back to article Windows 10 a failure by Microsoft's own metric – it won't hit one billion devices by mid-2018

When Windows 10 launched, Microsoft claimed it would have the new operating system on a billion devices by mid-2018. That isn't going to happen, however, Redmond has now admitted. For the past year, Microsoft has offered the new OS as a free upgrade for both desktop and mobile users (provided the phone can handle it in the …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well if you want people to transfer more control of their personal computers to your ecosystem, a long series of dickmoves is not the way to go about it.

    1. Grifter

      I'm gonna call bs on that; throughout its existence ms has been pulling dick moves. It's what they do. And every time you'll take it, and still get on the bandwagon, because it's what you do. Perhaps not 'you' in an individual sense, but certainly in a general one.

      It won't be any different this time.

      1. WatAWorld

        Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

        Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple. People only resent it when MS does it.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

          >Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple. People only resent it when MS does it.

          Funny I don't remember Apple ever being convicted of abusing a monopoly position (at least in software, hardware) which is one of the quickest ways to cause resentment among customers and a once bitten twice shy towards a company in new markets. Apple do have somewhat of a large piece of the affluent consumer market in electronics with the fat margins which cause Microsoft resentment but they have had to earn that through marketing and of course putting out the only phone that is both even half way secure (FBI and McCain still pretty butt hurt) and has a decent app ecosystem.

          1. Paul Shirley

            Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

            Traditionally to be convicted of abusing a monopoly you have to have a monopoly. Apple tried very hard to have one on dick lawsuits but didn't quite manage it, got nowhere near on hard or software. Still acting a bit dickish though...

            1. zen1

              Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

              Back in the days of //e's, //c's, GS's and very early gen mac's, apple was charged a number of times, because they fought tooth and nail to keep all "clones" out of the US. Apricot comes to mind as they had some amazing apple compatible hardware, as well as complete systems capable of running DOS 3.3 and ProDOS. But then there was the huge power transfer at Apple and Jobs was out and Skulley was made head cheese.

            2. Naughtyhorse

              Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

              Tough to be fair, when it's pretty clear that in cupertinos view no one owns their own device or their own data, it's a but difficult to overreach.

          2. Tom 7

            Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

            Apple can pull dick moves because the majority of their customers aren't buying a computing environment first and foremost, they are buying into a brand and how the brand functions is largely irrelevant. MS sell to a large number of people who are vastly more educated (despite MS sponsored training) about how the whole ecosystem functions and is paid for.

            I dont think MS resents Apple, its too busy trying to work out how to stay relevant at the moment.

        2. Packet

          Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

          name 6 dick moves from apple

          1. Bladeforce

            Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

            Steve Jobs

            Claiming they invented the iPOD

            Apple III

            Apple Lisa

            Macintosh TV

            Pippin

            Quicktime

            Over the top secretive

            Blame everybody else (Jobs' famous "your holding it wrong rant")

            Walled Garden

            oh wait, how many did you say?

          2. AlbertH

            Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

            name 6 dick moves from apple

            Suing their main component supplier for "copyright infringement" thereby putting up the prices of their components to levels that made their products entirely uncompetitive. That silly lawsuit nearly killed them off. Samsung are still laughing about the massive price increases they've managed to impose on Apple - that they're forced to pay!

            Another five would be trivial to list. Their ineptitude will ensure that they're unlikely to survive the next five years....

          3. zen1

            Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

            No user replaceable battery.

            No user upgradable memory.

            High probably of bricking iphones when new IOS comes out, yes, every upgrade since I've had either my ipad or my company iPhone has caused them to be bricked.

            Obnoxiously expensive equipment.

            Hiring suppliers who thoroughly abuse their employees.

          4. Updraft102

            Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

            I can think of three right offhand-- if I used Apple devices, I am sure I'd have more. Nothing that can compete with Microsoft's, though; they really have been shooting for the stars with dickmovery.

            Here's the ones that I, as a non-Apple user, know of offhand:

            Putting DRM chips in their charging cables to ensure that people had to buy their overpriced replacement items.

            Putting batteries with very short service lives into the original iPods intentionally, to hasten planned obsolescence.

            Pushing out an update that bricks your iDevice if it had been repaired with a non-Apple touchscreen.

            There are more, like iMacs that have the touchscreen and the LCD fused into one piece so they have to be replaced together at additional cost, gluing their batteries to the aluminum case innards so that changing a dead battery was major surgery, things like that, but they're just extensions of what they already did before to new devices, so it feels like cheating to get to six if I list them individually.

          5. Zot

            Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

            "Simulation-Computer-Graphics-Robert-Bridson/"

            Every version of XCode, and OS redacts some more useful things, and prevents old software from working, like 32 bit stuff. And users get to use a 'free' OS update which means that software magically stops working so they have to update it at cost.

            You have to pay $100 a year just to be a developer on one OS type, otherwise it warns the user that your software is 'unknown' when installing, even if you paid Apple at the time the software was first sold.

            That will make far more than seven but I can't be arsed to detail any of it, because as a developer, I fucking hate Apple, sorry. They've got to be the biggest twats of them all.

          6. Fihart

            Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

            Name six dick moves from Apple ? I know these don't fall strictly within the same boundaries as MS's recent superdick moves, but they piss me off sufficiently that I avoid the Apple brand.

            iTunes (worst commercial software yet encountered)

            Pricing.

            Faulty OS update downloads.

            iPhones locked to first SIM inserted.

            Close to unlawful returns policy on faulty stuff outside 1-year warranty.

            Crippled USB on iPhone.

            Crippled Bluetooth on iPhone.

            Fixed battery (iPhone, iPod, iPad).

            Fixed hard drive (that broke) (early iPods)

            Glued casing (laptops).

            OS distrib CD customised to model (can render old Macs fit only for landfill if CD is missing).

          7. Rich Puhek

            Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

            "name 6 dick moves from apple"

            Upvoting your post 6 times?

            (post had exactly 6 upvotes when I saw it.. too good to pass by).

        3. CompUser

          Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

          Apple doesn't do what Microsoft does.

          I use mostly Windows and a few Apple machines and Apple has never done what Microsoft has done over the last year. Microsoft has tried every dirty trick to get people onto its new computing model while Apple makes most of its money from its hardware sales.

          Micrsoft is to blame for its own conduct. Apple has nothing to do with it.

          1. zen1

            @ CompUser Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

            "Apple makes most of its money from its hardware sales."

            Wrong. Apple makes most of their money from iTunes sales and fees.

        4. Nameless Faceless Computer User

          Re: Pulling dick moves has historically worked really well for Apple.

          Apple is a lot more subtle about it. They offer gizmos you don't need, like iPhone Siri and iTunes Genius that quietly collect your personal data. Microsoft just slips it into Media Player. Apple offers upgrades to features you didn't ask for and don't need, like the ability to answer your phone on your computer. Microsoft just surprises you in the morning, when you wake up to Win10 and find all your applications are broken.

          They try to out-do each other being dicks.

      2. mark 177

        Historically, yes. But those monopoly days are over for MS. Now we can tell them to take a hike.

        1. gobaskof

          @ mark 177

          "Historically, yes. But those monopoly days are over for MS. Now we can tell them to take a hike."

          Try buying a laptop from a major vendor without Windows (or Mac). You can either go the somewhat specialist route of system76 or the like, or start arguing with sales about Windows refunds which is often near impossible. Acer will let you buy the computer then mail it to support (at your own cost) for an unspecified refund. Dell used to offer some linux machines but that is harder and most Dell's suck.

        2. jussi_888

          I agree 100%. MS removed some handy features since Win7 - and UWP without phones is just crap (and now office and other softwares suffer from it). MS should start some serious innovation, listen to customers and present update as something worth doing of rather than forcing it down the users' throats

      3. CompUser

        You are wrong. This time time Microsoft has gone too far.

        1. Grifter

          You can't say I'm wrong when the evidence isn't in yet. Time will tell, but history is on my side.

      4. SundogUK Silver badge

        Just bought a new Dell, Windows 10 installed. Killed that and installed 7 and will soon be installing Fedora. So no, not getting on the bandwagon.

    2. Novex

      The two main dickmoves being telemetry and forced updates. I feel like the needle stuck in the groove when I say that if I could have verifiable control of all data within the telemetry (so I can turn it all off), and could have full control of updating back, then I'd like to try Windows 10. I'm not fussed about the interface so much though I know others are.

      But MS seem to be intent on trying to turn Windows PC into Xbox PC where everyone gets updated or they don't get online.

      1. John P

        I'm less bothered by the existence of the telemetry than I am by how shady MS implemented them. If they just offered a screen on install with simple toggles to allow you to customise which bits are sent, most home users will just click ok to all anyway and those of us who are more conscious of these things could turn off all the bits that bother us without having to resort to third-party apps to dig in and set all the registry keys for them.

        As a user, I haven't really noticed that the updates are any more forced that on previous versions, but I can appreciate the concern that network admins have about this. Again, being a bit more upfront about the whole situation and providing better GPO control of these things would eliminate virtually all of the worries admins have about these.

        It's the same old MS in that they could've so easily alleviated all of these concerns, but seem intent on shooting themselves in the foot at every turn.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          "I'm less bothered by the existence of the telemetry than I am by how shady MS implemented them."

          You should be bothered by more than the implementation; the implementation can be changed at will by an update you can't block. The real problem is the open-ended nature of the T&Cs which, at least last time I looked, let them gather your log-in credentials and transactions without limits, not just your creds & transactions with MS.

          This gives me a problem this weekend. I have a granddaughter with an upcoming birthday about to move to secondary school where she will need access to a computer which should be able to run MS Office (I'm not convinced they'd know the difference if she turned in work from LO in MS formats). We're thinking of getting her a laptop. So do I get her a Win 7 version, still available new if Laptops Direct website is to be believed, which will be EOL before she finishes school or something that will own her as much as she owns it?

          1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

            "run MS Office"

            Options appear to be:

            Find one with Win7 (or a spare install licence) and lock it to block win10 updates, living with the EOL risk.

            Get a Mac and use the Mac version of Office

            Use a VM on Mac/Linux to host Windows & Office. That way you can deny it network access and use, for example, the VMware shared folders so stuff can be up/down loaded by email.

            Use Linux and on-line Office365, after all it will be based on web standards?

            1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

              Re: "run MS Office"

              Appears you can use Office365 using a Linux based web browser:

              http://www.sdselite.com/7351/2015/04/15/working-with-office-365-and-linux/

              1. gobaskof

                Re: "run MS Office"

                "Appears you can use Office365 using a Linux based web browser:"

                I have to do this at work occasionally when people send me things. Normally presentations to look over and forms to fill in.. But large files wont open in the browser version so the presentations rarely work and lots of other features don't work including the in-word form thing. Maybe this improved over the last few months. I just log into a VDI machine for these things, but it is ridiculous that we need to do that.

            2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: "run MS Office"

              I think the solution will be a Win 7 machine* which may well be dual-boot by the start of term. Unless they extend the free upgrade "due to demand" it'll just miss that by the time I give it to her. If the school has a bulk licence agreement for any form of Office they can provide that, otherwise - or also - it'll be LO.

              *According to Laptops Direct website they still have W7 stock. As soon as I finish this cuppa I'll drive over there and see.

            3. Updraft102

              Re: "run MS Office"

              Or put Windows 8 on it and do the various modifications to make it look and work like Windows 7... Classic Shell, that kind of thing. I've never used Win 8 personally, but some of the other "never 10" guys I talk to on other sites (who also like Windows 7) say that 8 modified is as good or better than 7. 8.1 is good till 2023!

              It might also be a good time to start exploring Linux. While I will offer no prediction of any year really being the year of the Linux desktop (it's been called a million times and never happened), Linux has some really good distros now, like Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon, and they keep getting better while Windows keeps getting worse.

              This growing disgust with MS has gotten a lot of previously happy Windows customers interested in Linux, and I have been one of the flood of newbies on the Linux forums lately. I am really impressed with Mint; I am using it now, and while I do have my Windows 7 available in dual boot form, I seldom boot it anymore, and I've only been using Linux for a couple of weeks in earnest. I had dabbled with Kubuntu and Mint KDE on a "test" PC before, but I thought to really get to know Linux1, I had to put it on my main PC, and it was the right move.

