Windows 10 Is Still Installed on under 700 Million Active Devices

Megalith

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It appears that Windows 10 installations have gone stagnant. Back in March, former Windows chief Terry Myerson announced the OS was on nearly 700 million devices, but months later, that number hasn’t changed: Satya Nadella held an earnings call this week and reiterated W10 being installed on “nearly 700 million” devices.

We've been at nearly 700 million devices for almost four months, so growth of the OS install base is either completely stagnant, or Microsoft has been very loose with the word "nearly". When Windows 10 was first introduced, Microsoft said that it planned to have the OS installed on over a billion devices within two to three years. The company retracted that promise a year later, saying that it won't achieve the goal, but the three years will be up in 10 days.
 
Since when is 700 million small? That's more than twice the population of the United States. Considering the stagnation of NEW computer sales that need a new W10 install, I'm not surprised at all.

With people more encouraged to buy a $100 tablet or their subsidized cell phone, I'm not in the least bit surprised.
 
honestly I can't stand W10. If it wasn't for some AAA games I wouldn't have installed it at all. The notifications are obnoxious (Facebook notifications wouldn't shut up on my Surface book, even after shutting them off. Had to sign out), the out of the box experience is terrible (candy crush soda saga ads, etc.), the forced updates.... etc. etc.
 
honestly I can't stand W10. If it wasn't for some AAA games I wouldn't have installed it at all. The notifications are obnoxious (Facebook notifications wouldn't shut up on my Surface book, even after shutting them off. Had to sign out), the out of the box experience is terrible (candy crush soda saga ads, etc.), the forced updates.... etc. etc.

The forced updates are really the only thing I have experienced that you state.

Sometimes I wonder if there was a check box during installation that everyone just checked and clicked next on that said "I'm computer illiterate, please just do whatever".
 
They should try giving it away for free. :ROFLMAO:

Can't tell if serious? :p They basically did that for well over a year. If you have a 7 or 8 license you can pretty much still do it.

To be fair, that's not 'free' but most people complaining already own a previous version, so no cost upgrade is effectually free. Not a bad deal.

honestly I can't stand W10. If it wasn't for some AAA games I wouldn't have installed it at all. The notifications are obnoxious (Facebook notifications wouldn't shut up on my Surface book, even after shutting them off. Had to sign out), the out of the box experience is terrible (candy crush soda saga ads, etc.), the forced updates.... etc. etc.

I've never installed an OS and not tweaked the settings and experience to some degree to make it comfortable. If not Windows, then one of the *nix flavors which has a lot more tweaking to be done. Say what you will, the OOB Windows is a generally easy experience with a few changes. Don't like Candy Crush? just remove it from the menu. No idea what's going on with your notifications but i have zero notifications generally. Just put yourself on do not disturb or quiet/focus hours all day. Forced updates is a different topic, but at least in my experience they give you at least 30 days which is decent to install and reboot. #shrug
 
Sometimes I wonder if there was a check box during installation that everyone just checked and clicked next on that said "I'm computer illiterate, please just do whatever".

Yeah, it's called Microsoft's default settings - designed, focused-grouped and optimized for maximum benefit to MS - and maximum deception to precisely that computer illiterate group. Example, FULL blast data collection of all your OS activity, filenames and searchbox keystrokes by default, rather than just politely asking users if they'd like to opt in to "help make windows better". MS goes about it in the most slimy way possible - in a paid retail OS.

But by all means keep pushing the victim blaming apologism - "people are idiots so they get what they deserve LOL". The loss of mindshare and goodwill that MS continues to hemorrhage for their user-hostile policies is happening silently and can't be measured in numbers.
 
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Yeah, it's called Microsoft's default settings, designed to prey on precisely that computer illiterate group. Example, FULL blast data collection of all your OS activity, filenames and searchbox keystrokes by default, rather than politely asking users if they'd like to OPT IN to "help make windows better".

But by all means keep pushing the victim blaming narrative - "people are idiots so they get what they deserve LOL" - it comes across as so incredibly intelligent.

The telemetry and auto updates are something I concede and have many times. It's the "it installed a game!" Or "it uninstalled xyz app!".

Those are things I haven't seen. On any of the systems I have to deal with.
 
