It's coooming: Windows 10 October 2018 Update adoption slows ahead of the next release

With the next release of Windows 10 looming, adoption of October's Update of the Damned remains woefully low, according to figures from AdDuplex. Things appear to have slowed, with the figures for March creeping up by around 5 per cent to 26.4 per cent of machines. The previous update, 1803, still holds a commanding lead, …

[Dwarf]

Modern tech companies don't get it any more

One of the fundamental problems that needs fixing is that the "nothing changed" yet things break problem. This just means that those doing the marketing are just telling lies or are badly informed. Both are fixable by management.

If nothing changed, then things don't break. If things do change, put it into the change log so that the people that might want to look at using the product can determine if it might affect them and they can test appropriately.

Then we get onto those vendors who's change logs just say generic BS each time "fixed some minor bugs" - so how about telling us what those minor bugs were then - what component, what sort of defect. Perhaps it might allow someone to say "ahh, that could be the cause of problem X that we've been looking into"

Now about testing - failed to upgrade from a previous version, How about testing that edge case as it might affect a few users, this should definitely be in the test cases for MVP, since if you can't get it onto a machine, then you are going to look mighty stupid again, but we've been here before haven't we - is anyone learning yet ???? apparently not !!

I'm wondering if its time for the grey beards to come back out of retirement and teach the hipsters of today how to do things properly again, that way, companies might re-establish the trust with their customers again.

[Anonymous Coward]

The main issue is that the majority of customers are dumber than a bag of rocks and freak out if they don't understand what one of the changes on that list means.

[Mark 85]

@AC

A secondary issue is revenue and profits. Let the customers do the testing. If it's crap we'll make excuses, do minimal fixes and carry on. Let's face it, if they cared about the customer they might have fewer problems with people jumping to the next "improvement".

[Timmy B]

"The main issue is that the majority of customers are dumber than a bag of rocks and freak out if they don't understand what one of the changes on that list means."

No. They aren't dumber. Perhaps you could argue less informed. But that doesn't make them dumb. If you get a car serviced, or an oven, or a dishwasher do you understand all the work carried out? Does that make you dumb? No. You probably don't care about the work done. Like Joe average doesn't care about what MS fixes in Windows - they just care that it turns on when they want and generally isn't a pest.

[WatAWorld]

It is perfectly acceptable that most customers don't understand what the changes in the change list. All it means is most users are end users, not programmers or system integrators. Which is how it should be.

If your product is so hard to use that users need to understand about internal bugs, what module is affected, and so on, then your product is not ready for retail sale.

[N2]

Just what inspired you to make such a senseless comment? Let me guess...

1. You work for Microsoft, so the customer is always wrong.

2. You have just smoked a large amount of herbal compund

3. Both 1 & 2

[Often Confused]

4. Something, something... Brexit

[Steve Knox]

Re: Modern tech companies don't get it any more

We had a "nothing changed" but things broke event with our last software release.

Turns out what had changed was that the QA tester actually looked at the error log this time. What "broke" had been broken for at least a year and nobody had noticed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Modern tech companies don't get it any more

I'm wondering if its time for the grey beards to come back out of retirement and teach the hipsters of today how to do things properly again, that way, companies might re-establish the trust with their customers again.

Ask any IT business (really just the bigguns), we cost too much! A couple of years back I got to chatting with the CIO for the VA hospital here. He tried and tried to get me hired, being a disabled vet I'd be a good fit and I already knew all of systems (had the same at home). He couldn't. It wasn't in his budget. Yet he could get several students from Cal State Fresno on work study who he had to teach from scratch each and every quarter. And this is still true. He's always backlogged. You see the same stupidity everywhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Modern tech companies don't get it any more

Why didn't you offer a reduced rate?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Update of the Damned"

The update to the update to the update, yet it still has the same name.

Somewhere there is guy named Sisyphus whose arduous modern day task is to run windows updates.

[elgarak1]

"This update contains nothing new. We simply updated the version numbers of several components in the OS."

That doesn't make any kind of sense. The version numbers are there to keep track of changes. If nothing changes, there's no need to change version numbers. In fact, it might even be defeating the purpose.

[DiViDeD]

Re: We simply updated the version numbers

Well Microsoft do have form for realigning version numbers on components. Anyone remember MS Office?

[A.P. Veening]

Nothing new

"This update contains nothing new. We simply updated the version numbers of several components in the OS."

Probably a factually true statement, they just broke it by removing something old (but necessary).