              WINE may also be an option; I have heard some versions of Office run well in it.

              1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                Re: "run MS Office"

                @ Updraft102

                8 plus Classic Shell is a possibility. I have a 7/8.1 on order so have the option. I'll probably set it up dual boot. Linux only would probably be a mistake as her teachers will probably expect her to use Windows.

                You might be new to Linux, as an old Unixer I've been using it for years. My take is that with systemd distros are getting less Unix-like so, from my POV, worse. So my next move will be to BSD once Wheezy is no longer the basis for Debian LTS..

                Wine, in my estimation, made a big mis-step years ago when they broke use of video-drivers from that minor H/W player Intel that used 24-bit colour. It didn't affect Office 97 but it did resulted in a whole lot of other bug reports from users of various other applications. The really stupid thing was that they kept sending out bug reports asking if the bug was still present event though they were refusing to fix it, having turned down a patch. According to them it was a feature added for performance reasons.

                1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

                  Re: "run MS Office"

                  > So my next move will be to BSD

                  My VMs at home are all moving over from various linuces (Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian) to FreeBSD. It's a bit of a culture shock but I'm happy with the end result..

                  1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                    Re: "run MS Office"

                    "It's a bit of a culture shock but I'm happy with the end result."

                    I had a trial run at BSD some months ago. It depends where you're coming from. My background includes Unix V7, System III, HP-UX, SCO, Dynix and various other Sys-Vs so another Unix version is just another Unix version.

            4. jgarbo
              Linux

              Re: "run MS Office"

              Using Linux Mint 17.3 (for ease) and LibreOffice 5.0, which handles MSOffice stuff seamlessly now. No viruses (if you download from certified repos), no crashes, auto updates of everything (asks politely first). Talks straight to my Note 4 and syncs. Just works. Oh, and it's all free. Why Windows?

              1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
                Unhappy

                Re: "run MS Office"

                "Why Windows?"

                Because it would probably take more than her school career to wean her teachers off it.

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: "run MS Office"

                "LibreOffice 5.0, which handles MSOffice stuff seamlessly now"

                No it doesn't. It's still miles behind in terms of enterprise features, is not fully compatible and it doesn't run Excel addins. It might be just about OK for a one man band that doesn't ever need to exchange stuff with other people, but it's way way inadequate for any normal business. Hence why adoption rates are close to zero even though it's "free".

                1. Terry 6 Silver badge

                  Re: "run MS Office"

                  And LibreOfficedoesn't have an Outlook equivalent that handles email and calendar across all my devices.

                  Or a Notes equivalent, like Onenote ( or Evernote, sadly now reduced to 2 devices for the free version, no good to me). Sometimes its formatting can be quite quirky still, especially in tables.

                  It use it for most of my everday stuff - but have to keep Office 2010 as well. ;-(

                  1. Terry 6 Silver badge

                    Re: "run MS Office"

                    Since my post I just hit a biggie for compatibility. I was sent a WORD document that needed to be opened in editable mode, it was read only. Which I could do fine in WORD.

                    But initially I tried to open it in Libreoffice and clicking the button to open it in editable mode didn't work. They must both lock documents in a different way.

          2. P. Lee

            >So do I get her a Win 7 version?

            I understood that all the obnoxious bits of W10 have been backported to Win7

            You don't need to upgrade to get slurped.

            Others may be better informed than I.

            1. CompUser

              The 'obnoxious bits of W10' have only been backported if you have let them be installed.

              Do a search for removing the telemetry/spyware updates and you will find a script that will remove all of these updates.

            2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              "I understood that all the obnoxious bits of W10 have been backported to Win7"

              It will start off as a clean W7 so the updates can be selective. I have a week or so to do the research.

          3. Adair Silver badge

            FWIW

            My daughter built her own Linux based desktop system to go off to uni with, four years ago. Apart from having to get the uni IT dept to allow her a 'non-Windows, non-wizard'(!) login to the WiFi system she had no problems whatsoever using LO for 'Word' based notes/essays/projects. In her case it turned out most of the specialist software used for her Linguistics dissertation was Linux based anyway (with random Windows ports available), so it turned out to be an even bigger win.

            We bought her a Chromebook for portable use, and used Crouton to load Linux on that as well. That little device has now been passed on to my son who is now at uni.

          4. Roland6 Silver badge

            Re: This gives me a problem this weekend.

            Well the key point is "access to", ie. it is a home system, not a laptop to be taken to school. Hence I suggest you get a system you are happy to maintain.

            If the school actually required students to take a laptop/tablet to school they should either provide a system or provided the parents with full specifications (and rationale) and a 'favourable' purchase and support service option.

            Hence I would recommend you ensure she has access to a 'Windows' system as suspect the key requirement will be access to the school extranet which may require a browser hosted on Windows - which may be a problem if you are a Mac fan; one of my neighbours had to resurrect a Windows machine just so his son can do his homework...

            Personally, I wouldn't worry about Win7 going EOL before she finishes school, I doubt any one will remember the current version of Win10 (due to be replaced at the end of this month) in 2021, whereas it wouldn't surprise me if "Windows for Business" looks much like Win7. Also my children quite happily move between the XP, Win7, Win8.1, iOS, Android and xBox platforms and using Office 2007/2010/2013 for homework. The only complaint has been about needing Scratch installed...

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: This gives me a problem this weekend.

              > "which may be a problem if you are a Mac fan; one of my neighbours had to resurrect a Windows machine just so his son can do his homework..."

              Given that Macs from 2006 on are PCs, and have the option of running:

              - bootcamp

              - x86 VMs

              - crossover office

              Why did they need a seperate windows box?

              1. Roland6 Silver badge

                Re: This gives me a problem this weekend.

                Why did they need a seperate windows box?

                Simplest and quickest solution.

                He had only a few weeks previously put the retired Windows system in the garage, so the simplest solution to getting a Windows PC running was to take this system and install it in the son's bedroom...

                This also ensured there was an air gap between systems...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "All that nagware hasn't worked"

      But it has. It has been the fastest roll out of a new Windows version ever by miles.

      The gap is they are asserting is purely due to Windows Mobile. So presumably Windows 10 will now hit only 999,999,995 installs by mid 2018...

  2. HAL-9000

    life on mars

    Microsoft can expect an upsurge in Windows 10 installations from PC users toward the end of the month, when the free upgrade offer ends.

    and how is the weather on your planet?

    Naturally a few years down the line, bona fide microsoft addicts won't have any choice; until then of course.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      I am not budging

      Win7 works fine for me, thank you. I have everything configured the way I like it and no desire to find out how Microsoft will change everything with Win 1 0.

      Additionally, I have locked the OS down as far as I can, no remote access of any sort, no telemetry, nothing. Windows Update is disabled until I reactivate it.

      In short, I am using a personal computer and I have no desire to hop on to the slurp bandwagon.

      When I do change OS, it'll be for some version of Linux because I won't be needing Windows anymore.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I am not budging

        Wondered if anyone would pick up on the highlighted personal part of personal computer. Telemetry (aka keylogger), software rental, and forced updates aside -and all would be dealbreakers for me- it's the way Microsoft have approached punting out W10 that really stands out.

        Imagine, if you will, that you as an individual remotely accessed -say- 100 computers and installed a different operating system on them against the owner's clearly expressed wishes. For the sake of argument (don't know the figures) let's say that of the 100, you totally bricked 3, lost programs on another 10 and lost irreplaceable data on another 5. One of the programs that got lost was an antivirus program and the owner didn't notice and subsequently got a dose.

        How long do you think the prison sentence would be?

        It's this attitude that outrages me most, I think. It is my computer and it was quite expensive. It is my office and source of entertainment and the only cunt who has any say on what happens there is me. It's like neighbours breaking in and rearranging the furniture, or someone taking a wallpaper brush and repainting your car because they prefer the new colour. I wouldn't even dream of changing stuff on my kid's computers without express permission and I paid for them. And yet these cheeky knobends -cheeky foreign knobends at that- seem to think they have the right to come in and fuck up what is essentially my way of life. And for what? The short-term goal of making their sales figures look good. There isn't a fuck off big enough for these people, except possibly one carved on an asteroid aimed at Redmond. Words fail me.

        1. a_yank_lurker

          Re: I am not budging

          "the only cunt who has any say on what happens there is me" - Only if Slurp would listen. Failing to understand the customer paid good money for their hardware and they own it not Slurp. Winbloat and Linux are guests on my hardware. If you disobey my rules, I have the right to remove your products from my kit.

          W7 is the last Winbloat I will get and I have several valid licenses floating around. For the two programs the I must have Winbloat for (actually SWAMBO), a VM or dual boot works will with no Internet access allowed. I have switched to Linux and have found that there more than adequate replacements for the Winbloat applications I would expect the most problem with.

    2. energystar
      Windows

      Lots of Corporative installations disable most of Services...

      [services.msc] as part of their privative security policies. By a loss of a full day [trial an error, as customary at MS products] came to know that Virtual Disk Service has to be enabled in order for Win10 upgrade from Win7 not to crash!

      How many millions of install events have been done already, without this indispensable prophylactic checking of needed [or probably needed] Services?

      [Those Services have to be reset to their former Status once the Upgrade completed].

      As said several times before, this lack of Cultural Continuity is cause of lots of regressions. [Your Senior Engineers surely knew of this custom].

  3. Ilsa Loving

    Amazing

    It just blows my mind that at no point does it even occur to these people that maybe... just maybe... trying to ramrod a privacy invading KGB OS down everyone's throats, might rub people the wrong way.

    It's like they've managed to shove their heads up into their asses so deeply that they've created the worlds first human-shaped mobius strip.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge

      Re: Amazing

      "It's like they've managed to shove their heads up into their asses so deeply that they've created the worlds first human-shaped mobius strip."

      or an inverse ouroboros (you know instead of a snake swallowing its own tail, it's a man's 'tail' 'swallowing' his head... oh, whatever)

    2. WatAWorld

      Chrome seems to have been growing okay. Re: Amazing

      "KGB OS down everyone's throats"

      Chrome seems to have been growing okay.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Chrome seems to have been growing okay. Amazing

        >Chrome seems to have been growing okay.

        Not for the manufacturers margins which is another thing it shares with Windows these days. Microsoft once again is pulling a me too but they are finding they are going to have to the push the subscription lock in because unlike Google they aren't naturally an ad company at heart.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Ilsa Loving - Re: Amazing

      Did it ever crossed your mind the thought that maybe Microsoft knows very well what they're doing and they're doing it according to a plan ?

      1. mark 177

        Re: @Ilsa Loving - Amazing

        It did. But I immediately dismissed that though as complete stupidity.

      2. dajames

        Re: @Ilsa Loving - Amazing

        Did it ever crossed your mind the thought that maybe Microsoft knows very well what they're doing and they're doing it according to a plan ?

        I'm sure they're doing it to a plan ... but ... Microsoft know what they're doing? Nah!

      3. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

        Re: Amazing

        If they do know what they're doing, it must be a grand plan along the lines of Dürrenmatt's "Romulus the Great".

      4. TheOtherHobbes

        Re: @Ilsa Loving - Amazing

        >Did it ever crossed your mind the thought that maybe Microsoft knows very well what they're doing and they're doing it according to a plan ?

        I'm sure there's a plan. I'm also sure it's a really, really stupid and annoying one.

      5. CompUser

        Re: @Ilsa Loving - Amazing

        Yes, Microsoft has a plan to destroy its user base, create its own competition and piss as many people off as possible and so far its working to plan.

        I think you are giving Microsoft way too much credit.

      6. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Ilsa Loving - Amazing

        "Did it ever crossed your mind the thought that maybe Microsoft knows very well what they're doing and they're doing it according to a plan ?"

        Possibly.

