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Windows Microsoft Operating Systems

Windows 10 Passes 700 Million Devices (neowin.net) 113

Posted by BeauHD from the not-sure-if-we-should-clap dept.
At its Ignite 2018 conference, Microsoft said that Windows 10 has been installed on over 700 million active devices. Neowin reports of the confusion around this estimate, noting that "the last milestone was 600 million active devices" announced on November 29, 2017, nearly 10 months ago. From the report: If you follow Windows 10 news, this might not even seem like a major development. That's because the firm's communication around this has been wildly inconsistent. It started off when Windows and Devices chief Terry Myerson announced that he's leaving Microsoft, and he wrote in a farewell letter that Windows 10 is installed on nearly 700 million active devices. That was almost six months ago. At the firm's Build conference in May and at the Insider Dev Tour in July, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 is installed on over 700 million devices, only to retract those statements later on and say they were mistakes. But today after almost six months of "nearly 700 million", Windows 10 is officially installed on over 700 million devices.
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Windows 10 Passes 700 Million Devices More

Windows 10 Passes 700 Million Devices

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  • Windows 10 Infects 700 Million Devices (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    FTFY
  • Right in your lap. Here's where you say "Thank you Microsoft".

  • A great number of these are: (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Xbox consoles

    Windows 10 phones which arent made anymore

    Buget atom tablets which microsoft gave away windows 10 on but in order to qualify the hardware maker had to purposely make the hardware suck, killing off intels efforts to gain marketshare over arm in the tablet market

    Win 7 and 8 machines that were automaticaly upgraded to 10 against the users will.

    People who upgraded to 10 for gaming since microsoft purposely holds back directx12 from anything other to windows10 to make people upgrade. The same bullsh

    • macOS isn't free. Neither is iOS
      If you think it is, can you tell me where I can legally purchase it to install on non-Apple hardware?

      Same goes for PS4's OS and non-Sony hardware. Switch and non-Nintendo hardware.

      Those OS's are all bundled with a hardware purchase and not available for purchase on their own.

  • How many were truly voluntary, though? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2018 @07:50PM (#57381788) Journal
    How many do you subtract that were forced on unsuspecting users, users who didn't know any better, and users who weren't otherwise given a choice? Can we also subtract out businesses, who either didn't have a choice, either, and their employees, who weren't given a choice by their employers?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kiviQr ( 3443687 )
      Somehow no one complains about iPhone updates

      • I would except that my iPhone is incredibly good about not installing an update when I say "don't install this update".

        I can almost get behind forced security updates, but never behind sneaky or forced OS updates.

        The one good thing about the Win10 upgrade insanity though is that MS finally can update an OS from version to version and have it mostly work...

        • I would except that my iPhone is incredibly good about not installing an update when I say "don't install this update".

          You're kidding right?

          You're given only two options - "install now" or "later", there is no "do not ask me again" (screen [wp.com]).

          When you select "later", you get hit with a dark pattern [wikipedia.org] that encourages you to enter your passcode to update in the early hours of the morning with a small text option "Remind me later" at the very bottom (screen [twimg.com]). Since there is no "do not ask me again" option, this gi

      • Mostly 'cause I don't have one. There are many alternatives, ya know. Also and especially in a professional environment.

        Plus, as far as I know you can actually tell your iPhone that you need it now and it should postpone the update. It's not that easy with Windows when it decides to do the update NOW and to hell with you and your unsaved work.

        • My favorite is when the power goes out, and as you go to quickly get everything shut down before the UPS runs out of juice, and Windows decides THEN it wants to do an update.

      • Easy.
        1. People choose to buy iPhones. People who hate them buy an Android.
        2. This is anti MS site slashdot. A site like neowin.net is where the tiny Windows fanboys go.
        3. People don't choose to buy Windows. They do so because they need a PC for work or some task that uses software which runs on Windows.

        Gone are the days where PCs are cool and fun!

