Microsoft announces Windows 10 Anniversary Update for summer

[HEXUS]

And the Microsoft HoloLens development edition starts to ship.

Read more.

[Corky34]

Are my figures wrong or are Microsoft using creative marketing when they say "Windows 10 is off to the fastest start in Windows history" from what i can tell it has an adoption rate of around 1.5% per month compared to around 2% for Windows 7 and that wasn't available (or widely used) on their console, phone, and tablet.

[lumireleon]

yea, the fastest coz users have found a way to get the Start Menu back again.

[Biscuit]

yea, the fastest coz users have found a way to get the Start Menu back again.

Probably more to do with the fact they offer it free, put pop-ups on your screen every day and then even if you ignore those it just installs it anyway.

[Plasmastorm]

I get maybe 4-5 customers a month coming in who have upgraded without even realizing it as they think it's just an update.

[Primey0]

It's only the fastest because they are forcing it on people.

[crossy]

Well I'm going to be contrary - I actually quite like W10. Mainly because it looks (at the moment at least) like a W7 with the rough edges dealt with. Certainly nowhere near the infuriation level of W8. The difficulty in getting any kind of privacy, along with an annoying habit of it forcing a reboot after patching (even when I've said "reboot later") are the only real bug bears.

Then again I'm fascinated to see what this Ubuntu integration is going to end up looking like (I already use Cygwin).

[Biscuit]

Well I'm going to be contrary - I actually quite like W10. Mainly because it looks (at the moment at least) like a W7 with the rough edges dealt with. Certainly nowhere near the infuriation level of W8. The difficulty in getting any kind of privacy, along with an annoying habit of it forcing a reboot after patching (even when I've said "reboot later") are the only real bug bears.

I also really like the way it works. I still have Win 8.1 on my work machine and that still drives me nuts. Win 10 is much closer to feeling like 1 operating system instead of 2 like on windows 8.

Privacy and updates are the biggest issue for me. I really don't like the idea that you cant turn auto update off and like you said, the auto shutdowns can be a really huge pain in the butt.

Privacy is outrageous. Even when you switch all of the tracking and beacons and all the other analysis off, it just switches back on after an update. I think as time goes on MS will make it basically impossible to switch it all off.

[lumireleon]

In Windows 10 I went to administrative tools and set windows Updates to DISABLE but the main problem is that when you go to Privacy settings the Feedback & Diagnostics cannot be disabled even if set at Basic

[virtuo]

Well I'm going to be contrary - I actually quite like W10. Mainly because it looks (at the moment at least) like a W7 with the rough edges dealt with. Certainly nowhere near the infuriation level of W8. The difficulty in getting any kind of privacy, along with an annoying habit of it forcing a reboot after patching (even when I've said "reboot later") are the only real bug bears.

Then again I'm fascinated to see what this Ubuntu integration is going to end up looking like (I already use Cygwin).

I agree with you, I've had great experiences with Win 10 (after a fresh install, upgrade was a nightmare). There are tools and patches that can kill most/all of the privacy snooping and I've not had a single forced reboot yet.

I'm also looking forward to the Bash/Ubuntu integration - could make a big difference to my development workflow

[lumireleon]

the only thing I said was super great like pure genius in windows 8 and 10 is the Windows Reset feature that does not require a DVD to wipe away your hard drive to clean.

[scaryjim]

Are my figures wrong or are Microsoft using creative marketing when they say "Windows 10 is off to the fastest start in Windows history" from what i can tell it has an adoption rate of around 1.5% per month compared to around 2% for Windows 7 and that wasn't available (or widely used) on their console, phone, and tablet.

Not really sure what those % figures are meant to mean, why you're using them, or where you get them from, tbh. And without knowing that it's impossible to say if your figures are wrong or not.

Then again, MS didn't say they had the fastest percentage market adoption rate with Win 10.

The article clearly states what MS mean - 8 months after launch there are "270 million active devices" with Windows 10, which means they are "outpacing Windows 7 in the same timeframe by 145 per cent.". That would make Win 7's install base after 8 months around 186 million. The best comparison I can find in the limited time I have available right now is that Win 7 had 240 million license sales in its first 12 months, so 186 million after 8 months looks reasonable (it's a little more than you'd get from a straight linear increase, but you'd expect a higher uptake earlier in the product lifecycle).

They don't say if they're counting consoles and phones in there, but I've not heard of many Win 10 phones being available yet, and we know the XBox One is underselling the PS4, so even if those are included I doubt they'd make up the 84 million devices you'd need for Win 10 to be behind Win 7 in terms of x86 PC install base (although that would include x86 tablets as well as laptops and desktops, which might have an impact).

They've undoubtedly chosen a comparison that makes Win 10 look good, of course - that's the whole point of marketing. But tbh their figures add up pretty well; undoubtedly driven by the free upgrade offer and assisted by Win 10 addressing a wider range of devices.

[Corky34]

Not really sure what those % figures are meant to mean, why you're using them, or where you get them from, tbh. And without knowing that it's impossible to say if your figures are wrong or not.

The percentage figures were my back of the envelope calculations based on the two main bean counters (StatCounter & NetMarketShare) and that 8 months after launch Windows 10 has a 12-13% share of the market whereas Windows 7 had around 18-19% market share 8 month after release, maybe my figures are wrong though.

It seems to me that when they said... "Windows 10 is off to the fastest start in Windows history, with over 270 million active devices, outpacing Windows 7 in the same timeframe by 145 per cent." that they're being very deceptive as like you rightly point out they seem to be counting the number of sales, installs, or whatever, but that's pointless or at least being creative with the numbers and hoping people don't notice.

It's pointless (IMO) because of the same reason it's pointless, or being deceptive when politicians claim there's record numbers of people employed, while strictly true it means nothing as the record for the number of people being employed is always being broken (with the exception of a recession) because the population is always increasing that's why it's better, or rather more correct to use percentages. In the time Microsoft are looking at there's been another (approximately) 12.5 billion internet connected devices and the number of people living in the world has gone up by 400 million.

Like you said though they've undoubtedly chosen a comparison that makes Win 10 look good, maybe they're hoping nobody noticed that they used statistics in a misleading fashion, maybe they intended to trick the casual observer into believing something other than what the data shows.

[Percy1983]

Percentage share doesn't indicate numbers, if there is more device now 12% of the number could be more than 18% at the same time with windows 7.

Anyway, I like windows 10 and the machine I have left on 7 (HTPC) hasn't upgrade itself or forced any update.

[azrael-]

Colour me a cynic and I might be going out on a limb here, but I predict that the Windows 10 Anniversary Update will be celebrated with another year of "upgrading" to Windows 10 for free. Come July 2017, rinse and repeat.

[Saracen]

Colour me a cynic and I might be going out on a limb here, but I predict that the Windows 10 Anniversary Update will be celebrated with another year of "upgrading" to Windows 10 for free. Come July 2017, rinse and repeat.

Very possibly, but free or not for another year, for my part they can stick the AnnivUpdate in the same place they can stick W10.