        Windows Vista was planned as Project Longhorn

        Windows 7 as Project Blackcomb/Vienna

        Windows 8.1. was project Blue (not sure about 8)

        It would have been appropriate if Windows 10 were named project Baldrick.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKRxX3s3JlM

      7. Belardi16

        Re: @Ilsa Loving - Amazing

        Everything MS has been doing since Windows 8 and beyond has been failure and stupidity with no signs of letting up. Even I thought that the Metro UI on their phones was well done and IF done right, would work well with Windows 8 and would make the Win8 phones take over the market.

        15 minutes of using Windows 8, I knew and predicted and posted (along with others) that Win8 would be a failure and take WP8 with it, which it did.

        Xbone = fail. Windows10 = fail, they had to make it FREE and shove it up people's asses to get them to install it... and still, they are 1/3 their projected PUBLIC goals of install base for W10.

    4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Amazing

      "the world's first human-shaped Mobius strip"

      You should be entitled to a second upvote just for this.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    I'm still waiting for the bloody request

    One day I almost expect to see a little four paned white thing turn up next to the clock in my taskbar thingie. Just because I run a Plasma desktop doesn't mean I should lose out.

    Mind you would it really be worth to try and slip a little extra code into an ebuild for the additional 100 desktops converted 8)

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      As a fantasy, it's a fun little thought. In truth, there's negative one million chances that anyone running a linux OS will ever "convert" to Windows.

      Not without serious head trauma, that is.

  5. a_yank_lurker

    1 Billion?

    With markets shifts and device maturity Slurp might hit 1 billion active installs by 2020 or so. The key will be how much new kit is sold that replaces earlier 'bloat versions and how market share erosion occurs.

    1. Hstubbe

      Re: 1 Billion?

      Actually, i was just thinking about what to do when it is time to replace my current laptop. Probably by that time all the new gear comes with win10 preinstalled. Now, i quickly downsize windows space on a new machine anyway yo dual boot into linux, my main workhorse os. But its convenient to have a ms os in case its needed for some of the electronics industries crapware. I guess i'll be looking at getting a mac for my next machine, with some pirated version of win7 in a vm.

      1. Updraft102

        Re: 1 Billion?

        And the irony of buying a PC with Windows installed just so you can wipe it and put Linux on it (the Windows tax, as it is called) is that the so-called tax may actually be a subsidy.

        I think it was Dell that had an option for Linux preinstalled on one of its laptops instead of Windows, yet the computer with the free OS cost more than the MS one! People complained, of course, but it was no mistake: it turns out that the crapware that is installed alongside Windows on nearly every new PC subsidizes the cost of the PC and more than makes up for the cost of Windows itself. A lot of people uninstall that stuff, but at least by then it has done its job and made the user think of whether they want to buy this product or not (usually not, but that's all part of the game).

        When you're just buying it with the intent to wipe it from the beginning, to the point that you see the hard drive as being (for all intents and purposes) blank, that crapware never had a chance. There was never any chance you were going to pay for Norton Internet Security for Windows on your Linux install!

        1. Pompous Git Silver badge

          Re: 1 Billion?

          I think it was Dell that had an option for Linux preinstalled on one of its laptops instead of Windows, yet the computer with the free OS cost more than the MS one!

          Some people would rather complain than do things for themselves of course. You can purchase Dell sans Windows and install the OS of your choice. Why pay Dell to install Linux?

          I was shocked when the "genius" at the local Apple store quoted me $AU200 to replace the dead hard drive in my Mac Mini (the drive was extra). I purchased a replacement drive for half the price and it took me all of 20 minutes to replace the drive and that included finding a video how-to and a paint scraper from the shed.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: 1 Billion?

          "When you're just buying it with the intent to wipe it from the beginning"

          I always do that anyway, even if I was just putting the same OS back...probably faster than finding and removing the crapware and you know it's definitely all gone.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: 1 Billion?

            "you know it's definitely all gone."

            Unless it restores itself from UEFI.

        3. Zakhar

          Re: 1 Billion?

          You are (almost) completely right... the only thing I'll change is:

          - a 'tax' is when a government decides it, you generally have elected it, don't complain!

          - when the same thing is seen for a private company the name is "Extortion"

  6. Dwarf

    Perhaps ....

    Perhaps if MS actually started listening to people on what they actually wanted and what they dislike about Slurp, then they might get some people saying "I'll have one of those", rather than the current "shove-it, what else is out there" approach.

    As for the "we're focusing on mobile" - well, that says it all. Forget the masses who were the revenue stream and focus on the 50 or so mobile users on that phone thing they do and the lousy slablets. Nice thinking guys..

    I think though that the words "dying breed" are appropriate at this time - You tried bad things, people are smart and said "no" and for those who didn't know how to say no, you now have a lot of unhappy people out there. I've spoken to many of them. Windows 10 downgrades where Office no longer works, data was lost, "upgrade" failures, etc. Most have dumped windows, others are just really frustrated by it but can't afford to change yet or even pay for the damage to be undone on their previously working PC. The real damage from this malware hasn't hit Microsoft yet. Wait another 12-24 months, then see what the market looks like.

    Whats also interesting is how many college types I talk to who are just using a penguin now.

    1. Gray
      Trollface

      Re: Perhaps ....

      Whats also interesting is how many college types I talk to who are just using a penguin now.

      Windows: achieving parity in today's toolbox with Latin; noticeably becoming a dead language. (Or, as my tech engineer son says, "A dead rat!")

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Perhaps ....

      "Whats also interesting is how many college types I talk to who are just using a penguin now."

      Me, me, me ... do I count? I went to college, err 20*mumble* something years ago.

      I've done some pretty shonky things in my life but abusing penguins has never been one of them. Mind you, installing Gentoo for the first few times can feel like self flagellation until you get it (but strangely enjoyable.) Later on you discover the real joy of the fact that, short of large holes in your file system, you are capable of near Biblical resurrection for a broken system.

      Cheers

      Jon

      1. Ted's Toy

        Re: Perhaps ....

        For this young lad it was damn near 60 years ago.

        Still have my old slip stick.

        1. Jeffrey Nonken

          Re: Perhaps ....

          60? Good god, I thought I was, um, maturing... sounds like you were finishing school around my birthday. Prolly about my dad's age.

          I have a slipstick, but it's a cheap plastic one, and I never really learned how to use it. Electronic sliderules were juuuuust getting popular when I started college. Remember the old TIs with lensed LED displays and horrible battery life?

          Dad used to have a nice wooden one, but I have no idea where it got to. A shame, I'd love to have it. Maybe my sister got it. It's a name brand I'm sure you'll recognize, hell, could be the same one you have, but damned if I can remember it.

          1. Ted's Toy

            Re: Perhaps ....

            found an old student one with Slide Rule Primer still in the case circa 19658-60. It is for either of or both Faber Castell Student Columbus No.57/86 and Students Rietz 57/87 Could scan the booklet if required. never mind the cocky chew markss

          2. AlbertH

            Re: Perhaps ....

            My slipstick is a nice "British Thornton" wooden one from the late 50s. I still use it most days.

        2. btrower

          Re: Perhaps .... slipstick

          Re: "Still have my old slip stick."

          Moi aussi. I have gone through a lot of equipment since then and it is the only thing that still has some value. Why? It will still work after everything else here is obsolete.

      2. asdf
        Mushroom

        Re: Perhaps ....

        >"Whats also interesting is how many college types I talk to who are just using a penguin now."

        Its a damn shame they will never know what UNIX or POSIX really was. Only a "modern" hairball pretending.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Perhaps ....

          'Its a damn shame they will never know what UNIX or POSIX really was. Only a "modern" hairball pretending.'

          It's only a short step from Linux to a real Unix. BSD is still there. I wonder what SCO could have become if they'd tried. (For those whose horizon doesn't extend beyond the litigation, SCO, under its original management, was a very capable Unix system on Intel processors. It took a very long time for Linux distros to catch up with them. They might not have been able to compete on free-as-in-beer but if they'd cut prices to be affordable they could have competed on quality.)

          1. bombastic bob Silver badge

            Re: Perhaps ....

            "They might not have been able to compete on free-as-in-beer but if they'd cut prices to be affordable they could have competed on quality."

            What's Red Hat and Suse's model? they seem to be doing fine. SCO could have done *THAT*. Then they'd be on par with RH, Suse, and any other commercial Linux distro. RH even competes AGAINST ITSELF by offering Fedora for free. Yet, there they are, still in business.

            I'm a Debian fan, myself. I think the package system is better than RPM but that's just me, and use both Ubu (semi-commercial) and Mint when the occasion requires it. But my main desktop is FreeBSD. Designing everything for "build from source" (even it if would take 4 days to re-build everything from source) makes it a DEVELOPER'S platform. And that just makes the point that it's individual CHOICE on the POSIX side, with lots of available "flavors" to suit your needs.

      3. Teiwaz

        Re: Perhaps ....

        ""Whats also interesting is how many college types I talk to who are just using a penguin now."

        Me, me, me ... do I count? I went to college, err 20*mumble* something years ago."

        Same here (and with the 'shonky'), only Archlinux (with Ubuntu on a netbook) - I have thought about Gentoo, but Archlinux is too convenient with the regular repo and the AUR.

    3. Wade Burchette

      Re: Perhaps ....

      "Whats also interesting is how many college types I talk to who are just using a penguin now."

      Businesses are where it is at; lose them and you lose the game. How do you think Microsoft became so successful? Businesses had IBM machines with MS-DOS and when computers started to become affordable, people wanted a machine like the one at work. They did not want to re-learn.

      If businesses switch the employees computers to Linux, it is game over for Microsoft. And now amount of micro-payments from the app store will save them. Soon after a business switches to Linux, the employees will want a machine like the one at work. In the Bill Gates years and most of the Steve Ballmer years, this idea would be unthinkable. But then Microsoft delivered a hard kick in the groin to traditional PC users by making a touch-friendly, mouse-unfriendly GUI mandatory in Windows 8. People were stunned, sales declined, upper-management at Microsoft left. Along comes new management who thought that the only complaint against Windows 8 was the lack of a start menu, which it was not. So we get yet another but harder kick in the groin when Windows 10 was released. Now what was once unthinkable is not whispered about. It now won't take much to push people completely over the edge.

      1. a_yank_lurker

        Re: Perhaps ....

        @Wade, I think today most people are familiar enough with computing devices that having a different OS is not as big a deal as it was to many back in the 80's. Also, many now realize that they are not usually working on company stuff on their home kit but on company kit. It is quite possible for someone to use 3 or 4 different OS families in a day without any problems.

        The real issue for companies is their legacy applications that only run on Winbloat and the conversion to another application will atrocious once it occurs. Home users, the issue is often making sure there is an application that can read their files not that they truly need a specific application.

        1. Paul Shirley

          Re: Perhaps ....

          use 3 or 4 different OS families in a day without any problems

          This was one of the arguments the fanbois used to conspicuously run away from disputing when Microsoft started to merge WP with desktop Windows. Talking up the benefits of the same UI everywhere with Win8, same OS for 10 convinced no one.

          It remains a terrible idea in many use cases for almost all users. A solution for Microsofts problems, not their users.

          1. Teiwaz

            Re: Perhaps ....

            "Talking up the benefits of the same UI everywhere with Win8, same OS for 10 convinced no one."

            Microsoft are not the only ones with this idea. Ubuntu are progressing with their take on the concept, with a scalable and convergent UI for all form factors. Even if you deride Canonical, Gnome certainly has been redesigned with tablets in mind, and KDE also have plans for a different plasma shell for other form factors on top of Frameworks5.

      2. bombastic bob Silver badge

        Re: Perhaps ....

        "They did not want to re-learn."

        not a BAD thing... re-learn takes time, time = money which costs more to the business, PLUS productivity is lost, and you don't make a profit, and don't get raises/bonuses. yeah.

        NOW, if Micro-shaft could make the case [which they can NOT] that productivity IMPROVES, and ease of use IMPROVES [which it does NOT] with Win-10-nic, they'd have NO PROBLEM [in fact, I would probably want it if such things were true, aside from the 2D FLUGLY which I hate].

      3. Wensleydale Cheese
        Stop

        Re: Perhaps ....

        "They did not want to re-learn."

        ...