Well the market share of devices on which W10 is installed is shrinking so it only makes sense... Their Mobile phone business failed again and again and again... they are pretty much stuck with PCs and LTs etc. Unless they get into the market of embedded systems like 2k and XP it will be difficult to expand any further.
 
I like W10. It's the only OS so far which I've had running for nearly 2 years without any corruption problems. The telemetry can be removed with certain apps so not a major problem.
Computer repair folks also like Windows 10. The non-stop "service packs" frequently pack their shops with pc's that need repair after the system corrupts.
I find it's no more "fool proof" than previous Windows versions. ymmv
 
I don't understand why some people don't like Windows 10. I've been running since pretty early preview release and have felt no desire to go back to 7, much less 8/8.1.
I don't understand why some people like Windows 10. I've been running Win 7 Pro since pretty early preview release and have felt no desire to leave it, much less go to 8/8.1.
 
I think it's not so much a Windows issue and an issue of the PC becoming obsolete. We now have an abundance of Chromebooks, Android Tablets, Rokus, Fire TVs, Steam Links, and other devices that either reduce the number of or replace the PCs in a household. Honestly, I think cellphones will eventually replace our computers entirely, and we'll just dock them to get a traditional PC experience. That would be suitable for the majority of end users, and actually enhance the phone industry, since it will justify the cost of premium handsets and thus further more sales.
 
I don't understand why some people like Windows 10. I've been running Win 7 Pro since pretty early preview release and have felt no desire to leave it, much less go to 8/8.1.

Same was said about XP when Windows Vista and then 7 came out. People were on XP until hardware was no longer compatible because Windows 7 was "shitty". It is the same incident that is happening right now. New hardware is requiring the use of Windows 10 versus Windows 7 and people are fighting it. Waiting until the next big Windows release (I know that this is supposed to be the last release) so I can watch people praise W10 and hate the new thing.

I will admit, though, that Windows 7 was THE Operating System of the last decade. It was and IS a great OS. It fulfills everything and I honestly did not see a required release since then.
 
I am sure Microsoft will cry themselves to sleep with their $800 Million market valuation and $100 Billion in cash. For the record, I like Windows 10, but to each their own.
 
Same was said about XP when Windows Vista and then 7 came out. People were on XP until hardware was no longer compatible because Windows 7 was "shitty". It is the same incident that is happening right now. New hardware is requiring the use of Windows 10 versus Windows 7 and people are fighting it. Waiting until the next big Windows release (I know that this is supposed to be the last release) so I can watch people praise W10 and hate the new thing.

They'll be praising it because the next 'big' release will probably be Apps only, no Win32/64 applications and it'll probably be subscription based.
 
I wonder if most of the people who complain about W10 have only used the Home version, which intentionally limits the user from taking control of many OS "features." With Pro, you can use Group Policy and/or registry to make it into your own environment by disabling the store, game mode, bits, automatic updates, resource-eating anti-malware services and execs, etc.
 
I wonder if most of the people who complain about W10 have only used the Home version, which intentionally limits the user from taking control of many OS "features." With Pro, you can use Group Policy and/or registry to make it into your own environment by disabling the store, game mode, bits, automatic updates, resource-eating anti-malware services and execs, etc.

Unfortunately this hasn't been true for a long time. Three years ago when W10 first shipped this was more true, but with every seasonal Creators Mega Producer Fall Update, there's been a slow, creeping erosion of features, removal of GPO's and regkeys and ultimately loss of control in Pro. Example, beginning with build 1511 you could no longer disable the Windows 10 Store. And MS does a lot of this neutering without notice or documentation.

Enterprise is the new Pro unfortunately; it's not a SKU that power users can easily obtain legitimately.
 
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Can't tell if serious? :p They basically did that for well over a year. If you have a 7 or 8 license you can pretty much still do it.

To be fair, that's not 'free' but most people complaining already own a previous version, so no cost upgrade is effectually free. Not a bad deal.



I've never installed an OS and not tweaked the settings and experience to some degree to make it comfortable. If not Windows, then one of the *nix flavors which has a lot more tweaking to be done. Say what you will, the OOB Windows is a generally easy experience with a few changes. Don't like Candy Crush? just remove it from the menu. No idea what's going on with your notifications but i have zero notifications generally. Just put yourself on do not disturb or quiet/focus hours all day. Forced updates is a different topic, but at least in my experience they give you at least 30 days which is decent to install and reboot. #shrug

Win 10 pro over win 7 ultimate is absolutely a bad deal. I lose a shit ton of functionality and gain nothing of merit by downgrading to 10. Sorry I paid too much for the features of Win 7 ultimate to just "Give them away" to MS.
 
