          2. d3vy

            Re: Why oh why

            "As a professional software developer, I'm much happier using Windows 10 than Windows 7."

            From a dev point of view I find very little different between the two, personally I use 10, some clients provide me with win7 machines to work from.

            If you look up a few posts you'll see how well my foray into development on linux went...

        2. d3vy

          Re: Why oh why

          "its crippled several small businesses"

          Citation needed.

          In what way has it crippled several businesses that you know of? Unless they have some software that requires win7* then I cant see why they would have an issue.

          I have yet to find anything that I can do on windows 7 that I cant do on win 10**

          * if they have and they still installed win 10 then that their fault.

          ** Anything that I actually want to do, Ill accept that if I wanted to stop updates etc Id struggle.

    3. d3vy

      Re: Why oh why

      First up, It still amazes me that people are happy to pay a sub to sky and sit through adverts as well... but thats another matter.

      As for adverts in windows, Ive not seen any and Ive been on 10 since release, there is a setting to allow the store to suggest apps for you, but it can be switched off (If I remember rightly it was part of the set up after the Anniversary update).

      Ive said it before and I'm sure Ill say it again, Windows/Linux/OSx whatever you are using, its a tool, use what suits you/your task best all this fighting about which OS is better is a waste of everyones time.

      If anyone really cares that much about what OS someone else uses they really have their priorities wrong.

  4. Zippy's Sausage Factory

    Well, mine's no longer in there.

    Ubuntu + Cinnamon + Virtual Box. Not that I have Windows in a VBox yet, just OS/2 4 (more useful than Windows 10, anyway...)

    1. smot

      Re: Well, mine's no longer in there.

      Ubuntu Gnome + VB here. Win 10 happily confined to a VDI file.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pro is what comes pre-installed on upper-specced PCs...

    But how many Enterprise activations? That would measure how much companies are willingly to adopt W10. Or maybe because of lack of default full telemetry on such version they have less data about it?

  6. The Average Joe Bloggs

    I just think its crazy that people are still buying PC's and laptops with windows 7. Cmon people, choose W10, its far superior to 7. On the privacy issue, you have no problem giving facebook all your details, photos of your children and details of where you have been, where you are now and where you are going next week. Windows 10 tracking a few bits of your online habbits is hardly a big concern.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Joe

      "On the privacy issue, you have no problem giving facebook all your details, photos of your children and details of where you have been, where you are now and where you are going next week."

      I do, I don't even have Facebook or Twitter or whatever. So yeah, guess Win10 is only for the younger social-media generation? ;)

    2. Stuart 22

      "On the privacy issue, you have no problem giving facebook all your details, photos of your children and details of where you have been, where you are now and where you are going next week. Windows 10 tracking a few bits of your online habbits is hardly a big concern."

      I do. But then I do not have a Facebook account or use Windows.

      I do use and host social media sites and have done pretty much since before the internet arrived in the UK without imparting any of that. Mr Zuckerberg neither invented social media nor sex. But don't tell anyone or I'll have you go viral.

    3. GrumpenKraut
      Linux

      > ...choose W10, its far superior to 7.

      Did you forget the troll icon?

      > Windows 10 tracking a few bits of your online habbits is hardly a big concern.

      Maybe for you. For me tracking is verboten.

    4. WP7Mango

      Agreed. There is a lot of FUD being spouted about Windows 10, most of it by Microsoft-hating trolls, or people who are just stuck in the past.

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        FAIL

        it's not FUD, it's *TRUTH*

        "There is a lot of FUD being spouted about Windows 10, most of it by Microsoft-hating trolls, or people who are just stuck in the past."

        no FUD, Win-10-nic is what it is, out there for everyone to see, complete with the 2D FLUGLY, the 'brickings' [mostly from updates], and not to forget those forced updates that REMOVE! YOUR! CUSTOMIZATIONS!, and so on. And the adware you can ALLEGEDLY turn off, but the spyware you can't shut off no matter how much Micro-shaft claims to the contrary.

        It stinks on ice, sucks out of the box, etc.

        nothing good to say about it at all, except that MAYBE the 'Pro' version LETS YOU upgrade to 7.

        1. a_yank_lurker

          Re: it's not FUD, it's *TRUTH*

          @bombastic_bob - The deal breaker for me was when Slurp decided a W8.1 dual boot laptop (Linux Mint) had to have Winbloat10 aka the Abomination installation files downloaded. The download settings on 8.1 were generic. After that episode, Internet connections for all Winbloat installs has been disabled. This is the crap that malware uses not a supposedly reputable OS. This begs the question what else very dodgy if not illegal actions is Slurp doing with the Abomination.

