Windows 10 Is Used On Over 900 Million Devices (engadget.com) 115
Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi tweeted today that Microsoft is now being used on over 900 million devices, and that the Redmond company added more new Windows 10 devices in the last 12 months than ever before. Engadget reports: That's a massive number, and as Thurrott points out, if Microsoft maintains this pace, Windows 10 could reach 1 billion devices by early 2020. That's especially impressive considering that it just announced 800 million devices in March.
Linux obsolete! (Score:1)
I told you the age of the Windows desktop was just around the corner.
Re: Linux obsolete! (Score:2)
--GBS
Linux on the Desktop arrived in the summer ... (Score:2)
I told you the age of the Windows desktop was just around the corner.
Linux on the Desktop arrived in the summer, however it was not quite what the Linux evangelists expected. It turned out to be Linux on the Microsoft Windows Desktop via Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux. :-)
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It's 'Windows on the desktop' as I get to work.
Then it's 'Unix on the desktop' as I place my phone down.
queue up the linux fans (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile win10 works just fine and it was easy to disable all the tracking. I made a simple script to do it. But you'll claim otherwise.
I'll be marked -1 as usual.
Subie
Re:queue up the linux fans (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile win10 works just fine and it was easy to disable all the tracking. I made a simple script to do it. But you'll claim otherwise.
I'll be marked -1 as usual.
Subie
It ain't the tracking, it's the mandatory broken feature updates, and the attitude of ownership over the user's machine.
Re:queue up the linux fans (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps you are too young too remember what happened with windows 9x/xp/2k.
Updates were optional. People didn't do them.
Bugs, which had been fixed for months/years were exploited in unpatched machines, leading to worms spreading like wildfire across networks, email viruses, and all sorts of nastiness that could have been easily avoided if machines had been patched regularly.
That is the reason windows 10 made patching automatic.
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Perhaps you are too young too remember what happened with windows 9x/xp/2k.
Updates were optional. People didn't do them.
Bugs, which had been fixed for months/years were exploited in unpatched machines, leading to worms spreading like wildfire across networks, email viruses, and all sorts of nastiness that could have been easily avoided if machines had been patched regularly.
That is the reason windows 10 made patching automatic.
And part of the reason Microsoft got a bad name
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Bugs, which had been fixed for months/years were exploited in unpatched machines, leading to worms spreading like wildfire across networks
Bullshit. More like - zero days, which Microsoft decided to completely ignore, allowed worms to spread like wildfire. A few months later, Microsoft would rush out some sort of fix for their shitty OS.
Re:queue up the linux fans (Score:5, Insightful)
Automatic patching isn't the problem. Automatic updates are the problem. If only security patches were automatic and mandatory then I do not think anyone would have a problem. Unfortunately, Microsoft also insists on Automatic Mandatory fiddle-faddling and it is the continuak fiddle-faddling that is the problem.
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You can pay extra to get just security patches. Just buy an Enterprise license and get on the slow ring or whatever they call it. No feature updates, just security.
I wish Microsoft would offer that to consumers.
BTW, you can run Enterprise or any version of Windows 10 for free if you don't mind a couple of limitations: an "active Windows" watermark in the lower right of the screen and the inability to change a few cosmetic settings like wallpaper and colour scheme.
Re: queue up the linux fans (Score:5, Insightful)
''Meanwhile the rest of us are fine.''
Except for those of us that have mission critical work on a windows desktop and wake up to find that required functionality doesn't function anymore due to an ''update''. Nothing better than to find a machine you stabilized with lost bluetooth connectivity and constant reboots. I know from experience, I tried. Now missing critical work lives on a machine I CONTROL.
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Perhaps you are too young too remember what happened with windows 9x/xp/2k. Updates were optional. People didn't do them.
I remember what happened before Microsoft shipped Windows with a stealth mode firewalls, machines were directly assigned unfiltered public addresses and SMB was unauthenticated and unfiltered by ISPs.
That is the reason windows 10 made patching automatic.
Patching has been "automatic" for two decades but thanks for playing.
