Windows 10 [2014 - 2017]

[pharma]

Windows 10: Now on 148M PCs
But signs of a slowdown multiply as deceleration enters third straight month
...

The slowing of Windows 10's uptake, as implied by smaller user share increases each month than the one before, continued in November. The month's user share growth was below both October's 1.3 percentage-point growth and September's 1.4-point climb, as well as August's record 4.8 points.

Windows 10 accounted for 9.9% of all Windows devices in November, a higher number than its raw user share number because Windows powered 91.4%, not 100%, of all systems tallied by Net Applications. During November, Windows 10's share of all Windows devices climbed by more than a point.

Net Applications' user share represented almost 148 million Windows 10 PCs, assuming a total of 1.5 billion Windows devices in use worldwide. Microsoft regularly cites the latter figure.

For its part, Microsoft has not updated an official claim of in-use Windows 10 systems in almost two months, when the company's top OS executive said 110 million machines, 8 million of which were in enterprises, ran the operating system. The lack of an update on the Windows 10 count is puzzling, as it is in Microsoft's interest to bang the promotional drum as often as possible. The firm may be waiting for a more substantial milestone -- say, 200 million -- or may not want to confirm that adoption has decelerated.
...
With holiday sales still to get into high gear -- even though new PCs are expected to struggle again this season -- and Microsoft taking unprecedented steps to push Windows 10, including the controversial decision to automatically serve the Windows 10 upgrade to most consumer and small business Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 devices in early 2016, the new OS has a good chance of staying abreast, even ahead of Windows 7's pace.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3010394/windows-pcs/windows-10-now-on-148m-pcs.html

 

[rcf]

I need to buy a new laptop for a relative. It comes with Win10 Home but my relative wants Win7.
According to Microsoft only Win10 Pro can be downgraded (to Win7/Win8 Pro).
Can I buy a retail Win7 license, format the HDD and install it without invalidating Win10's license/activation in the future (in case my relative want Win10 Home back)?

 

[Albuquerque]

Yes if you buy a retail license, it will not affect your extant Win10 license. In fact, it may even grant you a second license...

 

[Rikimaru]

Just install classic shell and s/he won't see a difference.

 

[rcf]

Yes if you buy a retail license, it will not affect your extant Win10 license. In fact, it may even grant you a second license...

What do you mean by second license? The right to upgrade to Win10 in the future (any deadlines?) and then have two Win10 licenses?
If that's the case I could buy a Dell laptop with Ubuntu (cheaper) and just buy retail Win7 separately.

Just install classic shell and s/he won't see a difference.

That would be the best option, but is Classic Shell stable after tons of Windows Updates or does it have to be reinstalled/reconfigured somehow?
My father knows NOTHING about computers, and if shit can happen, it will.

 

[Rikimaru]

That would be the best option, but is Classic Shell stable after tons of Windows Updates or does it have to be reinstalled/reconfigured somehow?
My father knows NOTHING about computers, and if shit can happen, it will.

Who knows if MS break something.

Shit will happen on any OS with that type of people anyway.

 

[rcf]

Who knows if MS break something.

Shit will happen on any OS with that type of people anyway.

Fair enough, thank you.

 

[Cyan]

My father knows NOTHING about computers, and if shit can happen, it will.

If that's the case it makes no difference to install either Windows 7 or Windows 10 -though I'd recommend the later-. Security rule number one, DON'T create an administrator account, it gives you all the rights over your computer and privileges, but that's a double edge sword that malicious people can use in their favour because they are going to have administrator rights.

So start with an administrator account -with a password he is going to know-, BUT create another account, Standard account this time, which is the user account he is going to use all the time. You'll be grateful. Tell him also to ignore messages on web browsers like "flash needs an update", "your PC is running slow", "check you computer's hard drive", etc etc.

 

[Daozang]

So yesterday I decided to allow windows update to install the latest updates and what not...
MS decided that cpuZ was incompatible with the latest update, and proceeded to uninstall the program without permission.
Your PC boots after the update, and a message pops up informing that software x was uninstalled.

Upon investigating, it seems that they can do it per license agreement...
WTF...
There are reports of ATI catalyst control panel, antivirus and all sorts of software being uninstalled with no approval what so ever from the user.

 

[BRiT]

You already granted implicit approval by telling it to install the latest update.

 

[Infinisearch]

I thought there was no choice in windows 10 i.e. you can't skip updates?

On a different note it's mid january and I still haven't recieved the threshold 2 update should I be worried? The only reason I ask is I do have problems with windows update periodically. If so is there a MS forum I should ask about it on?

 

[Daozang]

You already granted implicit approval by telling it to install the latest update.

Yeah, that seems to be the case...
Do you think we will see a point in time where only MS approved apps can run on windows?

 

[Arwin]

Even now you can tell Windows to accept untrusted drivers and such. So personally I don't feel much has changed.

 

[rcf]

On a different note it's mid january and I still haven't recieved the threshold 2 update should I be worried? The only reason I ask is I do have problems with windows update periodically. If so is there a MS forum I should ask about it on?

You can use the Media Creation Tool to make a Win10 ISO image or USB stick. AFAIK it already downloads Win10 TH2 by default (at least it did for me).

 

[Infinisearch]

You can use the Media Creation Tool to make a Win10 ISO image or USB stick. AFAIK it already downloads Win10 TH2 by default (at least it did for me).

According to some websites http://www.windowscentral.com/windo...ool-no-longer-has-build-10586-november-update it stopped having threshold2 a while ago. Don't know if that has changed again since. May I ask when you used the media creation tool to make the install set?

 

[Cyan]

According to some websites http://www.windowscentral.com/windo...ool-no-longer-has-build-10586-november-update it stopped having threshold2 a while ago. Don't know if that has changed again since. May I ask when you used the media creation tool to make the install set?

Unconsciously I managed to make a ISO back in November and it was that update in particular, and now I am glad I did!! It fixed a flaw for me related to a driver that wasn't updated or whatever and the computer never failed ever since. And I never removed it from the pendrive where I installed it.

That build proved very useful to install into other people's PCs, too, my brother's computer, and my sister's boyfriend, plus other people that asked me for it.

 

[Rikimaru]

You can download TH2 isos here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/techbench

 

[rcf]

According to some websites http://www.windowscentral.com/windo...ool-no-longer-has-build-10586-november-update it stopped having threshold2 a while ago. Don't know if that has changed again since. May I ask when you used the media creation tool to make the install set?

I did it 3 or 4 days ago, as I recently got a new Win10 Home laptop for my father.
I saw the news that MS had pulled TH2 from Media Tool, but then I saw that it was back (link), so I decided to try. It produced a Win10 TH2 (1511) ISO image that was smaller than expected since it had an "install.esd" file instead of "install.wim" file in the sources directory (esd files supposedly have better compression than wim). I had to pick the "Single Language" edition as that's what came preinstalled on the laptop (it won't activate otherwise), but people upgrading from Win7/8 should pick the ordinary Win10 Home/Pro edition.

 

[Infinisearch]

I did it 3 or 4 days ago, as I recently got a new Win10 Home laptop for my father.
I saw the news that MS had pulled TH2 from Media Tool, but then I saw that it was back (link), so I decided to try.

Yeah I found out a little earlier. If you go to properties on the media creation tool exe and go to details it tells you what version it will download. The only question I have now is since I already have win10 installed will I get an option to keep all my applications and data?

 

[rcf]

I don't know about that. I did a clean reinstall.