        Phones are cool and the PC is the boring visual word processor to type things. So because it's boring and a chore then OS updates are not cool anymore than updatin

        • I'd be happy to upgrade to 10 if there weren't so many spyware issues to deal with. Microsoft made their own bed with this version.

          • Go Google this as MS released a tool to show EXACTLY what is collected. Just telemetry with unique IDs with nothing idnetifiable. Windows Store and Cortana of course keep track as how else would MS know which apps are in your library?

            No keystroke loggers, snooping your document contents or other non sense that is spewed here

    • Well, the free upgrade offer ended on July 29, 2016. At that time, Windows 10 had around 350 Million Devices.

      Let's assume every single one of those devices were a non-voluntary unsuspected user sneaky upgrade.

      that means that they had from then until now, 350Million more devices.

      And no, you can not substract business or governments, either that do not give employees a choice, or that they do not have a choice themselves, lest you want to substract places like governments in Venezuela, Italy, brazil, and indi

      • > the owner of the business choose voluntarily the tools to use.

        I recently purchased a business laptop, and even though I would have preferred Windows 7 or 8......... I had no choice. Windows X was the only option.

        Which sucks (it ties up the internet with constant, non-skippable updates).

        • > the owner of the business choose voluntarily the tools to use.

          I recently purchased a business laptop, and even though I would have preferred Windows 7 or 8......... I had no choice. Windows X was the only option.

          Pretty much true. Even though we have an Enterprise license and can install Windows 7, no newer hardware though our supplier has drivers to support Windows 7. It's either buy a 2+ year old computer (which we sometimes do) or use Win10.

        • You can stop the Windows Update service and set it to 'Disabled', and that will prevent updates from happening whenever it feels like it, but you'll have to re-enable it to get updates, and you won't have a choice in what updates you get.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Meh, M$ routinely lies. So is a computer one device or many. Careful, they said installed on, not running on. So like the typical M$ PR wankers they are, I'll bet they are counting broken devices that were replaced with another windows 10 box. Hey if you installed windows 10 and then replaced it, guess fucking what, you still installed it. Hey this is fun, windows 10 killed your box and you had to reinstall, that is windows 10 installed again, woo hoo. Also, yeah, I checked, I can still get windows 8.1 at l

        • You're very good at hiding your hatred for MS. Biased opinion anyone?

          This bullshit press release, they are hurting, we know it, they know it and so the bullshit. Fuck you recalcitrant users you will be forced to use windows ten as commanded by M$ and here's proof numbers, we are dominating you and we will continue to dominate you, so fucking American.

          You don't need to trust their press release, you can go look at it for yourself. Data collected from browsers alone point to their number being correct. Fact is, they do dominate the desktop OS world according to those numbers. If it's a workstation it has a 85% chance of being Windows and 42% chance of being Windows 10.

          Nobody is forcing anybody to use anything. Instead, the current technology landscape makes it that for many types of busi

      • But are they tools for the users, or are they tools for Microsoft? I say they DGAF about the users so long as they're making money off them, and that's wrong.

    • users who didn't know any better

      Can you separate users who didn't know better from users who actually care? This isn't an iPhone. The last time I saw anyone remotely care about an OS upgrade was Windows XP.

      Actually that's not right, those poor people who used Vista were generally quite excited to use something else when the chance presented. But the point is most users don't give a shit what their computers run. Given them a Linux with a windows skin and the only thing you'll hear complaints about is that when they double click the .exe f

      • People do care about keeping 7. Windows 10 while technically supperior, has major breakage issues upon frequent updates.

        Agile reelease may work well on phones with jailed apps but legacy crud make Windows a nightmare. This is why MS wants developers to use the app store. Windows is a mess and a Hodge podge glue of legacy and unknown ungodly nightmare of hardware support from manufacturers who refuse to update drivers.

        Users don't care to the point where they need it to work but care when a change to somethin

        • People do care about keeping 7.

          No they don't.They just don't care about upgrading. You can verify this yourself Windows adoption figures perfectly trend the sale rate of PCs with one notable exception: Windows 10 adoption was higher than all previous versions initially thanks to the MS forced tactics.