        2. Wade Burchette

          Re: it's not FUD, it's *TRUTH*

          Having used Windows 10, here are the advantages of it of Win7:

          * It is faster

          * DirectX 12

          * Multiple desktops

          Here are the disadvantages of Win10 over Win7:

          * Pre-boot F8 disabled by default, the dumbest of the dumb decisions Microsoft ever made

          * No option for Aero

          * The ribbon interface is everywhere, where it should be nowhere except as an option (not requirement) in Office

          * Mandatory updates: I currently have logged 23 Win7 updates that break a Microsoft program that I use every day; how can businesses block updates that ruin their expensive programs?

          * The start menu is an illogical disaster

          * Cortana cannot be turned off even when it is disabled

          * Too much tracking

          * No product key sticker on the computer in case the motherboard goes bad

          * Free games are now replaced by advertising games

          * It is a pain to change the default PDF viewer from the Edge browser

          * Win10 blocks some programs "for your protection" with no clear instructions on how to run that program in case it is a false positive

          1. Mage Silver badge

            Re:Having used Windows 10

            My points in brackets:

            Having used Windows 10, here are the advantages of it of Win7:

            * It is faster (But XP is MUCH faster, with proper install /config)

            * DirectX 12 (Marketing decision, not inherent)

            * Multiple desktops (Available free as add on since at least 2002)

            Sadly Win7 is only a bug fix of Vista, that's why Win10 is faster.

          2. bombastic bob Silver badge
            Devil

            Re: it's not FUD, it's *TRUTH*

            re: advantage/disadvantages of W10 vs W7

            I never saw Win-10-nic as being, in ANY way 'faster'. in fact, some things are DEFINITELY slower. Some of the SSD drive owners say the opposite, though, so I'd guess that the kernel now favors SSDs over spinny-drives, so YMMV. Personally, I think a properly designed kernel would have been faster for ANY drive, and not waste a pile of time with paranoid re-re-reads of the registry [among other things].

            Another factoid that's interesting: check out the latest 'statcounter'

            http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-weekly-201531-201639

            it shows a DEFINITE DECLINE in Windows 10 usage, and a corresponding BUMP UP in Windows 7 usage. Coincidence? I don't think so... but it's early in the week, and the latest numbers will usually drop a bit by the following monday. we shall see, I bet!

      2. psychonaut

        i make my living out of MS. win 10 is a pile of shit

        1. WP7Mango

          I don't make a living out of Microsoft - but I do use Microsoft applications to make a living.

          1. hplasm
            Gimp

            "...I do use Microsoft applications to make a living."

            So you perpetuate the misery for millions. Well done you.

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
          Happy

          "i make my living out of MS. win 10 is a pile of shit"

          You're probably making an even better living out of it then.

      3. zen1

        it's not FUD. You may or may not remember a promise that MS made to us, as users, a long time ago, which was roughly to the effect of: We value your privacy and will work to ensure that is protected. Over the years they've done a complete 180 and they're forcing us to an OS that's nothing more than a user metrics gathering device. They force an OS on me then they make significant changes without full disclosure or my consent. Then if I have a question or attempt to contact them because one of their patches fouled up my machine, I have no recourse other than to pay for crap support that normally can't fix my problems to my satisfaction.

        You may be comfortable with Microsoft's mediocrity and falling quality or be perfectly fine with them selling your info to whomever is willing to shell out the money for it, but I am not. And if it weren't for the fact that this one machine has to be fit with 10, so I can provide support to my customers, I'd kick it to the curb. It's not worth the aggravation and quite frankly I don't have the desire or the time to piss away on fixing something that THEY fucked up.

      4. ecofeco Silver badge

        FUD about Win 10? My bank account from fixing Win 10 bricks says you are a shill.

        The part I like best? Not being able to fix some of them no matter what. Except to roll them back to Win 7. If the user has the install. Often they don't. Not the Win 10 install either as it was installed over the Internet.

        Oops. Here's my bill.

    5. smot

      > online habbits

      Avatars of hobbits?

    6. hplasm
      Facepalm

      "...W10, its far superior to 7."

      No Dougal. The WinX pile of shit is bigger than Win 7, but Win 7 is far away. Bigger, far away...

