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Windows 10 Now Runs on 1 Billion Devices (venturebeat.com) 61

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Windows 10 is now running on over 1 billion monthly active devices, just six months after passing the 900 million device milestone. From a report: Microsoft has been consistently adding 100 million active Windows 10 devices every six months over the past two years. Windows 10 also passed 50% desktop market share in August. The milestone is notable because Microsoft originally aimed to hit 1 billion devices running Windows 10 "in two to three years." A year in, the company backpedaled on that goal after it became clear that Windows 10 Mobile was a failure. (Android has over 2.5 billion monthly active devices.) Windows 10 was released four years and eight months ago in July 2015. It thus took the company more than double its ambitious estimate and 20 months longer than its conservative estimate to pass 1 billion Windows 10 devices.
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Windows 10 Now Runs on 1 Billion Devices More

Windows 10 Now Runs on 1 Billion Devices

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  • I can't exactly see 1 billion people with PCs powerful enough to run Windows 10.
    Let alone non-PCs...

    Do we have anything other than their word on this PR/ad?

    • Might be interesting to learn how many Win10 capable devices have been sold since the release date to back up this claim. A billion seems like a big number for a PC industry seen as slumping at times.
      • Many, many computers released before Win10 can still run it. Including my rapidly aging desktop and a depressing number of my company's workstations. Remember that 10 was a free upgrade for most users with 7 or 8/8.1.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      StatCounter says 77% Windows on the desktop, of which 69% Win10 = 53%. I'm not surprised that there's two billion desktops worldwide, so that seems fairly supportive. Officially their system requirements for Win10 are the same as Win7, I don't know if that's exactly true but I do know computers are a lot faster than in 2009. Besides, haven't we all agreed Win10 is spyware with telemetry that phones home, so they should know?

      • Officially their system requirements for Win10 are the same as Win7

        What they don't mention is that WIn10 runs at one fifth the speed on the same hardware.

    • They have probably counted my paid for Win10 (was Win7 upgraded). I keep it on a virtual machine, start it up every two or three months to update itself, wonder what I can use it for, then shut it down again. Everything else is a linux or chromebook, except my work laptop which of course is Win 10 as well.

    • I can't exactly see 1 billion people with PCs powerful enough to run Windows 10...

      Windows 10 has been around now for over 4 years now, and every personal computer that has been manufactured in the last 3-4 years is "powerful enough" to run that OS.

      I can see a lot of reasons to call bullshit on this claim, but computing capability isn't likely one of them.

    • I have Windows 10 running on Core 2 Duos. Basically anything made in the last 10 years can run it. Just needs enough memory. Biggest holdup is paying for the upgrade. Windows XP and Vista machines didn't get free upgrades, even if they were fully capable of running windows 10. People just weren't willing to pay to upgrade old machines. Easier to buy a new one.

    • Re:Uuum, what devices would that be...? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mea2214 ( 935585 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @04:54PM (#59837734)
      You can't buy a refurbished off lease PC without Windows 10. Almost all OEM PCs come with Windows preinstalled whether you want it or not.
    • Theoretically it'll run even on a single-core processor with enough RAM, won't it? Not that I'd recommend using it at all in the first place, but still..

      • I have Windows 10 running on a single core laptop. I upgraded it just for giggles when it was free to do so. It works about the same as it did on the previous version. I would not want to use it for anything real, but it is useful to have around if I have to support someone on Window 10 over the phone and want to look at the user interface to see what they are seeing.

        The next time I buy an SSD, I am going to copy the drive just to test how usable it gets.

    • The number of PCs in the world [researchgate.net] passed 1 billion around 2008. That's all varieties - Windows, OS X, Linux, funky Chinese OSes, etc. But the vast majority of them run Windows.

      Note that this is different from the number of people with PCs, which appears to be what you're misinterpreting this as. Dunno if anyone counts statistics for that. A lot of these PCs are used at work, while the worker also has a PC of their own at home.

  • How many asked for it, though? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @01:44PM (#59836822) Journal
    How many actually consciously asked for it to be installed, and how many were scammed into installing it or were forced into it against their will?

    • How many actually consciously asked for it to be installed, and how many were scammed into installing it or were forced into it against their will?

      At least they're getting patched and are far less likely to be part of a botnet.

    • How many actually consciously asked for it to be installed, and how many were scammed into installing it or were forced into it against their will?

      Well given the free alternatives OS's available to anyone at any time including but not limited to paying some nerd to roll back your system to an earlier version, the answer now is quite conclusively that everyone is using the OS willingly.

      • ..says the obvious Microsoft shill. Get fucked.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          Yeah, really, who would want an OS that supports almost all the software written in the last 40 years, can communicate with pretty much every piece of hardware, and doesn't need to be fiddled with continually to keep it stable? Obvious shill, no one would want that.

          • Maybe if everyone ddn't think that way there'd be the support for alternative OSs and we wouldn't have this conversation at all.
            Oh wait, Microsoft and their shills keep hamstinging Linux and discouraging it's use! Silly me.
            Enough with the circular logic already.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by cusco ( 717999 )

              We all got tired waiting for Linux to be usable. If there had been a multi-billion dollar company with tens of thousands of programmers working on it then maybe we could have had a version of Linux on the desktop that could talk to most of the hardware and run more of the programs that people need to be productive, but that never happened until after the turn of the century. I remember playing with Linux in '98-'99 and other than perhaps making it a light-duty file/print server or a web server it was just

        • Yeah I know. I must be a shill because I disagree with you. /Posted from Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS, just to point out you're a fuckwit.

