back to article Windows 10 collects colossal 0.375 per cent market share in July

Windows 10 has rocketed to account for 0.375 per cent of the world's PC-driven web traffic, according to ratings firms Netmarketshare and Statcounter. For those of you domiciled beneath stones, Microsoft released Windows 10 on July 29th, meaning it had a chance to make a mark on the month-by-month desktop OS market share data …

  1. Graham Newton

    Having tried and failed (at least 10 times and including using a USB stick) to upgrade my Toshiba tablet thing I feel the mobile Windows 10 penetration may continue to be "disappointing".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Childcatcher

      S missing in action

      If you really want to be penetrated by Windows 10 it is probably doable. Do you get an error? Have you phoned support? The juxtaposition of "penetration", "USB stick", "Windows 10" and "disappointing" seem strangely appropriate.

      I almost want to help you with this: Do you have an error message of some sort and a few clues as to how it happened?

      Cheers

      Jon

      1. OffBeatMammal

        Re: S missing in action

        if you have an Encore (with no full size USB) then for you sanity's sake make sure you back up your recovery partition first.

        I tried an Insider Windows update and discovered a couple of drivers were less than ready so went to roll back... somehow the rollback borked my machine quite spectacularly.

        That resulted in a 3 month battle to get recovery media out of Toshiba - even after I'd paid for it - and what they sent was a full sized USB key (even though the Encore 2 Write has no full sized USB key and I'd paid for recovery media for an Encore 2 Write) to which their helpful customer support suggestion was I buy from them an adapter.

        FWIW the released version of Win10 is working fine on the device now (but I'd never recommend Toshiba after that support experience)

        1. Roger B

          Re: S missing in action

          Nice one, thanks for the advice, I have the original Encore but am still restricted by the micro USB, only picked it up as it was on sale from Argos for £150, great little device, runs hot while playing Project Spark though. I was just looking at the recovery partition at the weekend, thinking I could delete it soon and give myself an extra 5GB, but a backup would make sense, thanks again.

          Thanks also for the thumb down who ever that was always encouraging to see such things.

    2. Roger B

      What model is your Toshiba tablet? I have an Encore to update and after doing my very very old laptop and desktop without a hitch I was going to do the tablet next, but if it is causing issues, I might wait.

    3. Primus Secundus Tertius

      Bigger and bigger

      I have just updated a Toshiba Satellite 650 laptop machine, by asking the MSFT website rather than waiting for my reservation to come through. Historic OS sizes are:

      Win10: ca 12 Gbytes clean install

      Win XP original: ca 1.5 Gbytes

      Win98: ca 180 Mbyes.

      Win95 1st ed: ca 35 Mbytes

      Win 3.11: ca 25 Mbytes

      DOS: ca 3 Mbytes.

      I ask myself what have we gained from this enormous increase inOS size?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Note to self

    Note to self: Disable the WinX update thingie on all my corp clients who don't appear to be "corporates". If you run Windows as a workgroup member ie non domain joined(1) then you get that bloody taskbar thingie.

    My first efforts on disabling it involved a quick regedit but I think a regular cronjob err scheduled task with a script will be required. MS are pretty persistent with this thing. Looks a bit desperate to me.

    Cheers

    Jon

    (1): Domain Joined == connected to a really shit, half arsed, part thought out and minimally implemented LDAP database with Kerberos auth slapped on top. It's just good enough but no more. See eDirectory for how to do it right - should you find that inflamatory, you are welcome to discuss it with me: I will almost certainly win any argument apart from one based on market share *sigh*.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Note to self

      The higher ups have been pushing IT to switch our org from an OpenLDAP/Samba based domain to Arsehole Directory. You seem to know your stuff, any pointers on what I can say that may convince them otherwise? (p.s. this is a large educational institution. M$ has promised significant licensing discounts, which makes management believe we are getting a superior product for next to nothing).

      1. Mad Chaz

        Re: Note to self

        Make then realize the amount of labor (something they do have to pay for) involved is very large and you get nothing worth it in return.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Note to self

        Unfortunately AD is "good enough" and will almost certainly pass the PHB's knee jerk selection process. However, once you are sucked in, then that's it - there will be no way back or out without a major amount of work. You could install a Samba 4 based AD and show how it works exactly the same 8) You even have to use ADUC and the MS DNS management mmcs for that.

        Another alternative is Novell's AD and eDir combo (Domain Services for Windows) which creates a Samba 4 based AD from a DNS federated eDirectory. This gives you one heck of a powerful setup because you get the benefits of eDir (proper bi-directional replication, massively scalable and flexible replica deployment). eDir can be split at any point in the tree and replicas can be placed wherever you want. You are not constrained by domains.

        Anyway, the wider issue of licensing will raises its head: Oh we want MS Office as well and its dirt cheap, oooh and Sharepoint and Exchange. You are screwed at this point onwards in any discussion.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Note to self

      ok I'll bite - tell us the advantages of eDirectory over AD?

      Let me take a wild guess - is the top 10 reasons that it is not made by microsoft?

      There is a reason why you don't get invited to sit down with the grown ups when these things get decided ;-)

  3. Your alien overlord - fear me

    Interesting figures (sarcastic mode:off) - did no one run their Windows 10 alpha/betas then on the internet? There should have been something before July 29 surely?

    1. veti Silver badge

      For statistical values of "no one", yes. The number of people in the Windows Insider program seems to be a closely guarded secret, but I'd be surprised if it's much more than a couple of million, worldwide. That compares with 1.25 *billion* Windows machines worldwide. So we're talking about less than 0.2%.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Counting Insiders?

