Microsoft: More than 14 million Windows 10 devices after day 1

Martin Brinkmann
Jul 31, 2015
Updated • Aug 29, 2019
Windows, Windows 10
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35

More than 14 million devices are running Windows 10 after launch day according to a recent blog post on the official Blogging Windows blog.

As we’ve shared, our top priority has been ensuring that everyone has a great upgrade experience, so, we are carefully rolling out Windows 10 in phases, delivering Windows 10 first to our Windows Insiders. While we now have more than 14 million devices running Windows 10, we still have many more upgrades to go before we catch up to each of you that reserved your upgrade

Microsoft did not reveal if it included Windows Insider systems in that figure but since it simply stated "are running Windows 10", it is likely that these systems are included.

It was clear almost immediately that Windows 10 would be of to a good start when Microsoft announced the free upgrade offer for Windows 7 and Windows 8 products.

How do the 14 million devices compare to previous launches? While we don't have any figures for day 1 installations of Windows 7 or Windows 8, Microsoft did reveal information in the past that help drawing a comparison.

Windows 8, the predecessor of Windows 10, sold 100 million licenses in the first 6 months and 200 million licenses in the first 15 months after the operating system's launch.

Windows 7, arguably one of the most successful Microsoft operating systems of all time, sold 100 million licenses in the first 6 months after launch.

In case you are wondering, Microsoft sold 20 million Vista licenses during the first month after release.

Microsoft is pushing Windows 10 in the market, and while you could simply compare figures between operating systems, it is not entirely fair to do so.

First and foremost, the previous figures are all for licenses sold while Microsoft's Windows 10 revelation are for devices running the operating system.

Second, Windows 10 is provided as a free offer to many existing Windows users, and Microsoft went to great length to promote this fact on those computer systems.

The availability of retail Windows 10 devices is limited at this point in time which suggests that the majority of devices running the operating system have accepted Microsoft's offer.

The company notes however that the delivery via Windows Update is not complete yet and that "many more upgrades" need to be processed before it completes as Windows 10 is rolled out in phases.

Outlook

It is likely that Windows 10 will be the fastest growing Windows operating system of all time thanks to Microsoft's free offer and its promotion.

Now You: Did you upgrade a device to Windows 10?

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Microsoft: More than 14 million Windows 10 devices after day 1
Description
Microsoft revealed that more than 14 million devices are running the company's newest operating system Windows 10 after day 1.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. ilev said on August 2, 2015 at 5:54 am
    Reply

    To get to these millions of users Microsoft is stealing your bandwidth, converting your PCs to Torrent seedboxes.

    http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2015/07/30/windows-10-steals-your-bandwidth-to-send-other-people-updates/

    1. seeprime said on August 2, 2015 at 2:59 pm
      Reply

      The default Windows Update file sharing setting was a big mistake on Microsoft’s part. Here’s how to undo it:

      1. Open All Settings
      2. Click on Update and security
      3. In the left column click on Windows Update
      4. On the right side click on the text link Advanced Options
      5. Around the middle of the window, click on the text link Choose how updates are delivered.
      6. Click on PC’s on my local network. This disables send updates from your PC to random users on the Internet.
      7. Close the Window. Check the setting monthly to make sure an update didn’t change it back, until you have confidence that your setting sticks.

  2. batman said on August 1, 2015 at 8:55 pm
    Reply

    why on earth would you upgrade? and I don’t mean, “why would you get win 10”, i’m saying, upgrade.
    Surely you want to do a fresh install?

    1. marc klink said on August 3, 2015 at 3:57 am
      Reply

      In order to activate, you MUST first upgrade. Then after getting a key, it is possible to clean install. [Not that I would bother of any of it, after being an Insider since February]

  3. Ray said on August 1, 2015 at 11:25 am
    Reply

    I have been trying to upgrade to Windows 10 since yesterday. I keep getting errors 80070003 and 80070002. Has anyone experienced the same issue? I have already downloaded it 5 -6 times on my laptop with all the errors happening at the end of the download.

  4. Robert Newman said on July 31, 2015 at 11:32 pm
    Reply

    Upgraded my Surface 3 to Windows 10. Went to eat supper and left a fan blowing on the unit. When I got back it was finished and was working very well indeed. The new Mail app kept crashing, but a system update a few hours later fixed that . I am impressed.

  5. VD said on July 31, 2015 at 10:59 pm
    Reply

    Well still running Win 7 and probably will till support runs out.
    Still 5 years to go though.

    Win 10 privacy issues are a nightmare.
    Apart from that theres the problem with not bring able to disable auto updates (apart from Enterprise Edition if I read correctly).