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Updates were optional. People didn't do them.
That's because it was a pain in the ass due to severely bad design. MS was still using ActiveX controls in Internet Explorer to do the updates, and even "automatic" updating was hardly automatic.
I forget about Vista (as many people do), but if I recall, Win7 was the first OS to include a dedicated update service. Even then, scheduling updates could still be a tedious process, as many updates would fail for unknown reasons and it might take a series of reboots and wiping out log files to get the damn thing
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Now add that the ActiveX based automatic updates were by themselves a huge security problem...
Re:queue up the linux fans (Score:5, Interesting)
It's less the automatic patching, it's more the "I reboot NOW and there's nothing you can do about it" attitude that bugs me.
And no, being "allowed" to delay it by a few hours means jack shit if you're running a job that takes a few days to complete.
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"I reboot NOW and there's nothing you can do about it" attitude that bugs me.
Oh so what you're saying is that MS hasn't bugged you in a year right? I mean it was over a year ago they introduced the ability to chose the exact time to reboot or even delay rebooting for up to a week post security update, at which point you could install it any time you feel like.
You did install that update right?
Re:queue up the linux fans (Score:5, Insightful)
It ain't the tracking, it's the mandatory broken feature updates, and the attitude of ownership over the user's machine.
Windows 10 is openly hostile to end users. Spying on them, misleading them, wasting their time, overriding their wishes. The concept of introducing what you damn well know are misfeatures and then requiring users to pay ransom in the form of unobtainable SKUs (LTSB, Server) in order to allow misfeatures to be disabled is sleazy unprofessional behavior rendering it impossible to trust Microsoft with anything.
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But I'm not going to 10. I'm going to Linux full-time, and keeping my Win 7 machine around firewalled off for gaming as long as I possibly can.
That's what I did on January 1st of this year. Switched full-time to Linux (Mint) and have no regrests.
I do keep a Windows box around to run a security DVR, but I may be switching over to use Zoneminder on Linux.
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Re:queue up the linux fans (Score:5, Funny)
"queue up"? It is "cue", you illiterate moran.
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No, you cue the fans that it's time to queue.
Whether they are ethnically Morans or not.
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Nothing personal - I don't know you. Just killing a chicken to scare the monkeys.
I only just found out that I misheard "you've got another thing coming" - it is actually "another think coming" for all intensive porpoises.
But English idiom is far more interesting than some meaningless Windows 10 milestone. People have either accepted it, or moved on. The desktop is last century's battle.
There are now a billion IOS devices too, which is a distant second to Android. Android users are not as loyal as the old
So share your script (Score:4, Insightful)
I won't make any claims until I see proof of the script - and I would like to use it.
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Re: So share your script (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't it ironic that Win95's mission was to make a computer usable by a computer newbie and that Win10 now came full circle and requires a computer expert to do the same again?
Re:So share your script (Score:5, Informative)
I've only used Windows 10 Pro for a few days in a VM a couple weeks ago. I wrote down some things but I'm by no means an expert.
This assumes you have pro and shit like windows defender and windows store will be completely disabled and considered total write-offs. If you want these things stop reading and get your head examined. Updates will be installed by manual checking only.
The first thing load your utilities on to a USB sysinternals profilers, wireshark, shutup10, execTI, openshell, task manager replacements..etc because you won't have network access for awhile.
Before installing windows disable all network access. Unplug NICs or remove NIC configuration from VM.
Get yourself a copy of "execTI". It's a win-r style command execution prompt that executes programs in the context of Trusted Installer. There is a lot of cool shit at winaero website.
Those SCM services and scheduler tasks you want to disable but can't... Save yourself a lot of headache start all of this shit (services.msc..etc) from execTI and you get carte blanch to do whatever you want.
First things first... From powershell run this shit. This is the coolest part of the whole thing. Watch all of that shit go poof before your eyes... Only cortana should fail.