    7. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "On the privacy issue, you have no problem giving facebook all your details, photos of your children and details of where you have been, where you are now and where you are going next week."

      I'd find that very difficult as I neither have a farcebook account nor any intention of getting one.

      However I do have grandchildren. The older one got a W7 laptop for secondary school. The younger one is going to get a PiTop RSN which will, of course, be running Debian.

  7. Sporkinum

    Automatic update problems

    A guy at work DJ's on the weekend, and was not able to play as his laptop started updating automatically. Locked it up for an hour. Had to play from his phone for the first hour.

    1. GrumpenKraut
      Happy

      Re: Automatic update problems

      Ouch. Next time please take photos, make story for El Reg!

    2. d3vy

      Re: Automatic update problems

      "A guy at work DJ's on the weekend, and was not able to play as his laptop started updating automatically. Locked it up for an hour. Had to play from his phone for the first hour."

      Had he taken the time to set up the Active hours on his laptop this wouldn't have happened. *

      He would also have received NUMEROUS warnings that the update was pending.

      * Only once have I had an update cut short my work, it was when I was working late and had forgotten that I had a pending update that had been put back to out of active hours... Laptop warned me, updated and came back up and re-opened my work for me.

      Plus, he plays from a laptop? hes not a DJ, he just presses play and queues track ups... winamp has a plugin that could replace him. ;)

  8. Mike Shepherd
    Meh

    "Windows 10 has hit the 400 million device mark"

    All we need now is a plague of frogs.

    1. fidodogbreath

      Re: "Windows 10 has hit the 400 million device mark"

      All we need now is a plague of frogs.

      Win10 now has a higher annual infection rate than dysentery, with similar symptoms.

    2. zen1

      Re: "Windows 10 has hit the 400 million device mark"

      the 400 million horsemen of the apocalypse

  9. Carl D

    I feel sorry for anyone who is just starting out into the world of PC's these days and their first experience is the horror of Windows 10, If I had a dollar for each one of all the WTF? moments worldwide since the release of W10 I'd probably be a multi millionaire by now.

    I had enough difficulty dealing with Windows 98 Second Edition back in early 2001 when I started out but, looking back now, it was child's play compared with W10.

    At least W98 didn't download updates every 5 minutes that broke more things than it was supposed to fix. And, you could find most of the settings easily in W98, unlike W10.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Oh, come on! Four hundred million instances, there have to have been an average of more than 2.5 WTF? incidents per instance. Surely a billionaire, perhaps aiming to join BGates in the rarefied heights of Fortune.

    2. d3vy

      "And, you could find most of the settings easily in W98, unlike W10."

      WHAT???!?!? have you actually looked, most of the control panel items are the same!

      Also the search functionality is great in win 8/10 hit the windows key type what you want "Mouse" and it takes you to the mouse settings "Display" takes you to the display settings "Documents" takes you to your documents... "Downloads" for some F*cking reason takes you to the windows store unless you remember that the downloads folder is actually the second result.. other than that "quirk" with the store its all good.

      I dont think Ive ever opened an application by browsing the start menu for it... didnt in windows 7 either come to think of it!

  10. Maty

    ah, win10

    The last update but one took out my wife's sound card.

    The last update bricked the entire computer, because it decided that the disk imaging system was not compatible, and so blocked it, making it impossible to so much as open a file or folder. You could also not uninstall the imaging program, even in safe mode, because the uninstaller was also deemed incompatible.

    So far it takes about a morning every month to keep this POS operating, and we live in dread of what the next update will do. Meanwhile, my win7 computer just chugs along. I think I'd rather eat my own foot than 'upgrade'.

  11. Kaltern

    0.0.0.0 choice.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 choice.microsoft.com.nstac.net

    0.0.0.0 df.telemetry.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 oca.telemetry.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net

    0.0.0.0 redir.metaservices.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 services.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 settings-sandbox.data.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 settings-win.data.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 sqm.df.telemetry.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net

    0.0.0.0 telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net

    0.0.0.0 telemetry.appex.bing.net

    0.0.0.0 telemetry.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 telemetry.urs.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 vortex-win.data.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 vortex.data.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 watson.telemetry.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net

    0.0.0.0 watson.ppe.telemetry.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 vortex-bn2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net

    0.0.0.0 vortex-cy2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net

    0.0.0.0 watson.live.com

    0.0.0.0 watson.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 feedback.search.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 feedback.windows.com