        "the employees will want a machine like the one at work"*

        I believe that this business about not wanting to re-learn is something of a fallacy. There was also a fear of the unknown and many opted for something they knew would work.

        The massive and swift adoption of smart phones and tablets says the opposite of "Don't want to learn something new".

        * Being forced to use a Windows PC at work was what made me look for alternatives for home. I didn't want the hassle I had at work in my free time.

        1. dajames

          Re: Perhaps ....

          The massive and swift adoption of smart phones and tablets says the opposite of "Don't want to learn something new".

          It's not that simple: There's more than one thing going on.

          On the one hand: This year's desktop PC is just the same as last year's desktop PC -- you interact with either using a screen, a keyboard, and a mouse (or trackball, etc.) and you do substantially the same things with both. There is no need for the UI to change between them, and users resent it when they have to re-learn operations that had previously been committed to muscle-memory.

          On the other hand: Smartphones and tablets are new and shiny. They offer different hardware for user interactions, so of course their user interfaces will function differently and there will be something new to learn -- the users know, understand and accept that.

          That users object to having to relearn to use a PC because some idiot has changed the interface but don't object to having to learn something new to use a new type of device should not be surprising, except to those who've really lost the plot.

          1. a_yank_lurker

            Re: Perhaps ....

            "That users object to having to relearn to use a PC because some idiot has changed the interface but don't object to having to learn something new to use a new type of device should not be surprising, except to those who've really lost the plot." - Users also do not like changing a perfectly functional interface because some clueless PHB says there must be one for all devices.

      4. BobChip
        Linux

        Re: Perhaps ....

        Yes, I too put on the Penguin suit about 6 years ago. I also went to college - about 50 years ago - before PCs were even invented. If I can make the switch in my late 60s, anyone can do it. By the way, there is no way I will ever go back to MS, even if they do survive for a few more years.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Perhaps ....

          Well said BobChip.

          I started using computers in 1972 and microprocessors in '74/'75.

          Dos was always booted with a prayer that all those horrid drivers would load

          Windows before 95 was even worse

          Post Windows 95 and despite ME it got better and better upto and including Windows 7.

          Then MS decided that Touch on Everything was the order of the day. Risky at the extreme. We may look back in 10 years and wonder what all the problems was but for me Metro/Modern/TIFKAM was the straw that broke my will to stay on the MS directed path to Nirvana.

          Now that I'm about to retire there are NO, repeat NO Microsoft products in use in my home.

          I won't pay a monthly subscription (viz Photoshop) so the prospects of having to do the same with Windows was the final nail in the MS coffin as far as I am concerned.

          I know that I am not alone in this.

          Many of my age group are moving to Apple. Yes they cost a packet but for many of them, they work OOTB and do so each and every day. One reason is that many of them already have iPhones. Some tried Windows Mobiles but soon went to Android or Apple. (the majority is with Apple).

          That in itself is a very good case study in how to make your company irrelevant to a good proportion of the population.

          {Can I have my MBA please?}

      5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Perhaps ....

        '"Whats also interesting is how many college types I talk to who are just using a penguin now."

        Businesses are where it is at; lose them and you lose the game.'

        And, of course, today's college types become the next generation of business decision makers.

    4. a_yank_lurker

      Re: Perhaps ....

      I live near a college and my informal, not very accurate survey at the local coffee shops is Apple has about 50% of the market with college kids.

      1. WatAWorld

        Re: Perhaps ....

        "Apple has about 50% of the market with college kids"

        I suspect your sampling is likely 90% liberal arts and fine arts students.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Perhaps ....

          No, last time I was at CERN in Geneva there was a large number of Macs. They can run most *nix software anyway, and you get a well supported and optimize sw/hw combo, which lets you concentrate on you job, which is not taking care of your PC.

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Perhaps ....

          "I suspect your sampling is likely 90% liberal arts and fine arts students."

          Not necessarily. Macs run Unix S/W so some of the scientists & engineers could be using them but most of the rest will be on Linux.

      2. btrower

        Re: Perhaps ....

        Re: "Apple has about 50% of the market with college kids."

        @a_yank_lurker:

        I believe it.

        My household was MS-centric for a long time with Linux only being used for server stuff. Then, my kids *had* to have iPods like all the other kids ... then, they *had* to have iPhones rather than Crackberries like their parents. I gave in reluctantly to keep the peace and we all ended up on iPhones. The iPhones turned out to be way, way more useful than the crackberries and iOS, while not perfect, was significantly more reliable than anything Windows based.

        Cracks, and then holes, in the dike, then it nearly burst when my daughter insisted on a MacBook Air as her new machine for university.

        Every new CPU here in the past couple of years has had a non-MS operating system. MS has been a terrible partner over the years and it seems as though their formula for responding to alienated customers is to alienate them further.

        MS: I have made myself a promise that every machine you disable because I had to swap out equipment gets re-enabled permanently with Linux.

        1. Fred T

          Re: Perhaps ....

          Use the best tool for the job. Mac for seamless user experience, Linux for IT. For gaming, use a gaming console. For phone, use iOS or Android or both. Windows is best at none of them.

          Like in the old days where people tend to own multiple TVs, now they own multiple computers. Having mixture of Mac and Linux is not as rare if you count Chromebooks and Android as Linux kernel-based.

    5. WatAWorld

      The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

      The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product.

      With all of MS's many failings, reasonable regular consumers and IT professionals still choose it over Apple and Linux.

      I'm not saying MS is wonderful. I am saying that your penguin is nude.

      Esoteric is not a virtue. Having a rude, abusive and harassing pseudo-hipster CEO is not a commercial advantage.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Scoreboard b*tch

        >With all of MS's many failings, reasonable (like you Mr. sensible jack wagon shill huh?) regular consumers and IT professionals still choose it over Apple and Linux.

        "April 26, 2016 — Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2016 second quarter ended March 26, 2016 (5 days less even lol). The Company posted quarterly revenue of $50.6 billion and quarterly net income of $10.5 billion, or $1.90 per diluted share."

        "April 21, 2016 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended March 31, 2016: Revenue was $20.5 billion GAAP. Net income was $3.8 billion GAAP. Earnings per share was $0.47 GAAP"

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

        >The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product.

        I guarantee more units were shipped last quarter with the Linux kernel in Android than all Windows OS derivatives put together. Granted most of those are pretty much given away but that seems to be the basic business model of both Windows and Android now.

        1. Teiwaz

          Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

          "I guarantee more units were shipped last quarter with the Linux kernel in Android than all Windows OS derivatives put together.2

          - True, but Android with it's Linux kernel buried under Googles slightly shady front-end is not really the same as GNU/Linux. Most users are not even aware Linux is involved in their product at all. Same with other devices and platforms utilising the Linux Kernel, it's like the Golem buried at the bottom of a mineshaft pumping water for years unregarded.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

            "Googles slightly shady front-end is not really the same as GNU/Linux."

            OTOH after Microsoft's UI adventures of the last few years if you were to take a Win 7 user and show them KDE, W8 & W910 they might be hard pushed to say which was & wasn't Windows.

          2. Richard Plinston

            Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

            > Most users are not even aware Linux is involved in their product at all.

            And that is exactly how it should be. Most MacOS and iOS users are not even aware that BSD is underlying their systems.

            People buy computers to solve problems, not to follow a particular cult.

      3. bombastic bob Silver badge

        Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

        "The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product."

        because of very little *MARKETING* effort. Win-10-nic, on the other hand, is nothing BUT market-hype and "you must accept this upgrade" shoving it up our as...down our throats.

        Imagine what it would BE like if some SERIOUS MARKETING were done with Linux, from computer makers PROMINENTLY advertising their Linux-equipped computers, to software makers GLADLY announcing their new LINUX version! (sorta like when they announced their WINDOWS version back in the early 90's). Yeah, THOSE were they days, right?

        MARKETING is all Linux needs to win the desktop platform. It's already WAY better than Win-10-nic or "Ape". Maybe even better than 7...

        1. Tannin

          Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

          I don't think it's just marketing that keeps 'nix off the desktop and Wiindows on it.I think people ignore a whole list of showstopper can't-run-X-on-'nix issues. That list of showstoppers includes things like Photoshop and Lightroom, popular accounting packages, and so on. It used to include a zillion games and the Microsoft Office package, but the games situation has improved a lot, and Microsoft's Office is gradually becoming a bit irrelevant because the alternatives are often just as good if not better. Nevertheless, until we have key applications like Photoshop on Linux, Windows is fairly safe.

          Does Microsoft know this? Is there any concerted push by MS to ensure (for example) that Adobe doesn't port its applications to Nix?

          1. Pompous Git Silver badge

            Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

            Is there any concerted push by MS to ensure (for example) that Adobe doesn't port its applications to Nix?

            No idea, but Adobe ported FrameMaker to Linux many years ago. I was a beta tester. It was a very decent word processor and page layout tool. When the beta timed out, I went back to PageMaker on Windows. Adobe certainly have the expertise.

      4. BitDr

        Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

        Theme it to look like W7 and you'll get faster buy in from the average consumer.

        "Having a rude, abusive and harassing pseudo-hipster CEO is not a commercial advantage."

        Seems to have worked for Steve Jobs, he was known to be abusive at times, as well as harassing, and a bit of a hipster (when the hippie movement was winding down). Ballmer, OTOH, was not hip, not even pseudo hip, nor was Mr. Gates.

      5. AlbertH

        Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

        I don't know where you get your numbers (remember - 87% of statistics are made up on the spot). You have to remember that the entire Internet runs on Linux - making Windows a poor proprietary client for a Unix world.

        Windows will become ever more irrelevant and as Microsoft fail to meet the universal standards set by the web - or, worse yet, try to set their own - and governments and businesses are starting to see this.

        The UK actually has rules in place to ensure that all government departments will use fully open standards and open sourced software in the next two years. This will be the beginning of the end for MS as other countries will also do the same.

        1. Zakhar

          Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

          Unfortunately the shift to open source won't happen immediately for other countries.

          I admire your government for having done that. Here in France they are too corrupted and paid by M$ to dare such a clever move.

          They prepared a law about school, and said: "we are going to let the people express itself, about what it thinks is right for education", so they did a poll on the internet. First suggestion was something around educational games, second suggestion was "promote open standards and open source software".

          And so, guess what they did 2 months after having "consulted the people": they signed a contract with M$...

          Conclusion: I always tell it as a joke (but it is not), Open Source does not invite you to a restaurant!

      6. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

        "Having a rude, abusive and harassing pseudo-hipster CEO is not a commercial advantage."

        CEO? I suppose some of the distros are from businesses with CEOs. Others just have project leaders.

        Oh, did you mean Linus? He's not a CEO. If you're going to criticise you'd do much better if you got your facts right first.

      7. Zakhar
        Pint

        Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

        4%, are you sure?

        Last time I checked it was around 1 or 2% ... for desktops I mean, because if you count all devices including Android, the Linux Kernel is now the first one for end users.

        But we have now moved for 1 to 2% to 4%... doubled!

        Anyway between 5 to 10% will be enough for the vendors to care, beyond that it will attract bad guys (as smartphones did), and we prefer those bad guys to stay "working" on W$.

        So, thanks for the news. ;-)

      8. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

        But look at the growth potential! 4% to 5%, a 1% increase in market share is a 25% of the penguin sector!

        I see a high growth market opportunity waiting to happen, it is only a matter of time before someone throws the dice and gets a winning score...

    6. keithpeter Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Perhaps ....

      "...and for those who didn't know how to say no, you now have a lot of unhappy people out there. I've spoken to many of them. Windows 10 downgrades where Office no longer works, data was lost, "upgrade" failures, etc."

      @Dwarf

      We must be lucky. Friends and colleagues report mostly OK upgrade experiences on their own computers. One colleague extremely miffed that she can't watch DVDs on the upgraded laptop and that none of the DVD player applications available in the App Store appeared to work. I pointed her at VLC. Another chap had problems sending email but was able to follow an online guide successfully and sort it himself. It involved entering the boot manager screen (I don't speak Microsoft, may have got terminology wrong).

      Quote from OA...