Maybe that's due to the fact of Windows 10 being an upgrade nightmare!

I'm 2 updates behind because the current update will not install no matter how I attempt to accomplish it.

At this point I've simply given up as I don't have an hour to go through the install process uninstall process reinstall process that W10 is now so infamous for.

I find myself booting to my Windows 7 drive more and more as its speedier and much more reliable for me.

BTW: DIE CORTANA!
 
Maybe that's due to the fact of Windows 10 being an upgrade nightmare!

I'm 2 updates behind because the current update will not install no matter how I attempt to accomplish it.

At this point I've simply given up as I don't have an hour to go through the install process uninstall process reinstall process that W10 is now so infamous for.

I find myself booting to my Windows 7 drive more and more as its speedier and much more reliable for me.

BTW: DIE CORTANA!

I still haven't managed to get the 1709 update installed from last year lol
 
It's a bit to busy for me (that's the best I can describe it), but otherwise I have been fine. Working well even on 9 year old hardware. I still prefer Windows 7 more, but it's been years now and I'll never go back. I am forced to use an iMac at work, now you want to talk about garbage. Not many good mainstream options left these days. It's all about the apps, stores, features, data collection, etc. etc. Can't make money just selling a plain jane operating system.
 
We also live in a niche market age of PCs. And kind of a golden era also. We have remarkable forward and backward compatibility with both Windows 7 and Windows 10. The very latest hardware may not work quite right with Win 7 but otherwise MS and everyone else on planet earth just quietly keep supporting it. That's fine right? That's pretty much what everyone wants.

Adoption is growing because for the most part Win 10 will run well on any system capable of running Vista or higher. Which by itself is pretty amazing. I've lost count of how many older machines I've serviced where the HD was upgrade to an SSD and Win 10 was installed since we were there anyway.

There are massive gotchas with Windows 7 now. Not the least of which is time to install. To fully update a Win 7 install takes about a full day on the bench. No, you can't use slipstream updates or WSUS effectively when every system install is different hardware and software and none of them are staying on the network they were set up on. It's not practical outside a large corporate environment. Win 10 installs for single user and small business use are far better. The installer is constantly updated with each new major release and can be done FAST. Which I appreciate greatly.
 
The telemetry and auto updates are something I concede and have many times. It's the "it installed a game!" Or "it uninstalled xyz app!".

Those are things I haven't seen. On any of the systems I have to deal with.

I've had the 'uninstalled' on a few applications and had a couple applications the stopped working (until I reinstalled them).
 
I don't understand why some people like Windows 10. I've been running Win 7 Pro since pretty early preview release and have felt no desire to leave it, much less go to 8/8.1.

We still use Win 7 at my work and at home I have Win 10. For all practical purposes, at work, the only thing I miss is how that text bar next to the home button can be used for ANYTHING... besides that I don't feel Win 7 is lacking anything.
 
Maybe that's due to the fact of Windows 10 being an upgrade nightmare!

I'm 2 updates behind because the current update will not install no matter how I attempt to accomplish it.

At this point I've simply given up as I don't have an hour to go through the install process uninstall process reinstall process that W10 is now so infamous for.

I find myself booting to my Windows 7 drive more and more as its speedier and much more reliable for me.

BTW: DIE CORTANA!

Lol, yeah, Cortana needs to go... MS just need to collaborate with Amazon and get Alexa if need be.
 
I wonder if most of the people who complain about W10 have only used the Home version, which intentionally limits the user from taking control of many OS "features." With Pro, you can use Group Policy and/or registry to make it into your own environment by disabling the store, game mode, bits, automatic updates, resource-eating anti-malware services and execs, etc.

Good point, I have never used home edition so that's maybe why I never hated Win 10
 
It used to be that people argued against Linux because of the sheer amount of tweaks needed to make it "just work".

Fast forward to now, and people are saying it's "just fine!" that you have to do exactly that to make Windows 10 behave as it should out of the box.

Meanwhile, you can install most distros of Linux on most machines and it *will* be working right away.
 