    Until The first service pack gets out – it’s still a beta OS if you ask me :-)

    1. George Melendez said on August 1, 2015 at 3:21 pm
      Reply

      I was very impatient and wanted to get the Wins 10 upgrade just to see how it performs but after reading all the problems and issues I think I’ll just do as you suggested and stick with my “faithful” Wins7-64 OS. We still have over 5 years of support and I really like how Win7 performs so I think I will wait as well and see when will Microsoft have figured out all the bugs in Wins10. It’s like you say…”Windows 10 is still a Beta OS” …..

      1. hirobo2 said on August 2, 2015 at 12:38 am
        Reply

        I wager Enterprise will be sticking with Win7 as well until 2020 for the next OS after Win10. Seems to me every even numbered Microsoft OS is a bad one, and from what I’ve been reading, Win10 isn’t likely to break this trend!

    2. hirobo2 said on July 31, 2015 at 11:19 pm
      Reply

      There won’t be a service pack. Win10 is one continuously living beta OS.

      (J/K. There’ll be that Redstone update coming and that might be the closest to a service pack Win10 will get!)

  6. Bill said on July 31, 2015 at 10:23 pm
    Reply

    Been trying to update my Dell laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate and all I get are errors after errors. Nine (9) attempts getting error codes 80240020 (5 times), C1900101 (3 times), C1900208 (1 time). Also got the following error “System_Thread_Exception_Not_Handled”. Maybe it’s best to wait a year for MS to get it right.

  7. hirobo2 said on July 31, 2015 at 8:27 pm
    Reply

    Leftward skewed. I believe the majority ppl who wanted to downgrade already did so. There are those still sitting on the sidelines waiting for things to be patched up, but I’d wager they’re like 33% of the downgraders.

    And this don’t count the ppl who are waiting for the clean install to activate. They originally did the activation and that counted towards the stats.

    The real question really is, how many of those downgraders will want to upgrade again in due time…

    When you factor in insiders, 10 million or so don’t seem like a lot for an advertising campaign that had been in the making for 6 months or more and RESERVED 1 month in advance. Vista sold 20 million copies in the first month. Win10 had been available for almost a month in reservation format…

    1. DVD Rambo said on July 31, 2015 at 11:07 pm
      Reply

      That figure of 14 million was installs done on day 1. The comparison to Vista first month sales of 20 million is apples to oranges. I see your point though.

      1. hirobo2 said on August 3, 2015 at 7:12 pm
        Reply

        I thought I smell something fishy when there are 67 million Win10 activations by day 3. The official number is actually 18.5 million. Whoa, big deal! Subtract 5 million insiders and that number ain’t very impressive for 3 days post a 30 day reservation scheme!

      2. hirobo2 said on August 1, 2015 at 10:27 pm
        Reply

        That’s not really the issue. I’ll wager 75% of those billions of PC users who wanted to upgrade will have done so by day 7. I’m guessing maybe 90 million upgrades by day 7, then after that it’s OEM hardware sales bundled with Win10 and the occasional sideliner who waited for things to get patched up.

        My bet is Win10 will flop, but not as bad as Win8.x b/c Win8.x was never free to those billions of XP and Win7 users. I’m only saying this b/c I’m seeing left and right ppl reverting back to Win7/8.1 after Win10 failed to impress them.

      3. DVD Rambo said on August 1, 2015 at 6:24 am
        Reply

        On July 31 there were 67 million Windows 10 installs. Day three. That’s according to Windows Central. http://www.windowscentral.com/report-windows-10-now-installed-67-million-pcs

        I’m speculating that many people are using the Media Creation Tool that Martin discussed on a 31 July post.

      4. hirobo2 said on July 31, 2015 at 11:16 pm
        Reply

        I’m guessing by day 3, all those reservations would have been filled. So approx 30 million for 1 month’s worth of reservations vs Vista’s 20 million for the first month of sales. Hmm. For sure, Win10 will have greater market penetration than Vista b/c it’s got that “one core multiple device format” thing. But other than that, I can’t see how much of a success Win10 will be when it’s only beating Vista by 50% or so for the first month…

  8. Corky said on July 31, 2015 at 8:25 pm
    Reply

    To think that 14 Million people have been so caught up in getting something for “free” that they didn’t even notice their house keys have gone missing, that 14 Million people were in such a rush to get something for “free” that they didn’t even read the contract as they signed on the dotted line.

    I’ve got a “free” television if anyone is interested, all you have to do is sign this here contract,

  9. Pierre said on July 31, 2015 at 4:48 pm
    Reply

    Very fast and without any pb : 4 yours old Asus X73S in W7
    Bitdefender migration very good too (wait 5 hours but good migration)

  10. Tom Hawack said on July 31, 2015 at 1:47 pm
    Reply

    Great if as many users as possible have successfully upgraded to Windows 10, should it be with the forceps.