      Enterprises, which were thought to be big believers in the new operating system, have also been unimpressed. Sure, there are pilot programs running in many companies, but IT managers have shown little willingness to do a mass upgrade when earlier operating systems are still working well.

      Work: Windows 10 for Education is being rolled out across all 500+ client PCs over the summer. Has been used for restores/new installs already on most classroom PCs and some staff PCs. Main issue is a driver for interactive whiteboard software needs an upgrade so one or two functions don't currently work. Windows 10 for Education appears to run OK (more like jog actually) on an Atom based dual core client PC with 2Gb RAM - more usable (bit still marginal) than the previous Windows 7 image as graphics never seemed to work properly on the old system. So the somewhat elderly PC estate isn't too much of a barrier to upgrading. If we can squeeze another 3 years out of the hardware we have that will save quite a lot of dosh.

      I've noticed that many internal systems are moving over to Web based interfaces in front of FOSS backends (e.g. moodle, mysql based applications, Web interfaces in front of data from legacy MS databases &c) so I suspect we will be 'client agnostic' by the time I retire. Personally, I'd volunteer to run (say) a CentOS/Ubuntu/whatever client with access to legacy apps via virtualisation for a giggle any day but I doubt that it would save any money so not worth techy time to set up.

      Coat: off out - I use Slackware at home, and I am a badge wearing end user for another year or so.

      1. Steve 114

        Re: Perhaps ....

        Haven't had one cousin's 'upgrade' fail. Each had Teamviewer on already, and it came back on-line to me before the Win10 user-choices screen, which let me do that, and then Anti-beacon, and ClassicShell. 14 other things to fix swiftly for each of them and they hardly know it isn't 7. Real snag is that some older working programs disappear for some reason, but they work again if you reinstall them.

    7. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Perhaps ....

      'As for the "we're focusing on mobile" - well, that says it all.'

      I suspect that when "focusing on mobile" is translated it means "we were counting on that and look how its working out".

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    M$ showed us their Poker hand...

    ~ But they could have kicked out Win-10 minus slurping & force updates and waiting for more lemmings to sign up.

    ~ Then bait and switch and add nasty aggressive slurping and forced updates, in a urgent security patch over a holiday weekend etc.

    ~ But this way, we get to see the kinds of cunts operating out of Redmond upfront, and how much they desire to be more like big brothers Google and Facebook.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: M$ showed us their Poker hand...

      Upvote for gratuitous use of the cunt word. Bravo.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: M$ showed us their Poker hand...

        ... and a DV for both anons because anon

    2. Updraft102

      Re: M$ showed us their Poker hand...

      The smart thing to do would have been to have only the positives in now and save all of the negative changes for after people are already dependent on 10, as you said-- and maybe, compared to what they have planned, they think this is what they did. What kind of diabolical plans can they have to make what they're doing now seem like sweetness and light to them?

  8. CmdrX3

    Well if they haven't got that many users giving it away, they certainly aren't going to get them by charging for it after July... and I still hate the start menu.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bet they assumed Windows Phone contributing a few hundred million

    Because they know the mobile market so well - after all they were so quick to recognize how the smartphone world was going to completely change the minute the iPhone was first shown.

    Oh wait, that was Google's Android team that realized that; Microsoft continued to putting out the same tired stuff that looked and acted like it was designed in 2001 and thinking Blackberry was their competition.

    The only thing that will let them EVER get to a billion devices is quitting selling Windows 7 and stopping updates for it in early 2020. Until that end date for Windows 7 forces enterprises to get serious about upgrading to Windows 10 in 2019, they won't reach a billion.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge

      Re: Bet they assumed Windows Phone contributing a few hundred million

      "The only thing that will let them EVER get to a billion devices is quitting selling Windows 7 and stopping updates for it in early 2020. Until that end date for Windows 7 forces enterprises to get serious about upgrading to Windows 10 in 2019, they won't reach a billion."

      Shhhhhhhh... don't give them ANY ideas, K? someone with windows 10 might read it, and the spyware could tip off someone in the Halls of Redmond. I know they don't listen to GOOD ideas, but BAD ones seem to make it through... I once joked about "what's next, ads in the Start Menu?" on a Microsoft forum. Next thing you know... [sorry sorry sorry]

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge

      Re: Bet they assumed Windows Phone contributing a few hundred million

      "Microsoft continued to putting out the same tired stuff that looked and acted like it was designed in 2001"

      and _THEN_ they release Windows "Ape", and it looks like it was designed in 1985...

      http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win101

    3. veti Silver badge

      Re: Bet they assumed Windows Phone contributing a few hundred million

      I don't know how many times I'm gonna have to repeat this...

      Windows on a phone is a really nice system. I, and many other users (as of last year, it had a double-digit market share in my country) greatly prefer it to either iOS or Android.

      What Microsoft did that I don't understand was, stop making Nokias. The Nokia brand was by far its best ticket into the phone market. Whey they stopped shipping those, their sales went from "very low" to "virtually nonexistent". And how that can have come as a surprise to anyone, has me fair betwattled.

      1. Richard Plinston

        Re: Bet they assumed Windows Phone contributing a few hundred million

        > The Nokia brand was by far its best ticket into the phone market.

        It may have been 'the best ticket' but Nokia phone division made a loss in every quarter it made WP in spite of getting a $billion a year from Microsoft. The agreement with MS was running out and Nokia was going to dump WP. In fact they had already released an Android phone the Nokia-X.

        Microsoft bought Nokia's phone division to prevent 90+% of the WP manufacturing being dumped and replaced by Android. The only reason that some countries went into double digits was because the phones were being sold below cost and leveraged into Microsoft centric businesses.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_X

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Re: Bet they assumed Windows Phone contributing a few hundred million

          The thing is, and often said, that people who actually use a WinPhone do actually like them, a lot.

          Microsoft haters will never accept that, so saying it on El reg is probably just wasting the wear on my keyboard.

          BUT, Microsoft seemed to have done their level best to undermine their own brand; delayed launches, strange ranges, with no phone that isn't either too cheap and nasty or too big and expensive for an ordinary user, negligible marketing, trying to use it as a gateway to the Xbox rather than providing fun stuff that a phone user might want, failure to engage with developers or develop their own fun stuff ( aka "apps") and of course a seriously ham-handed attempt to bring out a "universal" OS without making it fit for platforms that people used, that just made everyone angry with them

  10. Bob Vistakin
    Facepalm

    Google says thanks

    The extra time polishing Android Desktop will be really handy.

    Oh, and good luck with that 2020 date once its out.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Shame on me

    When I see this picture I just thought M$ fanboi

    I will go to church tomorrow, and pray for my soul.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Childcatcher

    One beeeeellion

    I've only ever had to manage a few thousand desktops in one go, worrying about billions is a bit more exciting. Mind you if I had access to the source and the devs, oh and an armlock on the hardware side and distribution etc perhaps my job would be easier.

    Instead, like many, many other sysadmins I have to use the force in many cases to divine what the fuck is going on with the bloody things.

  13. Richard Plinston

    due to the focusing of our phone hardware business

    > due to the fscking of our phone hardware business

    FTFY

    Damn the autofix spell checker.

    1. chivo243 Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: due to the focusing of our phone hardware business

      but due to the focusing of our phone hardware business? MS makes phones? Fair enough, they should have enough employees to focus on two things? NO?

  14. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Creative solutions

    1, Cloud solution. Fire up a million instances of Windows7 on Azure and upgrade to Windows10. Restore them and repeat 1000 times

    2, RIAA solution. Download a pirate copy. Claim that this represents a million potential violations who would have purchased a copy. And they had a 48x CD drive so that counts 48x as much. Repeat 20 times

    3, Oracle solution. Install on a machine with an 8 core CPU. Claim that this represents 2^8 licenses in use.

    4, Google/Apple solution. Claim that you have a billion installs but they all happened in Ireland and so you don't count them when reporting to the IRS.

    1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: Creative solutions

      I recently upgraded a Win7 on a spare HDD to Win10 (twice), just to see what would happen, and then blew them away. On three occasions the Win10 update app stalled at 99% and started back at 0% when it was reloaded.

      So they probably counted that as five.

  15. imanidiot Silver badge

    Really?

    *insert nick cage "you don't say?" meme pic here*

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple Upgrades...

    Whether love or hate Apple, one thing that they get right is how upgrades are presented and pushed out for both iOS and OSX/macOS. Just enougfh visual persuasion, but leaving the option to stay where you are.

    On the whole, they don't (yet) piss you off, the way they go about it.

    But it's easier for Apple, because of their limited hardware platforms.

    1. a_yank_lurker

      Re: Apple Upgrades...

      Apple also is a hardware vendor so they have the option to tailor their OS and applications to the hardware and much easier time testing for hardware compatibility. But still, informing users and letting the user decide when to update/upgrade is a better policy.

  17. noddybollock
    WTF?

    "and increasing customer delight with Windows."

    "and increasing customer delight with Windows."

    WTF - can I have whatever their smoking please.

    Roll on the end of the month and I might (just might) feel safe to boot into my win 7 partition (when I hope it will be safe to do so), but I doubt I will need to really, since installing Mint on mine and other family’s gear things have been just fine so far.

    1. Updraft102

      Re: "and increasing customer delight with Windows."

      "Delight." I do not think that word means what they think it means. (Disdain? Disgust maybe?)

      Mint is really excellent, isn't it? I've only had it installed for a few weeks now, but already I hardly boot Windows anymore. I found that my favorite game works really well under WINE (not perfect, but close enough that it might soon get there, and it's playable now even in imperfect form), and that was the one "MUST have Windows" thing for me I thought I had up front. I've been finding Linux versions for everything else pretty well... I've used Firefox and Thunderbird exclusively since their respective initial releases, so that much was super simple.

      My Win 7 install is fully updated, though, aside from the telemetry updates and those that have any kind of reference to "the latest version of Windows." Just keep it on manual installation ("Notify me of updates that are available, but let me decide whether to download and install them," or whatever the actual text is), keep the list of the bad updates handy & keep hiding the bad ones when they pop back up, and read the description text very carefully before allowing any non-critical update to be installed. And as always, keep backups of everything! Even if MS were to sneak a non-removable "security" update in that contained a Windows 10 trojan, you can always just restore from backup.

  18. Sureo

    "...earlier operating systems are still working well."

    That's the whole point, isn't it? I really like my windows 7 computer and there's nothing in windows 8/8.1/10 to tempt me to upgrade. On the contrary, with all the well documented problems in win10. Offering a free upgrade simply isn't enough reason to bother. Back to the drawing board, Microsoft.

  19. WatAWorld

    The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great and adoption would have been higher if MS had been polite

    Push something on a person, and they'll naturally resist, even if you're trying to give away bricks of gold.

    The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great and adoption would have been far higher if MS had been polite and respectful in its upgrade offer.

    A once-a-month explicit easy to opt-out-of offer of the free upgrade,each month, and nothing more.

    Instead MS chose to make a total nuisance of itself by screwing up the daily, weekly and monthly work-flows of previously loyal customers, all the while incurring unplanned training and support costs on those same previously loyal customers.

    Windows 10 is much better than Windows 8 and 8.1, and is much faster than Windows 7 on multi-core machines.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great and adoption would have .....

      Microsoft doesn't have time to be polite, they're a little bit desperate. They're eager to get their continuous revenue stream in place (i.e. a suction pump attached to your wallet).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great...

      The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great and adoption would have been far higher if MS had been polite and respectful in its upgrade offer.

      Oh yes, it is truly wonderful. I especially like the consistency and clarity of the UI (after all, who wants to have dialogues following the same visual design as the panels they are created from? This is so 1990s! Who ever wants the back button to take them to the configuration screen they came from, rather than an exciting new set of option which let you explore a completely different corner of this wonderful WX universe? Who would ever want to have a computer without a touchscreen? Greasy fingerprints on the display are the clear sign of class!), the user-friendliness (these login-screen ads really make coming to the office in the morning a joy! and I love having those enforced patch installation-reboot cycles just as my train leaves without me in the evening: after all the late-night milk run is soo much more comfly!), and the meticulous attention it gives to my privacy.