      Microsoft have previously quoted the number of Insiders as ~5 Million. I doubt if the stats counters can tell the difference between an Insider build on the internet and an upgrade.

      Which calls into question the true number of newly-upgraded machines being detected. That 14 Million figure was originally given in the statement :

      While we now have more than 14 million devices running Windows 10,....

      Note that the rep didn't say "14 million upgrades". I have three distinct Windows 10 Insider installations, so it is conceivable to me that the majority of devices being measured are actually test builds, not true upgrades.

      Who knows, eh?

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Counting Insiders?

        >"While we now have more than 14 million devices running Windows 10,...."

        I doubt the stats counters can tell the difference between a true Joe Public machine and a bank of VM's using spare capacity on Azure...

        Not saying this is so, but to me it does seem that this is one occasion that MS will want to ensure a positive story, and as we've seen the record companies did at times manipulate the Charts...

  4. DryBones

    Well...

    I think that's not bad for not having been released for even a week yet, and the staggered rollout.

    Upgraded my just-for-fun desktop, saw no huge problems. About a 2 hour wait while it chewed it all over, the associated bag of hammers for its privacy options, and it didn't figure out I had an Nvidia until the second reboot... Moved the laptop after, same.

    Just saying.

  5. Mark 85

    Here's one possiblity...

    I've had more than few "friends" (note to self... unfriend soon) who wanted me to come over and "fix Win10". After suggesting that they call support I've not heard from them. I suspect there's an awful lot of people who have downloaded and installed (really MS? 67 million?) are now sorting things out. Most are probably not back on the web yet.

    1. K

      Re: Here's one possiblity...

      My whole team (IT) has upgraded their laptops to 10, and I've also upgraded 4 PC's at home, not one of them has had a single problem. The only box I'm holding off on for the moment is my gaming rig.

      Personally I really like it, MS are staying true to form, i.e. every other version of Windows actually deliver as intended.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Here's one possiblity...

        K

        Something happened.

        WTF ?

      2. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Here's one possiblity...

        >The only box I'm holding off on for the moment is my gaming rig.

        So that statement "not one of them has had a single problem" isn't exactly the whole truth... The only reason in your circumstances not to update the gaming rig is because You know there will be problems...

    2. James O'Shea

      Re: Here's one possiblity...

      I upgraded on Friday. Just in case there was a problem, I'd downloaded the 'install Tool' from Microsoft and used it to build bootable install media (an old 4 GB USB2 thumb drive) but I never needed it. I clicked on the 'Get Windows 10' icon on the taskbar and shortly thereafter was downloading the update installer. In short order the install was over, I made sure to NOT use the 'Express Install' and so had a chance to turn off the more objectionable items. The only irritant was that Win 10 didn't recognise my printers, but even that went away after I installed the first one by hand. Suddenly all of them, including my (now redundant, as Microsoft shipped one...) PDF printer, showed up..Win 10 appears to be slightly faster than Win 8.1, which makes it _considerably_ faster than Win 7. Furthermore, Microsoft seems to have (finally!) figured out how to do an upgrade install. Took 'em long enough. I installed right over my old Win 8.1 install, and so far all apps tested are working as expected. (Yes, Edge was the default web browser. That lasted perhaps 10 seconds, or the time it took to click on the 'set defaults' notice and change back to Firefox.)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I honestly liked Windows. I thought Windows 98 was great, I found XP to be a bit "heavy" but still good to use. In the past 5 years or so I have been forced over to Linux which wasn't fun at first. The organization of the file system in Linux doesn't help ordinary users. Aside from that I can do everything I need to do, and I would hesitate go back to Windows 10 even if it is available for free.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Give me a linux file system over windows registry any day.

  7. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    Some are getting as far as 'registering' to obtain the Product Key, ...

    ...and then reinstalling Windows 7 or 8.1 from an image.

    Best of both worlds: own Windows 10 for free, but don't have to use it now.

  8. Tromos
    Joke

    Where can I get a copy?

    Having tried most of the others, I would like to give 'Other(dotted)' a go.

  9. Jeff Lewis

    Uh.. a 0.375% market share of 1.75 billion+ computers in just 5 days after release isn't exactly something to be ashamed of... At that rate it will pass the 20 year effort to capture Linux desktops in just 20 days or less.

    Heck, in 120 days or less, it'll shoot past MacOS X.

    After that - it's just Microsoft competing with itself...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Its probably overtaken desktop Linux already with OS X in sights for the August market share figures.

      However, Windows 8.x is mostly consumer and its 20% market share doesn't seem to be enough to attract much developer interest so Microsoft have a lot more to do.

  10. Efros

    5 installs one PC not happy

    I've upgraded 5 of my machines to W10, 3 desktops, 1 laptop and a tablet. The only one that was a challenge was the tablet, which was more down to the size of the media on the tablet than anything. I have one other desktop that reports CPU incompatibility and refuses to upgrade. This is quite curious as it's a Q6600 (one of the other upgraded machines is also) and has all the requirements for the upgrade satisfied. I've tried the various 'tricks' that are around on the web to force the upgrade but it resolutely refuses to cooperate. I may just wipe it clean and start from scratch.

  11. Ceps

    I installed on my laptop and main rig, everything was fine except the nvidia driver, in short: microsoft disabled my driver (which was the last version at the time) cos reasons, so I had to use device manager in order to download a version which microsoft was happy with.

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