The average user might not have noticed when Microsoft pushed the Windows 10 installation files to tens of millions of hard drives via Windows Update, without the knowledge or permission of the owners of those hard drives I might add. That little trick may have boosted the take up of Windows 10 by many who might not have otherwise been so quick to switch from their current version of Windows. (Windows 10 Being Downloaded to PCs Whether You Want it or Not).
But, then we caught on. Once word go out about what Microsoft was doing and how they were doing it, various methods of prevention were offered to prevent “Windows 10 creep”. That’s the slow and devious process of having Win 10 quietly creep into your computer environment bit by bit until, one day, there is no sign of your previous OS anywhere to be seen, and Microsoft’s new plan to rule the computing world for another half-century, or longer, has taken you firmly by the nads.
According to NetMarketShare, a site which provides website traffic analysis for thousands of websites, the month of November 2015 showed nine percent of monitored traffic using the Windows 10 OS – that is up only a little over 1 percent from the previous month. Traffic from Win 7 computers during November was at 56 percent, Windows 8 and 8.1 were a collective 14 percent, and Windows XP was still holding on at over 10 percent. So, there are still more people using the venerable Windows XP today than the shiny new, and FREE, Windows 10 OS.
These numbers along with similar numbers from other companies indicate that the uptake of Windows 10 is slowing rather than increasing. It’s not unusual for large companies with hundreds of computers to put off updating to a newer version of Windows for long periods in the hope that all major bugs will be worked out before they undertake such a large task.
There has also been much conversation about Microsoft’s implementation of various forms of telemetry to collect data on the use and users of Windows 10. Maybe not the best of choices when the extent of NSA and government snooping is still smoldering in our collective consciousness.
This slowdown in the uptake of Windows 10 must have been disappointing news to Microsoft who recently released a major operating system update to general users, rather than test machines only. The hope would have been that the update might give holdouts in the business world the go ahead with updating their army of computers.
So far, the numbers I’ve been discussing are global numbers, reflecting worldwide use. In the United States, government statistics indicate that the American population, perhaps more apathetic to privacy concerns than other nations, are adopting Windows 10 at a rate 24% higher than other countries. The sampling was collated by the Digital Analytics Program and is considered rather small. DAP collects data from only 4,000 websites hosted on over 400 different domains maintained by U.S. government agencies. That would include sites such as NOAA, the National Weather Service, Social Security Administration, the Federal Communications Commission, Consumer Protection Agency and the I.R.S.
U.S. government statistics are generally similar to what other firms have shown… that the growth of Windows 10 is largest is the U.S. Statistics also show that the majority of growth in Windows 10 is coming from former Windows 7 users. In fact, more Win 7 users have made the switch than have Window 8/8.1 users. Who would have guessed that!? Many authorities on the subject expected Win 8/8.1 users to the be most eager to update.
I completely avoided Windows 8/8.1, as I did Windows Vista. Both are considered Microsoft’s biggest OS flops. Nor have I updated to Windows 10. I just haven’t seen a compelling reason, yet, to go through the laborious process of dealing with incompatible programs, driver updates, hardware updates, etc. When I make the change, I will most likely be starting fresh, not updating my current Windows 7.
So, what are you waiting for? Have you made the switch? Will you be updating to Windows 10 anytime soon? Or, will you be more like those who are still hanging on to their tried and true Windows XP after all these years?
I plan on keeping Windows 7 until I need — I repeat, need — to get a new PC. By then I hope Microsoft will have come out with Windows 11 or whatever it is called at that time and will be what — to paraphrase what Steve Ballmer said about Windows 7 vis a vis Vista– Windows 10 should have been.
To be honest I have been encouraged to move from 8.xx. I’ve seen enough comments to keep me from moving to 10.xx.
Not being a tech guru I am very Leary of problems I might encounter and then having to have someone come fix them.
Bob
This is where in my comment I said the PC I bought came with Win 10 installed.I am quite satisfied and again the Win 10 was not a move from Win 7 or 8 to Win 10 So I can’t really comment from that angle.I’m quite sure there is a difference.
Very nice article Daniel, you seemed to have lit a fire under both the lovers and haters and that is the best a writer can do, bravo on your first article.
Being a techie, I had no qualms trying Windows 10 and perhaps using it as an insider for a year before its release has made me familiar enough with it so that it is my favorite. But then again, so was Win 98, then XP and 7 at one point or another, If at all possible for users, I would recommend installing Windows 10 as a dual boot and not have it be your only system until you become familiar. I say this because it will no longer be free after a year and once you are past the learning curve, you will be able to experience the better security, better browser and faster speed 10 offers. Yes there are omissions but I think free third party add-on’s will fill those gaps.
Jim
In response to Jim’s suggestion that downloading Windows 10 as a dual boot is the best option. Could someone please provide some information as to how you can do this? Would it come up as an option at the point of download or would I need to take some other steps so that I can choose the operating system I want to run at start up?
Daniel to Daniel… :-0
You can run Windows 10 in a Virtual Machine on Windows 7 or 8. The VM software would run on your current system and create a “virtual” computer in which to run Windows 10. Windows 10 would run as if it were in a sandbox. Just do a search for virtual machine software.
Someone else might chime in with more specific recommendations.
Daniel, what I did was take my windows 7 hard drive off line and reinstalled into a new drive, on the new drive I then activated the win 7 and downloaded windows 10 until I was running a full windows 10 OS. Then I reinstalled the old drive and when I booted up the windows screen asked if I wanted to run windows 10 or windows 7. You could also take 7 offline and us and iso to install directly with your key. Then put 7 on line and have both systems.
For a while I actually had 3 versions of windows 10 and two version of windows 7, as well as one XP. my startup screen always defaults to the last loaded but gives me ten seconds to choose another if I wish The reason I had more than one win 10 was one was strictly a upgrade, one was always on the latest build and the other lagged behind one or two builds so I could experiment.
Jim, great strategy! Thanks for sharing your method with me and the readers of DCT.
I went to Win 10 from Win 8.1 with “Classic Shell” on a HP Envy. At first everything ran OK ,no better or worse than Win 8.1 with Classic Shell. After he big several hours long Win 10 update, things have started going “sideways” now video card crashes frequently, the sound volume and quality is poor, the cursor frequently disappears, and the scroll on the mouse pad has to be reset after every shut down / restart. Today I downloaded Classic Shell for Win 10, I am going to see if this helps anything. (I uninstalled Classic Shell for Win 8 before going to Win 10) If I had a choice, I would go back to Win 8 with Classic Shell!
I had forgotten, but the fingerprint sign on now works only about 50% of the time. I don’t know what happened with the last 2 hour long update, but if things don’t get better nd I can not figure out the solutions to these problems, I may have to go to one of the versions of Linux, I run Ubuntu on a couple of old laptops.
2 hour long Win 10 update? When? None of my updates have lasted more than a few minutes. You might want to try system restore.