      A once-a-month explicit easy to opt-out-of offer of the free upgrade,each month, and nothing more.

      Yes! Yes! But please, please, please make it full-screen, and give it a generous time before it can be closed! Two or three hours is ought to do it!

      Windows 10 is much better than Windows 8 and 8.1, and is much faster than Windows 7 on multi-core machines.

      Well, realistically a lobotomy is much better than W8.*, and for most people and use cases W7 is already plenty fast enough. The only exception for an end user is rebooting - and at least for me, the most common reason for rebooting is because the yet another patch cannot be installed without it. At which point all the time is spent applying the patch - and the extra 30 seconds saved/spent in loading the OS is immaterial.

      Just face it: desktop OS has been a mature technology for a long time (in fact since well before Microsoft came up with their first usable version of Windows); there is no sound technical reason to keep tinkering with it. Desktop OSes exist to provide productivity (or perhaps the loss-of-productivity, if we are talking about SAP products) applications with a stable and consistent environment in which to perform their function. Desktop OSes should be neither sexy nor exciting; in fact, like all good infrastructure they should be mostly invisible.

    3. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great and adoption would have (snip too long)

      "Windows 10 is much better than Windows 8 and 8.1, and is much faster than Windows 7 on multi-core machines."

      *FACEPALM*

      "Ape" is demonstrably slower than 7, and Win-10-nic is barely "as fast" as 7 and slower for MANY things. And it's 2D FLUGLY. And it has adware+spyware. And it doesn't have a proper start menu (it has a 'start thing' instead). And all that "the METRO" cruft. yuchhh.

      And the Microsoft Logon with it's anti-privacy EULA, which is practically ARM-TWISTED onto your desktop, is probably the WORST part. It's how they can track you EVERYWHERE.

      but I think the 2D FLUGLY is the worst part. It's so distracting (in a bad way), it harms my productivity. Good 'feng shui' of the workplace *EXCLUDES* Win-10-nic.

      1. WolfFan Silver badge

        Re: The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great and adoption would have (snip too long)

        "Windows 10 is much better than Windows 8 and 8.1, and is much faster than Windows 7 on multi-core machines."

        *FACEPALM*

        "Ape" is demonstrably slower than 7, and Win-10-nic is barely "as fast" as 7 and slower for MANY things. And it's 2D FLUGLY. And it has adware+spyware. And it doesn't have a proper start menu (it has a 'start thing' instead). And all that "the METRO" cruft. yuchhh.

        Unfortunately... on the hardware around here (multiple desktops, mostly custom-built with MSI and Asus motherboards, and multiple laptops, Asus, Toshiba, some others) it is very clear indeed that Win 8.1 is faster than Win 7, and Win 10 is faster than Win 8.1. It's not even close. Now, I'll admit that Win 8.1 was a pig on a low-end Dell, but that's why we don't buy low-end Dells. Or, indeed, any Dells unless we have no choice, which is why we haven't bought Dells for at least five years. If your experience with Win 8.1 and Win 10 is on Dells, then perhaps you might want to buy a better quality computer.

    4. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Re: The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great and adoption would have been higher...

      Windows 10 is much better than Windows 8 and 8.1, and is much faster than Windows 7 on multi-core machines.

      Yes, it's very much faster. Especially on the machine I had dedicated to watching television. Without that pesky Windows Media Centre hogging all those cpu cycles, the computer is very definitely fasterer. It doesn't do very much other than be fast, but if that's what floats your boat, why don't you try compiling your own Linux kernel with Gentoo? That's free too.

      Speed's not so important to me though, so I'll stick with Mint and just watch a bit of TV and listen to some music :-)

    5. William 3 Bronze badge

      Sure pal.

      Windows 10 isn't better than Windows 8.1 unless you're counting the unreasonable restrictions like the inability to choose your own desktop colour, inability to decline certain updates (that say, break your machine), advertisements on the start menu, the inability to switch of telemetry, forced updates of your drivers despite you having better drivers from the OEM, all the data mining of every keypress back to Microsoft that your average user doesn't know how to switch off as positives.

      What actual benefits, other than your claims of it being "faster", does it bring over Windows 8.1 exactly?

      And as for the claim it's "faster", I can't say I've noticed on my i7 running at 4ghz. What CPU would you need to be running for it's increased speed to be noticeable. Bearing in mind that Windows 10 will be dropping a lot of support going forward for older CPUs.

      Please, enlighten us, I could do with a laugh today.

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge

        Re: Sure pal.

        "Please, enlighten us, I could do with a laugh today."

        to be honest, the measurements I've seen (and some that I've done) show that loading an application is (generally) slightly faster with Win-10-nic than with 8.x - but at a cost, of course. Win-10-nic has a lot of 'background cruft' that spawns whenever it wants to. [I've seen this kind of behavior in 7, but only within the first few minutes after bootup]. Also, Win-10-nic has a *NASTY* habit of "pegging" the CPU meter for no good reason, typically when one "the METRO" app(sic) is waiting on another "the METRO" app(sic) and I doubt THAT problem has been addressed since I measured it over a year ago. (it appears to do with 'spinning' in a loop within the 'Universal' or 'RT' libraries while one app waits for a response to whatever command or communication it sent - the 'spinning' consumes CPU cycles, forces the OS to constantly switch to a "non-idle" mode, and heats up the CPU unnecessarily, wasting electricity and wearing out fan motor bearings).

        'Faster' claims are rediculous anyway. "less inefficient" might hold water...

        (and that piggy 'paranoid cached' registry is JUST! AS! BAD! AS! EVAR! in Win-10-nic, if not *WORSE* - 'paranoid cacheing' is when you re-re-read something ANYWAY, even though your hard drive data is 'in the cache', because it *might* have changed. Outside of the cache? unlikely. But watch hard drive activity when you load applications. They're too STUPID to allow the registry to be properly cached. It must be physically read/written and slow everything down. Even with SSD it's a time waste, but I don't have one of those, so it becomes OBVIOUS, and that goes DOUBLE for when it's in a VM)

        the pathetic nature of win-10-nics inefficient internals, and 8.x's slightly MORE inefficient internals, makes me wanna cry - but I'll laugh at it ANYWAY.

    6. Maventi
      Pint

      Re: The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great...

      @WatAWorld - finally a good post and not worthy of the downvotes it received.

      The thing you appear to have overlooked about Windows is that it's dominance feeds itself more than any benefits it inherently provides. There are folks like yourself who genuinely like it (and that's perfectly fine) but the majority simply put up with it because they want a 'computer' and Windows has often provided the path of least resistance due to low hardware cost, wide hardware and app availability, etc.

      Note that Windows has never been particularly user friendly - if it was then we wouldn't have the geek squad type outfits on just about every corner of every block to guide the average user through things. It's just that the benefits that it has offered in the past (i.e. massive app ecosystem, comes already bundled with PCs, etc) made it the least bad option by a slight margin.

      These days the alternatives are more viable than ever and there are plenty to choose from. Partly because many uses for a computer can be satisfied with a browser, partly because a lot of effort has gone into other platforms to make them more viable, and partly because Microsoft has become increasingly arrogant as you point out. So that thin margin between Windows and others gets thinner.

      So it's not hard to see why there is such a backlash to Windows 10. For every improvement in user friendliness there's something to negate it (e.g. GWX, interface changes, legacy apps not working, etc). It's not a terrible OS, but it's also not a great one for many folks either. And that thin advantage that made it the least bad option for many people has eroded to the point they start to look elsewhere at offerings that now 'less bad'.

      Most importantly this is not a bad thing! There's no need to be defensive and slag off other platforms - Windows isn't going away any time soon. Those who love it can still enjoy it and for those who don't there are an ever increasing number of great alternatives available.

      This technology diversity should be celebrated, not criticised. It's a win-win for all (see icon).

      1. Pompous Git Silver badge

        Re: The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great...

        There's no need to be defensive and slag off other platforms - Windows isn't going away any time soon. Those who love it can still enjoy it and for those who don't there are an ever increasing number of great alternatives available.

        Indeed! Why make a strait-jacket for yourself?

    7. Tannin

      Re: The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great and (etc)

      It is quite absurd to walk around pretending that Win 10 is faster than 8.x. 8.x had a factory user inferface even worse than 10's, of course, but Classic Shell fixes that and it installs in less time than it takes Cortana (or whatever it is that they call that crud on the start bar) to start up and do anything.

      But to be fair, taken as a whole, 10 is better.

      Better than Vista, anyway.

      Well, mostly.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'd add

    In place upgrades are the La Brea tar pit for operating systems. All of them, not just any particular version of Windows. Sorry Microsoft but that's a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the groin.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge

      Re: I'd add

      "In place upgrades are the La Brea tar pit for operating systems."

      the beauty of Linux is that clean-installing the new, if you back things up properly, is a pretty easy thing to do, and you can keep all of your personal settings by tarballing /home and just re-installing the latest versions of whatever you had installed before.

      been there, done that a few times. also works when cloning onto a new box.

      yeah try doing THAT with all of the registry cruft. good luck, heh.

      (for servers you can manually merge /etc and so on, but I'm referring to user workstation type installs)

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: I'd add

        "you can keep all of your personal settings by tarballing /home"

        Easier still. Have /home on its own partition & don't reformat it. Same with /opt & maybe /usr/local.

        1. bombastic bob Silver badge

          Re: I'd add

          "Easier still. Have /home on its own partition & don't reformat it. Same with /opt & maybe /usr/local."

          also true. thanks for pointing it out. (see how easy a system restore or version upgrade is with a POSIX system? AND you get to keep your SETTINGS!)

        2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

          Re: I'd add

          And how does the average user who was formerly a windows user know how to do that then?

          Those of us who know and are advocated for Linux know that but the average user would have no clue at all about how to even start to go about this.

          This is made even more tricky by the use of LVM by many Linux Distros in their default installation.

          I'd love to see a replication of the approach Apple takes with Time Machine applied to Linux.

          start installing a new Linux system with the back connected and the distro sees the backup and does the job of restoring the user/users for you with minimal work on the users part.

          1. a_yank_lurker

            Re: I'd add

            @Steve Davies 3 - The average probably can not install any OS without serious help. So if they are moving to Linux I would recommend finding someone they know to handle the actual install. If I am installing Linux for someone I put home on its own partition so I can do a clean install of the distro when needed.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well windows 10 just decided not to re-authorise in virtual box. To be honest I'm so unimpressed with it I can't even be bothered to look up the key. Clicking delete machine is easier.... Linux mint is superior in every way.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Epic fail

    Rejoice, rejoice!

  23. William 3 Bronze badge

    The missed sales targets don't paint the full picture.

    Just as Windows 10 came out, I was actually growing to like Windows 8.1. It's an acquired taste for sure, but the fuss over the start menu was really crazy given most people spend less than 1% of their time using the start menu. Once you get past that the under the hood improvements are quite good over Windows 7.

    Having used Windows 10 since it came out, I find myself missing Windows 8.1 as Windows 10 brings nothing but hassle to the table, with it's crazy restrictions enforced upon it's users for hardly any benefits. You can't even choose your own background colour. Even my Amiga allowed me to do this. Even my Amstrad allowed me to chose any of the colours it could display. Not so Windows 10, I have Microsofts Colours, and that's it.

    And then you have all the tracking, telemetry and privacy that are the true cost of this so called "free" upgrade. Something I use third party tools to circumvent and still I'm not sure if those are actually effective or not, or could break in the next forced update.

    Having used Windows since I migrated away from the Amiga, this is the first time I find myself not just saying I'm looking for alternatives, but actually using those alternatives. It's a painful process after decades of using Windows to learn how Linux does things. Yet here I am using Linux Mint 18 and a VM machine running Windows 8.1

    Linux could be mainstream, it just really needs to tidy up some of the rough edges. For example I had an issue installing Steam, where it would install, but never open. It took 45 minutes of searching to find a solution that worked for me, this included reading pages of forum posts that simply didn't work for me.

    Your average user just isn't going to put up with that. If Linux could sort out how programs are installed then more people would use it, I have absolutely no doubt.