    • How many people specifically ask if the computer they're buying will have an OS? I'm sure that the overwhelming majority of desktop/laptop buyers simply assume their new computer will have windows. I'd go a step further and bet that almost any retailer that carries Chromebooks has had at least one come back because the buyer didn't realize it wasn't windows.

  • proudly windows free for 5 years.

  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @02:10PM (#59836982)
    Best infection rate I've ever seen for malware!

  • and crashes on over 20 million!

    Thank you, I'll be here all week

  • Given all of the BSODs in all of the recent updates, I think they're using a very loose definition for the word "run".

    • Perhaps like running a tab? Or, similar to water, instead of a running tap, rather a drip? Sounds like a VD or infection... Quite fitting.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      We use Windows Server of various vintages on 2,400 NVRs scattered around the world, in the last six years I've seen less than ten blue screens, all of them related to hardware failure.

      I have Win 10 on my laptop at home, both my work laptops, and the machines making up my server lab, and so do the dozen people that I work with. Between all of us there's been one machine that blue screened (and I suspect she'd been playing with the Registry) in the last five years.

      So box up your FUD and take a long walk off

  • Operating systems now blurred. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @02:16PM (#59837020)
    With WSL being further integrated into Windows you could make the argument that there are billion Linux systems in use as (Windows/GNU/Linux). Along with phones and tablets running using "request desktop site" to skip crappy mobile sites there are more virtual desktops than real ones as there are over 2 billion androids in use and over a billion iPhones in use. With rapid population growth and device growth having "only" a billion users will be seen as a failure in future.

    • WSL is not installed by default, so you can't count 99% of those installations as Linux installations.

  • Only 2 billion more and it will be in a tie with Java, which has apparently been installed on exactly 3 billion devices for a bizarrely long time.

  • Windows Update (Score:4)

    by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @02:54PM (#59837206)
    I wonder how many people installed it willingly? I'm sure I'm not the only one who had the experience of relatives calling them asking why their computer was suddenly different and a bunch of programs no longer worked.

    • I wonder how many people installed it willingly?

      I wonder how many people care. Aside from the cases where people's computers got bricked people generally gobble up the "new shiny" thing regardless of how much of a polished turd it actually is.

      Oh and it's free. People love free stuff.

      No this post is not satire or sarcasm but rather a deep reflection of the state of technology and society. Now if you'll excuse me I need to run off and update my Sonos, I hear the latest update removes a feature I love and I can't wait!

    • Or you specifically avoided it yet it magikally installed anyway ?

  • I do not know if that is an adjective I would choose. Executes may be more accurate.

  • Similar Headline (Score:5, Funny)

    by kackle ( 910159 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @03:06PM (#59837266)
    Similar to a future headline: "Coronavirus Forced On 1 Billion People"

  • they didn't say "runs well..." /h
    maybe

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      Putting garbage into lava (or even in a subduction zone) won't turn it into carbon. It would take a star for that.

      • just the plastic then? But carbon wouldn't melt in lava, and it's not hot enough for it to sublimate. So you'd have some low density crude floating on top that would probably flake off and blow away.

        I don't see the point of throwing steel and tin away. It takes less energy to melt it again than it does to extract new metal from ore.

  • "Windows 10 Now Runs on 1 Billion Devices"

    Well, "runs" is a bit of an exaggeration. "Lumbers" or "shambles" might be more accurate.

    And a billion? Hmmmm, I think that might be an alternative fact.

  • The headline is wrong. Can't you people comprehend? It should read:

    Windows 10 Now Ruins 1 Billion Devices

  • Window left an aircraft carrier dead in the water. Ref: https://gcn.com/articles/1998/... [gcn.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Wow, so you didn't even read the article you linked to? It was a database error, someone didn't sanitize their inputs correctly so when a zero was input into the wrong field it caused a cascading error that crashed the entire system. And it wasn't an aircraft carrier, it was a light cruiser with a still-experimental control system. And it was 22 years ago.

      Yeesh.

  • "Microsoft has been consistently adding 100 million active Windows 10 devices every six months..."

    None of them are mine, nor will they be.

  • I'm interested in how many people got a computer, turned it on to download a linux distro, got consequently counted in the "running" stats, while they then moved on with using linux and never again using windows?

    • I'd guess 1.5%. Linux ran 1.9% of desktops as of January, and I'm sure large chunks of those either came with Linux or were built from scratch by the user.

  • where Bill Gates kisses his pinky?

  • because 2020 is the year of the linux desktop!

  • How low are we setting the bar for "Runs"?

    My kid has a box with Windows 8.1 installed and it RUNS most of his stuff as expected most of the time . . .

    Meanwhile, I know of at least 9 machines with Windows 10 that don't do what the owner wants.

  • Crawls, perhaps. Slithers or skulks, most definitely. Runs? Not in my experience.

  • ....none of them are mine. "F" Windows 10.

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