In September, Windows 10 market share actually dipped for the first time since its launch in 2015. Two separate sources validate this, but we still need to take it with a pinch of salt because the methodologies used to arrive at these conclusions are educated guesses at best.
However, the pattern is clear: Windows 10 isn’t doing as well as Microsoft hoped it would. Why else would they be pushing enterprise companies to adopt it by providing a free pre-Windows 10 upgrade analytics tool? Why else would they still be offering it free through the back door while selling the Home and Pro versions on the Microsoft Store online?
The two sources that claim the market share dip for Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system are StatCounter and Net Applications. According to the latter, Win 10’s market share dipped by half a percentage point during September to finally show that 22.5% of all PCs now have Windows 10 installed. StatCounter showed a dip as well, a very minor one at one hundredth of a percentage point; however, they show that 24.4% of PCs are on Windows 10.
Despite the variance in the two reports, the signs are definitely there – Windows 10 adoption isn’t at the level the company would want.
Why Windows 10 Adoption is Critical to Microsoft’s Future
The problem here is that a lot of Microsoft’s initiatives like the Universal Windows Platform, new Surface devices and so on all depend on Windows 10 adoption on a mass scale. While it’s encouraging that 91% of all PCs still run on Windows operating systems, the bulk of them (about 45%+) seem to still be on Windows 7.
Unless Microsoft can push Windows 10 adoption even higher in the consumer as well as commercial segments, they’re not going to be able to effectively roll out the rest of the ecosystem designed around Windows 10.
Free Windows 10 Upgrade Still Available
The free upgrade to Windows 10 is still open, by the way. People who use assistive technologies can still download the free Windows 10 upgrade from Microsoft’s site. In addition, those who have the original product key for their Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 might still be able to use that to download and activate Windows 10.
Issues with latest Windows 10 Anniversary Update
The worst problem, however, is that even those who have already taken the free or paid upgrade and then got the Windows 10 Anniversary Update and subsequent updates seem to be having installation and other problems when downloading the updates.
We covered issues with the cumulative update KB3194496 in an article earlier this week, but Microsoft says they’re actively working on a fix to be released soon. It will be a simple clean-up script that will stop certain machines from going into the endless reboot loop.
So far, Windows 10 hasn’t been the smoothest operating system from Microsoft, but it’s certainly not the worst. The majority of users, including myself, haven’t had a single problem since the Windows 10 upgrade.
As such, despite its lead position in the desktop operating system market for several decades now, this is not the worst piece of software to come out of Microsoft’s dev team. Unfortunately, it’s not the best either in terms of user experience, and that’s what Microsoft was going with the Windows 10.
See Category/Microsoft for more articles on Microsoft, Windows 10, Surface products and more.
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