    Regardless, Microsoft's biggest threat is that more and more people are using their phones, and their phones are becoming the main replacement of the desktop, which is being relegated to doing the family accounts, or playing games. Microsoft has already conceded this domain as the users have no interest in Microsofts attitude of making promises then leaving them in the lurch with the promise that the new "Windows on Phones" is going to the be the greatest ever and we promise this time that we won't leave you and high and dry this time, pinky swear.

    They can only burn so many bridges before they find themselves on an island.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The missed sales targets don't paint the full picture.

      "I use third party tools to circumvent and still I'm not sure if those are actually effective or not"

      MS write the operating system and they can access it at a far lowed level than you can. Same as rootkits. If they want telemetry, they will have it and the only thing you can do about it is run it in a VM and use the underlying OS to analyse the crap out of anything emitting from that VM...but that takes time, tools, and technical ability.

      1. CompUser

        Re: The missed sales targets don't paint the full picture.

        Absolutely correct. Microsoft management have stated that the telemetry can't be stopped.

        Its easy for Microsoft to code a back door in Windows 10 that can be used to send telemetry. Installed third party software can't interfere with its collection in any way.

    2. Belardi16

      Re: The missed sales targets don't paint the full picture.

      Hey! I'm a fellow Amiga user! I still have my Amiga 1000 and 3000.

      I started using Windows (grumble) when Win95 came out (puke - what pure garbage). For those who don't remember, Windows95 was a nightmare. You really NEEDED to do a clean re-install every 3~6 months to keep it running good. GHOST (image backup) was handy for making that process a lot faster. Win95's PnP was very substandard to Amiga's PnP which worked GREAT since 1986!

      Windows7 was the first Windows that I actually LIKED. Win8, was idiotic and offered no real benefits. And Win10, even less so - but with a lot more forceful tactics and all hat telemetry (spying) and ad-based system. Why would I want my 201x computer looking like something from the 80s?

      I started using LinuxMint when Win8 came out. And I've been recommending my clients to Linux since Win10 campaign started. Saves them $100~150. For sure, easier to use then Win8 or 10. Looks better, boots just as fast, if not faster.

      When Windows7 support ends, maybe there will be even more people going to Linux. Really, other than launching MS-Office and TurboTax - who the hell needs MS-Windows?

      Hint: For 12 months, MS had Win10 as a "free" upgrade - and still, most Win7 users WOULD NOT TOUCH IT! Clogging up our Win7 PCs with spam and crap ISN'T HELPING!

      Its to the point that people can't update Win7 (or Win8) without some form of malware being installed from microsoft.

  24. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Perfect Storm

    Microsoft replaced the fully functional Win 7 with the gobsmackingly unusable Win 8. Not a good way to create love and support in the population.

    They replaced that with 8.1, because they had to, but didn't make it friendly enough to win people back.

    Then when they brought out Windows 10 they managed to keep some pretty nasty bits of usability, like turning the control panel into a mish mash of different interfaces with some controls inside places you wouldn't expect to find them and others so well hidden you're more likely to find a Pokemon. Or the Start menu that is full of unremovable "apps" that you might never want, and programme links (some that you'd never directly launch, like PDF readers) that are installed within folders of crap that an ordinary user would never be able find and (re)move.

    But in case that wasn't enough to put users off they then went to massive lengths to force this on to users with Win 7+. (OK if it was just Win 8.x they might have a case).

    Meanwhile, they just didn't try to market the phones in any sensible way. Neither in advertising nor in range ( cheap or expensive with nothing between). Maybe because they had lost interest and wanted to flog Tablets instead. Since, "it's not a popular OS with vendors," they needed to get the public onboard directly, but couldn't be arsed. It's a great phone. It doesn't have Apple Tax. It isn't an outpost of the Google advertising agency. It is very usable. But now it's tarnished by both the Win10 debacle and the taint of failure.

    Massive stupidity.

  25. cosymart
    WTF?

    Selling

    Normally if someone wants me to buy something they make an effort to sell it to me. You know "it's better than X because it's more whizzy or get this and your PC will run more applications better" Nothing from Microsoft other than "Get this it's free now!". Could it be that Windows 10 is not better than the previous incarnations therefore Microsoft would fall foul of the various consumer laws and their only option was to upgrade by stealth. Mind you their version of stealth is somewhat different to the dictionary definition!

  26. Tony Paulazzo

    Wait till they introduce Windows as a service and start charging for updates. I forsee a stampede (among the computer literate at least) back to 7 / 8.1 / maybe the penguin. The PC illiterate crowd will just refuse to pay for security updates, Trump & May will make online security a hole riddled bucket and we should attain global botnet by 2020 (hopefully it won't attain sentience and wipe us out for being an insane child race).

  27. Tannin

    increasing customer delight

    The fact that this turkey can talk about "increasing customer delight with Windows" says it all, really. Sure, it's not uncommon for a sales droid to be a litte out of touch with reality, but anyone who says that about the way people interact with Windows is, frankly, hopelessly confused.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: increasing customer delight

      "Sure, it's not uncommon for a sales droid to be a litte out of touch with reality"

      Not uncommon? It's part of the job description.

  28. Packet

    Why am I not surprised...

    Forget the resentment caused by the horrible forced death march to Windows 10 by GWX, sneaky updates et all.

    Fact is the new OS (10) is just not that good - it looks ugly and feels clunky (using Edge is a UI nightmare)

    And Windows Phone installs that they were expecting to provide some of the install base - well, that's just a joke. The Windows Phone platform has been dead in the water for a while (with just deluded loyalists sticking to it) while everyone else saw it as the boondoggle it is (and was going to further be)

  29. N2

    It probably comes as a complete surprise

    That what Microsoft wants, is not always what people want & I for one, do not wish to be led by the nose or have things rammed down my throat.

    Now, discard all your so called 'good ideas', start again and produce something useful and helpful.

  30. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    I wonder if this is the start of backing away from what's proved to be, shall we say, less popular than was hoped, that Windows 10 won't be the "last Windows" unless you count Windows 10.1 which won't be forced on anyone, won't have telemetry, won't have smash and grab T&Cs and may even be popular. And Wataworld will be telling us how bad W10 really was.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It will be too late. MS have already crossed that bridge, set light to it and got their dicks out at it's gramdmother's funeral.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "It's". Bugger. Apologies, pedants.

    2. CompUser

      Would you trust Microsoft with anything in the future?

      Brand damage has been substantial.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MS as a corporation are too large and don't listen. What is the point in having a 'feedback' program if you are going to ignore the most asked for features ?

    Take the aero effects in windows 7. Removed to get windows 10 to work on phones and tablets. Users wanted it back. So Redmond ignored them. Then they forced everyone onto a fluggly ui. Contrast that with Linux mint's latest release where although they introduced a flat theme, they have kept the older theme alongside and have GIVEN USERS THE CHOICE. Now there's a concept MS don't understand. Would it really have been so difficult to just allow different GUI themes with classic windows 7 look ? No of course not, but that would assume that the customer is king. With MS he is more like a low level employee of the MS corporation to be told what he likes and ignored if he doesn't.

    My theory is that companies get too big. Then they attract management that are used to getting to the top by bullying their way through. This shows in the way the nagware was introduced into windows 7/8 and the forced updates on win10.

    Does this company not get the concept that their desktop users are not employees to be pushed around by the CEO ?

    Its good Valve has got behind Linux, and it has the potential to see a big increase in use. Vulcan may well gain mass adoption with developers over directx 12. Linux has the potential to replace Windows 10 - but whether that ever happens will probably depend on companies like Valve, Google, Adobe and major hardware vendors as much as the opensource coders.

    MS should stop behaving like the Borg on Star Trek. I will not be assimilated and resistance IS NOT futile.

    1. CompUser

      Your analysis of the CEO and management style is spot-on.

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      My theory is that companies get too big. Then they attract management that are used to getting to the top by bullying their way through.

      If by theory, you mean the true scientific definition, then yes, you are correct. That's exactly how it works.

  32. bombastic bob Silver badge

    analysis of the CEO and management style

    "MS as a corporation are too large and don't listen. What is the point in having a 'feedback' program if you are going to ignore the most asked for features ?"

    (then comments about bullying-style management at Micro-shaft)

    (then a reply)

    "Your analysis of the CEO and management style is spot-on."

    I tend to agree. Micro-shaft forgot 'Business 101' "The CUSTOMER is always right." I tried to remind them back in the 'insider' days, but they threatened to ban me over my writing style. Go figure. Maybe they just don't like 'El Reg' over there, and my comments reminded them of it (heh).

    Ballmer left a year or so ago, isn't that right? He's been followed by Keven Turner, their former COO.

    In an El Reg thread I suggested that Turner's presence seemts to correspond to MANY of the EPIC FAILS at Micro-shaft. Some were pointed out in the article as well. There's Vista, "Ape" (8.x) where firing Sinofsky was merely symbolic. They *KEPT* the *2D* *FLUGLY* and "tilish" stupidity (the things that made 'Ape' so ugly and unusuable, in my opinion). *WHO* over at Micro-shaft *FELT* (not thought) that *THAT* was a *GOOD* thing? Well, I bet it was KEVIN TURNER! And WHO does anyone guess MIGHT have been behind GWX? Well, I bet it was KEVIN TURNER! Finally the proverbial dung hit the proverbial fan and spewed all over the walls and everyone/thing in between, and "the board" no doubt said "we gotta get RID of this guy" so they 're-organized' to avoid having a "shake-up" in the company cause a STOCK PRICE FREEFALL. And it worked.

    But we still have 2D FLUGLY Win-10-nic with its adware, spyware, and [apparently soon to come as a few have accurately predicted] SUBSCRIPTION-ONLY RENTAL FEES!

    This of course has gone WAY BEYOND what anyone could have imagined in 2005 when Kevin began to do his self-destructive changes at Micro-shaft. And Ballmer is to be blamed for GOING ALONG WITH IT.

    Kevin is apparently an ASSHAT to work for (employees reviewing one another? to determine BONUSES? Can you say RIVALRY and BACKSTABBING?), and according to the 'El Reg' articles, VERY aggressive. I might even agree with "bullying" as a management style, as pointed out by the original poster of this topic [that I named].

    Blame where blame belongs: the captain of the ship, and his first mate, and his engineering officer, all SCREWED THE POOCH on this one. The engineer (Sinofsky) was fired first. Then, the captain (ballmer) resigned, leaving the 1st mate (Kevin Turner) securely at his post, which was the key to the continued failure. No doubt he's really good at sweet-talking his boss (Nadella) into the SAME! KINDS! OF! STUPIDITY! and maybe even GREATER stupidity than before. And so Nadella goes along with it, and wrecks the ship. AGAIN.

    "How did this happen?" Well, DUH...

    (sorry if TLDR)

    1. Richard Plinston

      Re: analysis of the CEO and management style

      > 'Business 101' "The CUSTOMER is always right."

      Business 101 should have told you that the users aren't Microsoft's customers. Their customers are the OEMs, the retailers, and the advertisers.

      What the OEMs want is new software that requires more resources, and new gimmicks (touch, VR, 4K screens, ...), and thus users will buy more hardware. What retailers want is the ability to upsell and add more profitable options to every sale. What advertisers want is to be able to target those who are likely to buy.

      Windows 10 is changing the ground to make the advertising customers happier because eventually Microsoft want to replace the OEMs and retailers with its own products (Surface) and stores so that it can be more like Apple as well as more like Google.

      1. a_yank_lurker

        Re: analysis of the CEO and management style

        There are two different customers for Winbloat or any OS. The OEMs are one and they want to sell hardware. However, the end user is a customer, if indirect, because if they do not purchase hdware with your OS the OEMs are not selling hardware. The OEMs are then faced with a choice, lose sales because of the customer resistance or find something else the customers might buy. End user complaints about W10 are probably making the OEMs very nervous.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: analysis of the CEO and management style

      "they threatened to ban me over my writing style"

      So they're not wrong all the time?

  33. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Windows

    Windows is dead... hopefully

    The events of the last day in my household seem to indicate it.

    Old 2010'ish pc, still well servicable, insert Linux mint 17 DVD and reboot

    whirr whirr whirr, type in root password, type in user account name and password, check timezone, whirr whirr whirr . reboot.