          The downward trend in Windows 10 adoption compared to Windows 7 is perfectly inline with the downward trend in PC sales on the whole.

          Windows 10 while technically supperior, has major breakage issues upon frequent updates

          Yes I agree. It also is a technical detail that is completely irrelevant as everyone who isn't a techhead do

    • How many do you subtract that were forced on unsuspecting users, users who didn't know any better, and users who weren't otherwise given a choice? Can we also subtract out businesses, who either didn't have a choice, either, and their employees, who weren't given a choice by their employers?

      The geek has been posting variations of this rant since the launch of Slashdot. Windows took possession of the desktop along about Win 95 and never looked back. The fundamental reason is that the Windows PC is a mass market product easily customized for home and office use. You want 1500 thin clients for corporate use? No problem. Shopping Amazon.com for the high-end water cooled gaming machine? Also no problem.

  • Linux has the most devices globally (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    According to wikipedia [wikipedia.org], Linux kernel systems are 40.41%, windows 36.84% and Apple 18.46%.

  • These guys are now going to 'manage' your PC and charge you a fee. They will also remove and suggest what software you need.

    What could possible go wrong.

  • So, like, a fraction of Android/Linux devices?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by williamyf ( 227051 )

      Yes, 700 Million devices, a good % of those devices are capable of Content CREATION/PRODUCTION, unlike most of those Android/Linux devices which are only capable of Content COMSUMPTION.

      Having said that, I use a Mac on my desktop, and an Android on my pocket. And I advocated Linux in the telco datacenter A LOT (in late 90's early 00's time frame, when it was quite harder to argue the case against the Likes of Solaris, HP-UX and AIX)...

      But yes, to each his own, this milestone is a good one for Win10.

      OSs are l

      • Yes, 700 Million devices, a good % of those devices are capable of Content CREATION/PRODUCTION,

        Interesting point. What fraction of those do you think are actually being used for content creation/production? I think, very small. But looking at it the other way - of all content production, how much is done on Windows machines? I think, a high percentage, so granted. But don't forget that Hollywood is basically standardized on Linux workstations now, that has a really outsized contribution to content creation. And there is a rapidly expanding content creation scene based on tools like Blender and Krita,

        • When I set on my Mac and Fire up Powerpoint to make a presentation on how to install fusionsphere/Openstack on Huawei servers all while reading the manuals in fucking Hedex (windows only), while preparing hadout notes in word..., or when I sit in my mac and again fire up Powerpoint to preprare a rpesentation about how to instal, configure and administer the Hadoop backend for Nokia's CEMoD 16 while reading the manuals in AdobePDF (thank god), and write handouts in word, I am creating content too.

          I guess the

      • Yes, 700 Million devices, a good % of those devices are capable of Content CREATION/PRODUCTION.

        The hardware. Yes. But with that OS?

      • Yes, 700 Million devices, a good % of those devices are capable of Content CREATION/PRODUCTION, unlike most of those Android/Linux devices which are only capable of Content COMSUMPTION.

        Wrong, and also wrong. You can create content on a smartphone. People do it every day. Videos, photos including retouching, 3d models using free tools from autodesk, poems, slashdot posts...

    • So, like, a fraction of Android/Linux devices?

      The most important fraction. Google makes a tiny fraction of profit from Android/Linux when compared to Enterprise agreements from Microsoft.

      When keeping the shareholders happy no one gives a crap about Android, especially since Google's monetisation attempt may see them lose 4% of their revenue soon.

  • As the saying goes, quantity is job number one.

  • That's a whole lot of eyes and ears for Microsoft now.

  • Wow that's almost as many as Windows 95!

  • I think the correct time would have been "had been". How many of those came preinstalled and the first thing anyone did to them was to wipe the system?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bazorg ( 911295 )

      Nobody knows and that's a knowledge gap that has certainly been reduced by telemetry.
      Back in the day, people could read about number of units shipped, about licenses sold and come up with some sort of estimate. Today, if Microsoft really wanted to disclose the number of active devices, they probably could.

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