I prefer Windows 10 over Windows 7, but I admit that it took a little bit of customizing. The main reason why I upgraded was to take full advantage of the 32GB installed on my UberBoxen. I had picked up the Windows 7 Home Premium, and whoops, it had a 16GB memory limit. Definitely not what I had in mind when my intention was to do video editing and virtualization. Also, better support for screen scaling under Windows 10 than in Windows 7.

Having said that, Windows 10 was practically an must-do upgrade if you had Windows 8/8.1. Windows 7, on the other hand, was a less compelling reason.

At this point, the only way we are going to see more Windows 10 numbers is when the older Windows 7 machines age out and are replaced. The End-Of-Sale for Windows 7 was October, 2016, and the End-of-Support is January, 2020. Considering how many people just use the computer for web browsing, email, and watching cat videos, they won't replace their computer until it breaks. Heck, I have two computers at work that are at least five years old, but do exactly what I need them to do.
 
Same was said about XP when Windows Vista and then 7 came out. People were on XP until hardware was no longer compatible because Windows 7 was "shitty". It is the same incident that is happening right now. New hardware is requiring the use of Windows 10 versus Windows 7 and people are fighting it. Waiting until the next big Windows release (I know that this is supposed to be the last release) so I can watch people praise W10 and hate the new thing.

I will admit, though, that Windows 7 was THE Operating System of the last decade. It was and IS a great OS. It fulfills everything and I honestly did not see a required release since then.
My previous sarcasm aside, I promptly upgraded to every new OS from Win 3.1 up to Win 7. I didn't cling to any of them. But from Win 8.0 on, that hasn't been true. It's not just the OS, it's MS's attitude as defined by these newer OSes that have really rubbed me the wrong way, and the only way to show my displeasure is to not reward MS by purchasing an OS that I don't like and that represents an attitude that I don't like. Even if I could download things that would remove or alter many of the things I don't like about, say Win 10, I won't do it because that still doesn't address their attitude. I know this may make me look irrational or foolishly stubborn to some people, but I don't care: I feel the way I feel about it, and that's all there is to it. If MS should ever change its' ways, I'll consider buying from them again, but not until then.
 
Maybe that's due to the fact of Windows 10 being an upgrade nightmare!

I always have a problem after a major Windows 10 upgrade at the office.

Random resets of setting in IE (we still run an old application that requires IE that requires custom setting).
I've also have random machines that required re-activation of Windows or Office, and had shortcuts or apps removed.

What's strange, is that I've seen no pattern to the problems after a major update.
For example, I have a dozen identical laptops, all built with the same image.
One might need windows reactivated, another will need office reactivated, about half will need the IE settings changed.
About 1 out of the 40 systems in the office will have an app, printer, or driver removed/corrupted, requiring a reinstall of the affected software.
 
I don't understand why some people like Windows 10. I've been running Win 7 Pro since pretty early preview release and have felt no desire to leave it, much less go to 8/8.1.

How about taking the time to come up with something original. The person you quoted has a legit experience and expressed his point of view. You, on the other hand, not so much.....
 
They'll be praising it because the next 'big' release will probably be Apps only, no Win32/64 applications and it'll probably be subscription based.

Nope, there has been ZERO evidence of this and Win32/Win64 is going nowhere. Also, there is no subscription based OS and there never will be.
 
It used to be that people argued against Linux because of the sheer amount of tweaks needed to make it "just work".

Fast forward to now, and people are saying it's "just fine!" that you have to do exactly that to make Windows 10 behave as it should out of the box.

Meanwhile, you can install most distros of Linux on most machines and it *will* be working right away.

Let's not start by making stupid arguments.

Windows works OOB, as does Linux. "Not working" implies it doesn't work, not that the settings are not what you desire.

To get rid of or add things you want, you have to install applications, tweak programs (unless you are savvy with the CLI) and adjust to their liking. When Windows Vista and 7 came out I distinctly remember people downloading programs to give back the classic shell and classic start menu of XP. If someone came to the forums saying they didn't like Windows 7 start menu, everyone suggested to them to use XYZ program to convert it back. If people come here and complain about Windows 10 now, and someone suggests installing a program to fix it, people BERATE the person and claim "WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO! EVERY SETTING SHOULD BE EXACTLY AS I WANT!".

It's asinine.
 
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