Get-AppxPackage *windowsstore* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *Cortana* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *oneconnect* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *solitair* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *onenote* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *bing* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *communications* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *advertising* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *stickynotes* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *store* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.GetHelp | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Getstarted | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Microsoft3DViewer | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.People | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Print3D | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.ScreenSketch | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Wallet | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.WindowsFeedbackHub | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.WindowsMaps | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.XboxSpeechToTextOverlay | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.YourPhone | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.WindowsCamera | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Windows.Photos | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Messaging | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.MixedReality.Portal | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.SkypeApp | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Xbox.TCUI | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.XboxApp | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.ZuneMusic | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.ZuneVideo | Remove-AppxPackage
Next services to stop and disable:
Windows Search
Windows PushToInstall Service
Windows Push Notification System Service
Windows Biometric Service
Connected User Experience and Telemetry
Microsoft Account Sign-In Assistant
Microsoft Store Install Service
Geolocation Service
SecurityHealthService
Scheduled tasks to disable:
UpdateOrchestrator (Recurring Scan and UX broker)
Windows Defender disable (all)
Application Experience (all)
AutoChk
Customer Experience Improvement Program (all)
DiskDiagnostic (Collector)
Feedback (all)
PushToInstall (Registration)
RetailDemo (all)
Windows Update (all)
GPO... you h
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If you do this, what the fuck is the point of installing windows 10? You are disabling updates and windows services, guaranteeing that the user will have all sorts of broken shit. If you know what you are doing, you would know how interdependent all the parts of windows are. Even those stupid appx packages, most people know better than to remove them as future updates will fail with mysterious error codes. Now you have disabled updates with another command so perhaps you wont notice.
Plus installing a bunch
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So, show us what you've got then. There would be major interest in a working method to disable tracking.
Microsoft made it very difficult to disable tracking (e.g. by having tracking components ignore the hosts file).
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It ain't so much that turning off tracking is impossible. It's the combination of wondering whether you caught all the bugs and having to repeat it every other reboot because Redmond keeps turning it back on, which by itself is something I'd have to wonder why and how they can because, well, I did turn everything they control off, right?
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So.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you suppose the numbers would be that high if Microsoft hadn't literally forced people to upgrade?
They tried to gave it away. When that didn't work, they forcibly upgraded people's computers. When that didn't work, they conspired with CPU manufacturers and OEMs to ensure anything older than Win10 wouldn't work on new hardware.
How they have not been smacked with a RICO violation is puzzling to me.
=Smidge=
Not the upgrade, not anymore. (Score:1)
There is one windows, only one now, for years.
It's been like this for what, 2 decades? Your PC need to be replaced for any reason, the new one will come with the latest windows.
It's simple, it's unavoidable. There are about 2 billions PCs in the world and if they don't last forever in a few years we will have almost 2 billion Windows 10 devices. What is the real alternative?
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Android and iOS is the closest alternatives. Android lacks full applications like an Office suite or PhotoShop. iOS lives in such narrow ecosystem it will never have the broad appeal of Windows.
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Andriod and IOS are even worse than Windows. If the App is not authorized by the vendor you can't use it. They both work on equipment that is barely repairable or at prices that are equivalent to replacement.
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They even took it a step further and released mandatory patches for previous versions of Windows (i.e. 7 and 8.1) to make Windows Update cease to function and constantly pop up errors if it detected that your CPU was too new.
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"When that didn't work, they conspired with CPU manufacturers and OEMs to ensure anything older than Win10 wouldn't work on new hardware."
This is bullshit. Everything older than Windows 10 works on new hardware.
Re:So.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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That is a marketing fluff piece, using the marketing term "support". Even xx-DOS 1.0 still runs just fine on modern hardware. You are making the error of assuming that the marketing term "support" has any actual real world meaning. It does not. It is simply marketroid for "make money from".
So yes, Microsoft does not "make money from" versions of anything prior to Windows 10 on "new hardware". That does not, however, mean that versions of Windows prior to Windows 10 does not run/work/execute on "new har
Re:So.. (Score:5, Informative)
You are making the error of assuming that the marketing term "support" has any actual real world meaning.
Microsoft specifically blocked updates [arstechnica.com] on Windows 7/8 running on newer CPU. That certainly has "real world meaning" to me.