    0.0.0.0 corp.sts.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 diagnostics.support.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 i1.services.social.microsoft.com

    0.0.0.0 i1.services.social.microsoft.com.nsatc.net

    0.0.0.0 vortex-bn2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net

    0.0.0.0 vortex-cy2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net

    THIS is one BIG reason we hate Windows 10.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pirate

      External HW firewall? Obviously you're not trusting "your" HOSTS file to do that... Windows ☠ is, of course, hard-coded to ignore our HOSTS files in matters pertaining to our surveillance and enforced insertions. Furthermore, the Microsoft Corporation's DNS whitelist, embedded within dnsapi.dll, will be updated and amended in perpetuity, at its true owner's* sole discretion and convenience.

      *Make no mistake: That sure as hell aint us!

      https://www.petri.com/windows-10-ignoring-hosts-file-specific-name-resolution

  12. fidodogbreath
    Flame

    Fool me twice

    I tried Windows 10. I even tried to like it; giving up on that, I tried to tolerate it.

    Last October I ran the upgrade on a 7 Pro box. Spent hours turning off obnoxious ads and intrusive "features," configuring the Start menu tiles to reflect how I want to work, and so forth. Then the 1115 update came out and erased all of my changes, turned the ads back on, re-enabled Cortana, and re-enabled telemetry. So I went back to 7.

    Then, in July, I thought "maybe I didn't give 10 a fair shake." So I downloaded the MCT and clean-installed 10 Pro. Spent hours turning off obnoxious ads and intrusive "features," configuring the Start menu tiles to reflect how I want to work, and so forth. Then the Anniversary update came out and erased all of my changes, turned the ads back on, re-enabled Cortana, and re-enabled telemetry.

    I don't have time for this shit. It's not me, M$, it's you. I'll be riding 7 Pro into the ground for boxen that need Windows, and installing Linux Mint on the rest.

    1. JLV

      Re: Fool me twice

      I haven't tuned out the ads/snoopware yet - mostly because it is a work-only machine and I refuse to put anything remotely private on Windows these days so I don't care overmuch if it snoops.

      But your experience makes me wonder... can anyone recommend a configuration tool/script that reliably sets Windows privacy settings and can reapply them as needed when MS re-applies it preferred nosy configuration? Not necessarily something completely robust and able to manage a company's PC fleet. But something able to reapply your personal PC's configuration as needed, even if it needs a bit of user savvy to do so.

      Seems like something a Chef or some modern declarative-based configuration engine might be able to do. Or something that could be done using Powershell.

      Or, maybe even a set of registry entries, though that seems it would be brittle.

      Preferably NOT a pure, opaque, executable - no need to trade MS's intrusive stupidity for what could possibly be a nice backdoor into your system.

      1. fidodogbreath

        Re: Fool me twice

        can anyone recommend a configuration tool/script that reliably sets Windows privacy settings and can reapply them as needed when MS re-applies it preferred nosy configuration?

        AntiSpy for Windows 10 wasn't bad, but it fails your opacity test.

        Sadly, such programs only deals with the data slurp settings. It's still up to you to fix uninstalled or blocked programs, borked drivers, buggy updates, Windows Store ads, forced bloatware installs, a re-arranged start menu, and the many other Win10 "upgrade" annoyances.

        1. JLV

          Re: Fool me twice

          This seems promising

          https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10

          Doesn't repair borked programs though.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Alert

        Re: Fool me twice

        ...that reliably sets Windows privacy settings and can reapply them as needed when MS re-applies...

        HERE BE DRAGONS

        1. Roland6 Silver badge

          Re: Fool me twice

          Re: HERE BE DRAGONS

          And (hopefully) a nice little earner for someone. I am assuming that some people did donate to the developer of GWX Control Panel...

  13. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Windows 10 is great!

    Just wanted to pop in and say I've had no problems with Win10. Hardware support is great, the UI is clean and responsive, and it's been perfectly stable. I also have no idea what these "ads" are that people are talking about. My only complaint with recent versions of Windows is that Microsoft has made it impossible to migrate from one system to another with any out-of-the-box tools. Otherwise, it's working fine for me and, dare I say it, this may be the case for most of the people who are not angry, sock-and-sandal-wearing neckbeards.

    1. fidodogbreath
      Big Brother

      Re: Windows 10 is great!

      Thanks for sharing your experience, Mr. Nadella Mangrove.