    Login

    well this is nice, wonder if I can run my steam games on here, install steam... login, ok start on them.

    Wow, got TF2 , left4 dead, all halflife based game, KSP, wow ... Alien:isolation, borderlands too.

    Stir in all the other applications I use and I'm left wondering why exactly am I still using windows.

    Oh and to everyone who say "win10 more secure" please please f*** off

    We had a win10 PC owned by someone surfing dodgey streaming sites and ended up with 1/2 a dozen spambots on it that no anti-virus could get rid of...

    Nuked it from orbit eventually...only way to be sure

    1. Belardi16

      Re: Windows is dead... hopefully

      There is software that is not native to Linux, that would help. Like MS-Office (not going to happen, but perhaps in the browser), but TurboTax, QuickBooks and Adobe would be a big help. They of course have OneLine versions... but that has its limitations.

      Linux Partners never quite got the memo from the old MAC Days. Apple would PAY developers to make MAC versions of popular software. Sure, a bit expensive - BUT if it meant people would switch platforms - then it paid for itself! IBM should have figured this out 15 years ago.

      Also, after all this time - Open Office still doesn't include a PIM/Email client (Outlook) which would make it attractive to MS-Office users. Many people hate the MSO2013 UI and would gladly using something that looks like MSO2003.... like Open Office.

      KingSoft used to have a good FREE (optional $$ version) office suite, until they copied the MSO2013 look TOO much and made the free version useless. It used to run great and do something better than Open Office. (It had skins of MSO 2003, 2010, 2000. Now its 2000, 2003 and 2013 meh).

      For most home users, there is little need for MS-Windows... and we see that easily as MOST people have replaced desktops with Phones and tablets. My wife uses her phone 99.9999% of the time, if she really needs to use a computer, she'll use one of mine. Today's teens don't USE desktops for their personal uses.

      MS-Windows platform is not #1. Android is the majority.

  34. Adrian Tawse

    Why should I want Windows 10

    Why, oh Why, on God's Green Earth should I want Windows 10 on my desktop. I do not own a Windows Phone, along with almost the whole of the rest of the world. I do not have a Microsoft Surface and I have no plans to own one. Satya Nadella recently opined that Excel was what Microsoft was all about. Has he tried Excel on a 5.5 inch display? Windows 10 is, and always was, a daft idea.

  35. David Pollard
    Joke

    Wexit?

    Apparently there's chap by the name of Nigel Farage who's said to be rather good at explaining to people the disadvantages of hegemony; and he's recently decided that it's time to tackle new targets. I wonder if he might be encouraged to lend a hand.

  36. Stu 18

    Is doesn't actually work very well

    Lots of vendors still don't support it and drivers are problematic as well. So we couldn't go there even if we wanted to get the freebee. Besides the experience is terrible, particularly with half finished settings pains, the rubbish windows update, the spyware etc. Went to a IT conference and one presenter had w10 and it wouldn't work on the projectors - went split screen vertical?!

    So despite the promise of getting the latest, always updated etc, as many have mentioned it is simply a recipe for crappy beta code that there is no impetus to fix.

    Also the fact that a year in even vendors like autocad don't recommend it is astonishing!

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    350M is a failure? LOL

    Yes Only 350M, big failure... One third of a billion installations must be collapsing in on itself. (As we watch more and more installations. Win10 systems on Steam are also almost 50% and rising every month)

    "However, so far the OS is only on 350 million monthly active devices, and Redmond says it needs more time to hit ten figures."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 350M is a failure? LOL

      http://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0&qptimeframe=M

      Win 10 = 19.14% = 350,000,000 people

      Win 8.1 = 8.01% = 146,500,000 people

      Win 8 = 2.45% = 44,800,000 people

      Win 7 = 49.05% = 896,900,000 people

      Win XP = 9.78% = 178,800,000 people

      ...so a dead OS can claim half the number of users as MS's latest and shiniest, as can W8 variants; which never really gained traction. W7 blows W10 out of the water with 2½ times the number of users. If you factor in the fact that all the users who don't have W10 installed have resisted a year of outright skulduggery and malware in order to retain those operating systems; and also that MS are about to start charging then, yes, it is a failure.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: 350M is a failure? LOL

      Given the effort that's gone into trying to force it onto every PC in sight I think you have to accept that 350M is indeed a failure.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Enterprise disaster

    Our trial was almost 100% negative. Users disliked it, found it awkward to get around, and tasks that were trivial in Win7 were convoluted and had UI distractions in win10.

    Its very clear the direction windows 10 is going and its not a direction that is compatible with our enterprise, or compatible with our users needs.

    We dont have any pressure from internal to move. We will now move when Microsoft forces us to move (much in the same way home users were at best bribed into moving with a time limited upgrade, or at worst tricked into updating). However its clear we are entering a post PC era, our PC hardware spend is about 20% of what it was 5 years ago.

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reasons for Win 10's mediocre showing

    1) Incessant nagging to upgrade like a horrid wife.

    2) Telemetry and various other spying and data collection antics.

    3) Auto updates: never, ever a good idea.

    4) PCs are now ubiquitous appliances just like a refrigerator or vacuum cleaner. There's no pertinent need to upgrade all the time. Enthusiasts are a very small minority.

    5) The mobile ship has sailed, and Windows is left behind.

    6) Win 7 is the new Win XP, deal with it.

    7) Butchering beloved Windows games such as Minesweeper and Solitaire, putting them on the Microsoft app store.

    8) Microsoft Edge browser - no one cares.

    The old Microsoft is dead, now it's all about the hipster next-gen projects e.g. VR, augmented reality, virtual assistants, chat bots, Azure cloud etc.

    Perhaps SatNad won't be too fussed about the lacklustre Win 10 uptake.

  40. alan pedley

    my windows 7 won't upgrade

    i have upgraded 2 devices, but have a Windows 7 machine that refuses to take the upgrade... so it's one thing to threaten but without support, what's the point?

  41. Belardi16

    Dear Microsoft - die already.

    Wait A MINUTE! Didn't Microsoft say 1 billion installs in 12 months? Then 500m in 12 months?

    Lets see, I have two desktops and two Thinkpads. They all HAD Windows 7. I installed Windows 8 preview on a Thinkpad for a month before replacing it with Linux Mint. Windows 10 fixes some Win8 issues, but the NAGWARE and the spyware and malware they install onto Win7 & 8 computers should be considered CRIMINAL ACTS!

    So, I have NOT taken up the incredible deal of FREE Windows 10, which according to MS, "we're not considering using the subscription model for home users at this time". give it a few years. So yeah, I'm not bothering to BUY any Windows beyond 7. DX12, oh well. I'll have to live with what I have, which will work pretty much fine for todays games... or buy a PS4 or PS5. Forget the MS Xbone.

    WTF?! People can't install updates without causing slow-downs or downright failures. And without the MSmalware, the Win7 updater tends to lock-up, so even getting just the Security patches is difficult unless doing a manual install. Kind of kills the purpose of keeping systems UPTODATE to protect the Windows ecosystem, eh?

    So Microsoft... drop dead. I'm already moving clients to Linux (slowly) some will wait until 2020. Any client that installs Windows 10 onto their computers, I don't offer any support for problems. Don't care to waste my time on that.

    Microsoft has been doing nothing but failure after failure.

    - Windows 8

    - Windows 10 with scamware

    - Office 2013 with its horrible flat UI and crappy pricing (no two-home installs per lic)

    - XboxOne w/ Kinetics

    - Buying out part of Nokia (which Nokia will soon enter the market with Android phones)

    - Windows Phone platform - dead, hell,it makes Blackberry look good.

    - WinRT tablets... and their $1000+ Pro models.

    Really, other than doing taxes and a few programs, why do we really need a $150 OS for from Microsoft? Linux boots up faster, easier to use, and works like an OS should. And NO BLOAT!

    Those who enjoy their W10, more power to you. But the majority will stick with Win7 for now for another few years. MS has lost to Android. Period. How many of our wives and family are using their PHONES as their computers? Remember the OLD days when they bought cheap PCs, had problems with them - calling us for help and never really using them - other than email, browser and FB? Something ANY $100+ phone can do eaisly.

    Microsoft... buh-bye!

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not helped by Win 10 still containing at least one major bug that has prevented me and many others upgrading. Win 10 does not recognise some devices on the Network page. Example being my QNAP NAS. Problem acknowledged by MS and fix in the pipeline, but not expected until after the cut-off for a free upgrade. So Win 7 it is for some years yet.

  43. dougiehouser

    Dickmoves ? You're holding it wrong - Macs don't get viruses - Lisa - Newton - I'll flog you a £899 browser (but it is thin) - I'll try and rig the global book\education market and get caught but apart from that I'll only charge a 60% mark up even though my labor practices at foxconn etc are questionable to say the least. And oh yes all that overpriced kit is produced on production lines and CNC lathes powered by WINDOWS and if it had not been for MS bailing us out in the 90's - we would not even be here .....

  44. Fred T

    Last useful Windows was Windows XP

    I stopped using Windows at version XP when I found that Windows 7 didn't do anything for me that XP couldn't do except to waste my disk space unnecessarily by 20% (by increasing OS space by 700%), and that I could do almost everything in Linux that I did in XP, including gaming.

    I think the rate of Windows 10 adoption will drastically decrease after the free update deadline passes since only new PC buyers will get Windows 10, who are mostly serious gamers nowadays. Many people are happy with existing PCs, new Chromebooks, or Macs.

  45. Kris Sweeney

    Telemetry is not the issue...

    I'm sorry to all who's sole concern is hiding dodgy stuff on their computer, but i'm all for some telemetry, especially if it stops the vendor deleting a feature i use regularly or actually improves the function of the software.

    That said, in it's current incarnation i would never willingly choose Windows 10 over Windows 7 and would sign up for a lobotomy before being forced to use what (for the way i use my computer and what I want out of my computer - purely subjective) is a downgrade.

    Windows 10 in my personal opinion does not provide the functionality i am used to and i require from a personal computing device, it looks bloody awful too.

    I'm sure that at least on one of my points i'm not in the minority.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Telemetry is not the issue...

      "I'm sorry to all who's sole concern is hiding dodgy stuff on their computer"

      Are you saying that using a computer for online banking, buying stuff online, doing commercial-in-confidence work etc is dodgy?

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Telemetry is not the issue...

        Are you saying that using a computer for ... doing commercial-in-confidence work etc is dodgy?

        Well I would be very concerned if I were looking to do any classified (Restricted and above) work on a Win10 system. Whilst MS do have a Common Criteria deployment configuration for Win10, I note the absence of any configuration information on blocking the backdoor to MS, which would seem to imply win10 is not an appropriate platform for these environments...

  46. Agent Tick

    and the CEO...

    .. should be fired immediately for all his "achievements" in destroying the trust of the global customer base - Congratulations!

  47. adam payne

    Oh Microsoft when are you going to learn that some people just don't want your new flashy OS (oh sorry should that be SilverLight).

    All the nagging and underhanded tactics in the world aren't going to make me upgrade.

  48. MyffyW Silver badge

    Lumia 920

    They could have had a Win10 scalp with my venerable 920 if they'd wanted to.

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    uhmmm abuse..(check)

    Most people in this country...USA and other countries don't like to be abused. Most would fight back. MS kept giving right and left hooks and people kept blocking them. MS kept saying you do as I tell you. Most people say NO. Our culture are fighters not submissive. I don't know where does the person that in in charge of MS today think that Americans or UK or other countries like Australia are going to say Oh yes, take my computer, command me to your bidding I will submit! LOL!!!!!!!!

    He is knocking at the wrong cultures at the wrong doors. I can count like 20 People I know that moved to Linux and run windows 7 in a virtual machine for the few programs they need. A few went Apple and never looked back.

    I have already two Linux box and planning to buy my first Apple laptop. A thing that I would never have crossed my mind till windows 10 and Microsoft tactics. I have always had a window in my computer starting with 3.0. Whomever is running MS now should be fired. Give the guy his walking papers MS.

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