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You think that is bad. Ubuntu disabled i386 support! How dare they use hardware features and drives for newer hardware!
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Try doing a fresh install of Windows 7 on a Kaby Lake or newer processor and get back to me.
If it installs at all it will be horribly broken and unusable.
=Smidge=
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How they have not been smacked with a RICO violation is puzzling to me.
It may be puzzling to you for the same reason it puzzles none of us: You have no idea what RICO is or when it applies.
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Most offices of the world still use Microsoft. And, I'd guess roughly 1/4 of all office workers also have a Windows laptop so they can do work on the road.
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Copies shipped. Microsoft always counts by copies shipped. Back when they used to put the diskette's for Windows 2.0 in Kellogs Corn Flake boxes, each and every copy "shipped" was counted as a full in-use version of Windows, even though many of them ended up in the garbage or having the diskettes overwritten by something more useful.
Microsoft has no other way to count other than by copies shipped.
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Microsoft has no other way to count other than by copies shipped.
Win10 devices phone home for activation. Pretty simple to count how many have done this, though would need a bit more work for enterprise with internal KMS - might be why Intune is getting pushed for managing all devices, not just mobiles. Could also be using telemetry to see how many active Win10 devices there are (that are allowed to provide info).
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"Microsoft has no other way to count other than by copies shipped."
Telemetry? Windows update? You mean Microsoft has no way to know except those two extremely obvious ways? I'd ask where you work so i can avoid their products if you weren't retired.
Like A Weedkiller Then? (Score:4, Funny)
End of Windows 7 support (Score:2)
Business and govt customers got spooked by the end of Windows 7 support coming in a few months. Otherwise, there would be not reason to abandon it imho.
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Win 7 / win 7 machines will be replaced , you can be sure of that.
Leaving an obvious vulnerability on the network could be grounds for negligence.
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That's great, you have absolutely no viruses!
But could you please at least stop watching that kind of porn, or watch it on a machine I have no backdoor on? Every time I'm using your machine I feel like taking a long shower.
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"But could you please at least stop watching that kind of porn, or watch it on a machine I have no backdoor on? Every time I'm using your machine I feel like taking a long shower."
You shouldn't jerk off in the shower, it wastes water
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But jerking off is the only way I can make love with a person I truly love.
OK (Score:3)
The point is??? tyranny of the majority?
Win10 sucks, in objective terms.
Re:OK (Score:5, Funny)
Eat shit! Trillions of flies can't be wrong!
Involuntarily (Score:3)
I know this is an anecdote and not a statistically valid sample, but *every* Windows 10 user I know would have been happier with a 64-bit Windows XP with security fixes.
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"I know this is an anecdote and not a statistically valid sample, but *every* Windows 10 user I know would have been happier with a 64-bit Windows XP with security fixes."
We call it windows 7.
XP64 was a compatibility clusterfuck and most manufacturers didn't bother to port drivers, so it was worthless.
Windows 7 will run on very little machine. Not as little as XP, but it will run on any machine capable of running a modern browser.
Unfortunately it lacks support for the latest processors, so users are having
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I know this is an anecdote and not a statistically valid sample, but *every* Windows 10 user I know would have been happier with a 64-bit Windows XP with security fixes.
Have you tried to use Windows XP recently?
Go set up a VM and install it. Use it to do something, and tell me that Win10 isn't objectively better. Sure; early Windows 10 was a UI clusterfuck with Win32, Aero, Fluent and Metro seemingly smashed together then hot glued into an OS. But the last few releases have been way more cohesive and actively trying not to get in your way.
There's stuff in Win10 I really hate, like the Win-Tab "Timeline" feature. Bring back Flip-3D (from Vista)! But in general it stays
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I was personally more of a Windows 7 fan than an XP one.
That said, Windows 10 isn't all that bad. Compared to the UI atrocity that was Windows 8, it's almost pleasant to use in comparison.
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but *every* Windows 10 user I know would have been happier with a 64-bit Windows XP with security fixes.