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Re: Windows 10 is great!

      "this may be the case for most of the people who are not angry, sock-and-sandal-wearing neckbeards."

      or ARE smug, arrogant millenials. enjoy your FAIL-OS.

    3. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Windows 10 is great!

      Patience. You'll get your turn.

  14. Mage Silver badge

    On the rise?

    "But there are signs that businesses and professional users at least are keen on Windows 10, with European IT market research outfit Context reporting that Windows 10 Pro adoption is on the rise."

    Well, what alternative have you to run Sage, Outlook based Scheduling and other corporate Windows only stuff etc?

    Bears in the woods, Pope Catholic etc.

    Forced rather than keen.

    1. VinceH
      Facepalm

      Re: On the rise?

      "Well, what alternative have you to run Sage, Outlook based Scheduling and other corporate Windows only stuff etc?"

      According to an email I received today from Sage, the Win10 adversary anniversary update is preventing some users from logging in to their copies of Sage 50 Accounts. For some, depending on the extent to which they use the software, this could be quite a problem - especially with the end of the month fast approaching.

      1. psychonaut

        Re: On the rise?

        on the other hand, its rarely not "time of the month" with sage. fucking sage. i look after several accountancy practices. its many many tentacled applications (one practice runs 8 different sage products) constantly need updating or babysitting.

    2. TVU

      Re: On the rise?

      "Well, what alternative have you to run Sage, Outlook based Scheduling and other corporate Windows only stuff etc?"

      These days, many essential services are increasingly going online/in the cloud so making it more practical to escape from dependency on Windows.

  15. Mage Silver badge

    Win 10 on MS Phone

    The FM radio vanishes.

  16. Michael Jarve
    Meh

    Windows 10: Fine for the elite, but caution against the unweary.

    I've been personally using Windows 10 since its official release last year. For the most part, I much prefer it to 8/8.1, but I don't like many parts as much as I liked Windows 7 Pro. For me, the sore points have mostly been the lack of privacy controls (or automatic default opt-ins for MS services), automatically forced updates/patches, and the idea that since Microsoft "gave away" the OS for free (for a time) we somehow exchanged our privacy and marketing information for a "free" OS and defaults you into their data gorging operations. I can almost tolerate the forced updates, but nowhere did I expect the OS to be so intrusive.

    Fortunately, for the computing elite, there are ways to mitigate what I consider to be the more egregious aspects of Windows 10, at least for now. I've managed to stop Cortana's siphoning of data to god-knows-where (at the expense of the OS constantly vomiting into the Application and System logs), and can at least postpone forced OS service packs Updates until they've been thoroughly re-beta tested by those less fortunate or knowledgeable. Back in the good-old days of ordinary Patch Tuesday, I'd let other chumps download said patches first, scour the web for things that were pooched, and by Thursday would know whether I wanted in on the fun. Classic Shell even allows my Start menu to work and look as I've come to expect it. In short, I can get around my hangups in Win 10 with effort and knowledge, or the knowledge of others.

    But for my Mom, and the remaining 90%+ of the computing consumers, things are not so simple. Mention gpedit, and you get a look that would not be out of place on a concussed kitten. These are the people that are baffled when their free subscription to Office 365 expires and they can no longer create "letters" even though it worked fine yesterday, it must be the new Virus they heard about on the news, just take a look at it, why are my pictures and screen saver not what they used to be... etc. They are also the people that seemingly don't care that their computer is hoovering up their personal info and habits and shipping it off to Redmond in the hopes that they'll click on the ad for discount airfare to Minneapolis, what a coincidence, they just did a search on their own computer for paper that included the words "Winter Carnival", don'tcha know, or are suddenly seeing ads for alcohol abuse treatments on every site they visit after researching "liver failure" in Bing, the default search engine on the default browser on the default OS.

    More is the pity, as many of Win 10's underlying improvements are just that: Improvements. Features that benefit the computer and the end user, but are largely invisible, or, for those that know about them, overshadowed by the OS's stalker-like behavior. On my 5 year old hardware of my daily-driver system, Win 10 is as speedy and more reliable than Windows 7, no matter how much I liked it.