[Stu 18]

They must be the saddest most depressed developers in the world

We can't see a single thing wrong, so we just changed a few numbers to ensure we get a bonus.... It is very obvious that the biggest thing missing in Windows 10 is pride - as in we actually give a ......

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's get real

Pure evil

[A.P. Veening]

Re: Let's get real

Nah, just incompetence (to a criminal degree). The things can improve rapidly at Microsoft when the bean counters are kicked out and competent technicians can do their jobs again like they should (after hiring a set of those competent technicians, all gone thanks to those bean counters).

[Wade Burchette]

Re: Let's get real

I am convinced that the purpose of Windows 10 is to make Microsoft money after the first day. Thus, things like a proper UI and reliability, which are not profitable, are axed.

[Phage]

Re: Let's get real

Sigh - It's not Finance doing the firing. It's the C-Suite.

[steviebuk]

Let's hope

The next release is also a major balls up. If it is, it might, just might force Sat Nav to concede and give as all fucking control back on when updates are done and not shove it down our throats.

[David Gosnell]

Ad-slinging?

I must have mine configured wrong...

[DJV]

Check for updates still won't install 1809

I suspect one of the reasons the roll out is so low is that, even if you click "Check for updates" on an 1803 system, it will only ever install updates for 1803 and then tell you that "everything is up to date" without ever offering 1809.

I wanted to test 1809 on a low-priority system to make sure it didn't bork anything important* and the only way to do it was to download the update assistant and force an update. Most people probably won't even know that the option even exists. I'm sure there are probably thousands of 1803 based systems out there that are exactly the same.

(* So far, much to my surprise, it has behaved, but give it time...)

[rmason]

Re: Check for updates still won't install 1809

Our laptops here (lenovo, not that it matters) See the update, but just sit forever at 0% downloaded.

They need manual intervention. Via both WSUS and just left to get them from MS they just sit at "downloading, 0%" for the 1809 feature update..

It's about 1 in 4 or something.

[Expat-Cat]

Re: Check for updates still won't install 1809

Agree. I have a Surface Pro 4, and never got an automated offer to move to 1809. I assumed for a while that there was some hardware driver issue, but nothing listed (searching forums) by other owners that had upgraded.

So I went to the MS site and started the upgrade. Completed in less than an hour (went for a snack, was done when I got back) and only issue was my microphone was not working, though "no issues found" on scanning. Delete device and restart, all OK. The Cloud Clipboard and new screen shot features are very useful.

So why the slow roll out to the one set of devices MS should have done ASAP?

[WatAWorld]

What overwhelmingly matters most, is the update be bug free before general release

It doesn't matter to real end users if 19H1 goes in in February 2020. I doubt real end users will notice anything in it they even value, just a few apps given blander, more boring, and harder to read user interfaces.

It doesn't matter if there are seven dozen more fast ring and two dozen more slow ring versions. Test version are for testing.

Anyone upset about bugs in testing doesn't understand the concept. The concept is to keep testing until the bugs appear to be gone.

It doesn't even matter is eight pre-release test versions are recalled. That is why there is pre-release instead of just release.

I expect the important improvements are all behind the scenes anyways, apart from a few new tools and apps for groupies and enthusiasts.

All that really matters is not causing problems. If MS puts out any more production update (aka general release update) of Windows 10 with problems people are going to be thinking Satya Nadella is taking kick-backs from Linus Torvalds.

What matters most, what overwhelmingly matters most is get the update correctly built and tested before releasing it to general users. Anyone who thinks different is living in a bubble.

IF MS screws up another release heads are going to have to roll or barely anyone is going to trust 19H2 or 20H1.

[Franco]

Can't speak for others here, but I only got offered 1809 as an update last week. Whether that is due to MS doing a very slow rollout or some other reason I don't know

[Anonymous Coward]

Duly noted

[Pink Duck]

Nothing to see here

I suggest no-one wastes a day like I did with the update offered for a workstation only to find that Intel's latest on-board display drivers were blacklisted and the latest compatible graphics card matching the motherboard from AMD similarly. I ended up rolling back then re-patching. Thanks MS for that.

[Barry Rueger]

Oh Joy. Windows.

My only experience with Windows 10 is trying to keep my wife from throwing her HP laptop out the (real) window.

The true frustration is that every update breaks something, but only vaguely. If things would just break completely, stop working entirely, I could usually find and fix the problem.

The problem is the sense that something has changed for the worse, but not consistently, and not in an entirely reproducible pattern. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't.