High, I'm a windows 10 user. No I would not have been happy with the lack of bluetooth, touch input, horrible network stack, poor memory management, drivers that take down the system, a constant bluescreens, ...
Seriously I don't know what you were thinking. You may have some friends if you claimed Windows 7, but there's literally NOTHING about Windows XP that is preferable on a modern system with a modern use case.
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You could. Provided you have no problem with using an Intel i9 with a nVidia 2080 to reach the speed levels of an i3 with a 950.
Alternative Title (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows 10 Has Infected Over 900 Million Devices
I am not one of them... (Score:1)
operating systems of choice are just like politics (Score:2)
99% have no choice (Score:2)
This "spyware as an operating system" is forced on people in so many ways. The only alternatives are to buy into the Apple walled garden or run unsupported and broken old versions of Windows. Linux is somehow still not an option for most people. Even if you want to switch to Linux, you are forced to pay the Windows tax when you buy a new PC anyways.
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Even if you want to switch to Linux, you are forced to pay the Windows tax when you buy a new PC anyways.
No, you aren't. [dell.com]
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I am aware of the very limited Dell developer notebooks. Go to Best Buy and try to buy a Linux notebook, though. Still 99% of the PCs available in the market force you to pay the Windows tax.
So... about 1/5th vs Android? (Score:2)
Hmm, MSFT is down to 20% of computing devices now? Not counting embedded where MSFT once ruled but now is nonexistent.
Windows 10 Is Used On Over 900 DDOS attacks (Score:1)
well then, I'll just have to (Score:2)
No need to think for myself, just follow what Microsoft does and says.
Thank you for pointing out how important it is to stop thinking about what solutions fit best and instead just use what Microsoft says everyone else is using.
What was I thinking. Now I don't have to think.
Thank you Microsoft. LOL
LoB
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Even the Borg will be assimilated by Microsoft.
"Leave everything to us" (Score:3)
The most ominous foreshadowing of what you are getting into when using Windows 10 is a message filling the screen in large font at the end of installation "Leave everything to us".
Windows 10 countermands explicit wishes of the end user, wastes their time and resources, deliberately misleads users into believing things that simply are not true all the while violating "fundamental human rights" (see privacy policy) with reckless abandon.
Windows 10 (Score:1)
Well... (Score:3)
Bring back Win XP and Win 7 and give people the OPTION between those or 10 and see how few devices would be running 10....
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Bring back Win XP and Win 7 and give people the OPTION between those or 10 and see how few devices would be running 10....
Put either into a VM. Try and do a day's work.
Windows XP especially was far better in your memory than it actually was.
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I'm willing to bet most of them. We live in an update world now. Apple and Google entrenched the idea of continuous updates and continuous improvement.
Mind you Windows 7 I could get behind on my non-gaming machine, but really XP? Have you actually used XP sometime in the past 10 years? I don't even run that old outdated buggy piece of shit in a VM anymore.
So, still way behind what Microsoft had expected. (Score:3)
... is now being used on over 900 million devices,...
Even with Microsoft trying to trick users into switching to Windows 10. ( Microsoft acknowledges ‘aggressive’ Windows 10 upgrade push [windowsreport.com], Microsoft loses Windows 10 forced upgrade suit and has to pay $10,000 — will this change its approach? [windowsreport.com]
Microsoft had an aggressive approach to getting everyone on board the Windows 10 ship when the latest desktop operating system launched in July 2015, the software giant’s Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela admits. If you’re a Windows user, you’ve most definitely experienced how Microsoft handled its Windows 10 upgrade campaign. It all started with a free upgrade offer for users of the legacy Windows 7 and 8 operating systems. For an entire year after the free offer kicked off, hundreds of millions of Windows users upgraded to Windows 10. But, in general, the total number of users who made the switch fell short of Microsoft’s goal of reaching one billion machines. ...
)
Microsoft is still unable to reach its goal. What is so wrong with Windows 10 that Microsoft is now championing another miss of its projection?
Maybe it's nearly a billion ... (Score:1)
but it is still pure crap.
Microsoft has made Windows worthless to me (Score:2)