    There are many of a technically inclined sort who advocate an alternate OS, particularly Linux. Linux, especially the more consumer-friendly forms like Ubuntu, are compelling. Linux could handle 90% of what I do under Windows, without most of the hassle, but there is the hassle right there- Performing a wholesale change of OS is itself a hassle, and trying to get the remaining 10% of what I need to do (which, when you can't do it seems like 100%) is impractical. Further, that does nothing to help the majority of consumer users who are not going to go so far, for love nor money; it was hard enough replacing my Mom's OS X iBook with a Windows 8 Dell Laptop!

    1. psychonaut

      Re: Windows 10: Fine for the elite, but caution against the unweary.

      " it was hard enough replacing my Mom's OS X iBook with a Windows 8 Dell Laptop!!

      you should be kinder to your mum in future,

    2. Andrew Stubbs

      Re: Windows 10: Fine for the elite, but caution against the unweary.

      "it was hard enough replacing my Mom's OS X iBook with a Windows 8 Dell Laptop!"

      Why would you do such a thing? That's got to be the wrong direction surely.

      1. Michael Jarve

        Re: Windows 10: Fine for the elite, but caution against the unweary.

        "Why would you do such a thing? That's got to be the wrong direction surely."

        A matter of perspective, surely. At that time it was getting on 9 years old, but what necessitated the replacement was that she literally vomited on it. She was experiencing end-stage kidney failure and became violently ill. A $400 Dell from Walmart was a quick, cheap replacement that kept her playing solitaire and checking emails without the wait and expense of a new MacBook. As an aside, she's still on dialysis now, waiting to get on the transplant list, but doing relatively well.

        1. Roland6 Silver badge

          Re: Windows 10: Fine for the elite, but caution against the unweary.

          A matter of perspective, surely.

          I would agree. However, in your situation, I would have given her a $200 iPad (iPad2's are readily available and will run the current version of iOS, but new versions with the lightning connector are better because the charging lead isn't keyed...)...

          1. psychonaut

            Re: Windows 10: Fine for the elite, but caution against the unweary.

            all joking aside, i hope your mum is ok mate.

  17. Captain Badmouth
    Windows

    "European IT market research outfit Context reports that Windows 10 Pro adoption is on the rise"

    Well yes, it's an unwanted bastard orphan child after all.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      It'll probably be invading Poland before long.

      This isn't going to end well. You mark my words

      :-(

  18. Vince

    I wonder how they count scenarios where person buys Windows 10 Pro machine, uses downgrade rights to stick 8.1 or for whatever crazy reason 7 on.

    Do they still count it as a 10 sale... and 10 usage... I bet they do.

  19. TVU

    Official: Windows 10 has hit the 400 million device mark

    "However, Redmond cheesed off many business users earlier this year when it retroactively removed from Windows 10 Pro a feature that enabled admins to restrict access to the Windows Store, and thus control what apps users can install. The move was portrayed by many as an attempt to upsell businesses to the Windows 10 Enterprise edition, which is only available through volume licensing deals."

    That does not come across as a long term smart move because businesses will try and cling on to Windows 7 for as long as possible and a significant fraction of them will then move over to one of the unices rather than pony up for the more expensive Enterprise edition.

  20. Roland6 Silver badge

    "challenge of trying to get people to pay for Windows 10"

    Sorry, I don't see a challenge! If you buy a new PC(*) with Win10 preinstalled, the cost of the OS licence has been factored into the price; just as it was for all previous preinstalled versions of Windows.

    Given the effort MS has put into GWX this last year, I suggest there are very few people with systems currently running Win7/8 who are looking to upgrade these systems to Win10, so not worth the marketing budget.

    (*) I'm ignoring that until the end of October you can still buy PC's with Win7Pro preinstalled.

  21. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    For a moment I read the headline as W10 hits 400 million devices. Hit as with a hammer. It seemed about right.

  22. Carl D

    " it was hard enough replacing my Mom's OS X iBook with a Windows 8 Dell Laptop!! "

    Mother-in-law, yes. But, not your dear Mother, surely?

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Linux

      " it was hard enough replacing my Mom's OS X iBook with a Windows 8 Dell Laptop!!"

      "But, not your dear Mother, surely?"

      Installing Mint Linux along with a short 'introduction to Linux' session would fix it, yeah.

      if you set Mint up properly your mother is probably already using the same software that you find pre-installed on Mint, like Libre Office, TBird, Firefox... and if she's used to a Mac, the bash shell and file system structure should ALSO be familiar on Mint!

      I imagine that OSX to Mint (Cinnamon) is MUCH less of a shock than OSX to Windows "Ape" or Win-10-nic.

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