    Here I remain with Windows 7, try to read, discover as much as possible all Windows 7 related, be it the upgrade process but after that and from there on, after the first days of natural excitement like on Christmas when you open what Santa brought you… comes the toys themselves, how do they get along with my life, my interests. Am I going to leave the brand new bicycle to return to the old one?

    I’ll wait and see how you guys get along with SantaSoft’s presents :)

    1. ams said on July 31, 2015 at 4:40 pm
      Reply

      I too am sticking with win7Pro, and various linux distros (and winXP, on certain older non-networked PCs). Mine is not a “wait and see” attitude though; I don’t expect to ever install win10.

      Beyond just the cumulative number of win10 installs, it will be more interesting for me to see stats indicating “upgraded from _xyz_ to win10”.

      1. marc klink said on August 3, 2015 at 3:54 am
        Reply

        I seriously doubt we will ever see any believable stats, because I am of the opinion that many more than those bothering to write about it are removing Windows Last update, within hours of install.

        Those of us able to think clearly KNOW that Microsoft will never report net numbers, but instead gross downloads.

  11. Yuliya said on July 31, 2015 at 1:41 pm
    Reply

    No, I will not downgrade to Windows X (: It will not make my computer open e-mails faster or make me read them faster, it will not open the VK page faster, VLC wil not run movies better, or really, different in any way, so I see no reason to move away from something that works perfectly, that is Windows 7 to something that looks quite unfinished.

    Not to mention the blogpost about privacy, gives me a headache only thinking about it..

    1. DVD Rambo said on July 31, 2015 at 11:05 pm
      Reply

      I also see no reason to move a functioning Windows 7 PC to Windows 10. We have six PC’s in our small home business. Three run 7 and will stay that way 2 of the other 3 are already on Windows 10. I turned off giving data to MS including WiFi Sense and set Windows Updates to only share updates on the local network. It’s incredible that MS set the Windows update default to sharing on local network and the Internet. Turning Windows 10’s into a peer-to-peer file sharing network by default may have sounded good to some people at Microsoft. I think it steals bandwidth from users.

      1. marc klink said on August 3, 2015 at 3:52 am
        Reply

        There are still things being sent to M$. Several articles are there concerning this, and most agree that there is no way to remove them all. One very specific point of concern is that Edge is, once again, unable to be stripped from the OS, as, once again, M$ has made it inseparable. As someone above said, Microsoft now has the largest botnet ever known.

  12. smaragdus said on July 31, 2015 at 11:41 am
    Reply

    In short- now Microsoft owns the biggest botnet ever.

  13. Sojiro84 said on July 31, 2015 at 11:27 am
    Reply

    Yup, upgraded my desktop and laptop to 10. I loved 7 but I am really exited about Windows 10. It’s a great OS and cant wait to see what the future holds.

    Also loving the Edge browser. Low memory and very fast. Now we just need extensions. Microsoft made a great OS with 10.

    1. an said on July 31, 2015 at 12:32 pm
      Reply
      1. Jeff said on July 31, 2015 at 4:28 pm
        Reply

        Exactly.

        Nothing is free. If the product (Google, Facebook, Win 10, etc) is free, it is very likely that YOU are the product.

  14. Nebulus said on July 31, 2015 at 10:29 am
    Reply

    It appears that Microsoft’s support campaign for Windows 10 paid off. Good for them!

    As for me, I don’t see myself switching to Win10 anytime soon.

  15. C J Earner said on July 31, 2015 at 10:18 am
    Reply

    I upgraded an older Asus K53E laptop from 8.1 to 10. It was a very painful and lengthy process in my case.

    The current version of Comodo Firewall is NOT compatible with Win 10. It caused my system to slow down drastically at unpredictable times.

    If you’re using it either uninstall it temporarily or wait for Comodo’s next release to upgrade.

    1. Guest said on July 31, 2015 at 8:50 pm
      Reply

      Why would you use any Comodo product? Comodo is garbage.

      If you need a good Firewall (HIPS, actually), then use Online Armor, not Comodo Firewall.

      1. marc klink said on August 3, 2015 at 3:47 am
        Reply

        They’re both terrific, but not the same by a long shot. They require different things to be activated. Comodo is generally better if you have little to no experience with firewalls.

      2. C J Earner said on July 31, 2015 at 10:10 pm
        Reply

        Comodo firewall is free and lets me specify which MAC address that a given program can access. This lets me make sure that certain applications can only access the internet via my VPN.. Windows firewall can’t do that.

        Online Armor, on the other hand, is being discontinued, http://blog.emsisoft.com/2015/03/31/emsisoft-online-armor-support-roadmap

        The replacement security suite isn’t free and I already have another Anti-virus (also free). That’s important to me as I have 4 active PC’s and would rather not shell out 200 bucks.

        Thanks for your opinion, though.

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