Windows 10 Device Usage: Creators Update Deployment Still Lags

Windows 10 Device Usage: Creators Update Deployment Still Lags

Despite being “fully available” to all customers, the Windows 10 Creators Update still lags behind its predecessor when it comes to real world usage. That’s according to the latest data from AdDuplex.

As you may recall, AdDuplex is the largest cross-promotion network for Windows apps. The company empowers developers and publishers to promote their apps for free by helping each other. And each month it provides a glimpse at which Windows devices people are actually using.

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Here’s what we see this month.

Creators Update hits 66 percent of all Windows 10 PCs in use. Usage in the Creators Update has surged again in August, jumping from 50 percent usage a month ago to 65.6 percent.

But Creators Update usage still lags well behind the Anniversary Update. Microsoft announced in July 27 that it had made the Creators Update “fully available” to all customers. So it’s reasonable to assume that usage in this version would skyrocket. But despite this, usage in the Creators Update still lags well behind that of its predecessor at the same point in time post-release. A year ago, usage in the Anniversary Update had sailed past 75 percent at this point.

Windows Insiders barely register in the wider user base. Despite Microsoft claims of tens of millions of testers, Windows 10 PC running a Windows Insider build of the OS account for only .7 percent of all Windows 10 PCs. If you assume that Microsoft’s 500 million figure is still correct, that means that only 3.5 million PCs are actually running Insider builds. That’s less than half the number of Insiders.

Surface usage of the Creators Update did skyrocket, however. As you may recall, last month Surface Pro 3 was a weird outlier when it came to Creators Update usage, at less than 20 percent. This month, that changed nicely, and over 60 percent of Surface Pro 3s are now running the latest release. But it’s still the lowest among Surface models, including even Surface 3. About 80 percent of Surface Books are on the Creators Update, for example.

Surface Pro 4 continues to be Microsoft’s most-used device. Surface Pro 4 accounts for 43.6 percent of all Surface devices in use, but here’s the amazing bit: That’s actually a small increase of 1.4 percent over last month. Meanwhile, Surface Pro 3 (22.2 percent), Surface 3 (12.2 percent), and Surface Book (7 percent) round out the top five. Surface Laptop more than doubled its usage share to 1.4 percent, but that is much smaller than I expected. And the new Surface Pro now sits at 3.7 percent, well ahead of Surface Laptop (which is also unexpected). Surface Studio? O.0 percent. 🙂

HP is number one again overall. HP comes in at 24.9 percent usage, compared to 15.7 percent for Dell, 12.4 percent for Lenovo, 9.1 percent for ASUS, and 8.7 percent for Acer. Microsoft, meanwhile, manages just 2.6 percent usage, and arrives at 7th place, behind Toshiba. These numbers have not changed much in a few months, which is interesting.

 

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  • Martin Pelletier

    Premium Member
    24 August, 2017 - 10:24 am

    <p>Well… And the fall creator update is around the corner too. Maybe people are waiting for the fall creator instead?</p>

  • PcGuy8088

    24 August, 2017 - 10:46 am

    <p>I have a 14 month old Dell Opteron here and its waiting for MS to push Creator's Update down to it. I know I can get CU myself but I am in no hurry to get it since there is nothing earth shattering in it that I really need. What is strange is that an older laptop that originally came with Windows7 and is a dual boot to Windows10 got Creator's Update last month or so. Oh well its Microsoft.</p>

  • SvenJ

    24 August, 2017 - 11:11 am

    <p>I'm not even sure how this happens. I have machines I have actively sought the updates, but on those I have not, it comes down via update, and prompts to re-boot. Not much you can do to prevent that forever. It would seem MS, while saying it is fully available, is not pushing it out. There are certainly those who don't obsessively or even periodically, click check for updates, but that isn't a requirement to get them. If the penetration isn't higher, it would seem to be MS's own fault.</p><p>Only other option would seem to be these PCs aren't on the internet, at which point AdDuplex wouldn't know about them.</p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    24 August, 2017 - 11:18 am

    <p>The problem is, it only registers app usage. </p><p>We have rolled out over 30 PCs with Creators Update (either new PCs or upgrades from Windows 7). But none of the users has a Microsoft account registered on the PC and none of them use any apps…</p>

    • robincapper

      24 August, 2017 - 7:19 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#168436"><em>In reply to wright_is:</em></a></blockquote><p>Good point, the whole article is reading too much into a flawed measure </p>

    • hrlngrv

      Premium Member
      24 August, 2017 - 9:07 pm

      <p><a href="#168436"><em>In reply to wright_is:</em></a></p><p>Curious whether MSFT's bundled apps contribute to AdDuplex figures. I'd kinda suspect not, so those people using only bundled non-game apps like Weather, News, Mail, Calendar, Alarms &amp; Clocks, and a few others may not contribute at all to AdDuplex data.</p><p>This is the problem with sampling. If the sample population isn't representative of the overall population, sample statistics may not describe the overall population. I figure AdDuplex is severely skewed, so not really useful for inferring much about Windows 10 usage overall.</p>

  • Darmok N Jalad

    24 August, 2017 - 11:33 am

    <p>I am curious what "fully available" means, as our lone W10 machine is still waiting. It did some song and dance a few weeks ago saying it was getting the PC ready for CU and said it would let us know when it was ready, but it still hasn't arrived. There's no rush as far as we're concerned. </p>

  • warren

    24 August, 2017 - 12:39 pm

    <p>So we're talking about 66% vs 75%. Doesn't seem like a big deal to me given the slower pace at which Creators Update was made widely available.</p><p><br></p><p>As for why we're seeing lower numbers in the Insider Preview program, this could very easily be because a lot of us experiment with those builds "on the side" in a virtual machine, and probably don't touch the points where AdDuplex's counting statistics could see them as often. Microsoft's own advice is to not rely on Insider Preview builds as a daily driver, after all. </p><p><br></p><p>I think the more positive way of looking at this is to say that 97% of all Windows 10 users are using the current or "one previous" release. This is good news if you're a QA doing Edge compatibility tests.</p>

  • warren

    24 August, 2017 - 12:45 pm

    <p> Some iOS uptake stats for comparison:</p><p><br></p><p>iOS 10 was released September 2016. In February 2017, it had 79% usage across all iOS devices.</p><p>Now, almost a full year after iOS 10 was released, it's installed on 62% of iPads; 30% are still on iOS 9. The iPhone + iOS 10 numbers are much stronger (over 90%).</p><p><br></p><p>Maybe this is just a case of people generally being more conservative with upgrading their "big" devices than their "little" ones.</p>

  • CaedenV

    24 August, 2017 - 4:09 pm

    <p>I am somewhat convinced there is something broken with their update system. At work I have ~30 win10 laptops (some domain, and some not) and it is completely random which laptops get the update, and which don't yet. Every model has at least 1 device with the update, but most of them are simply not seeing it as being available. It is baffling to me. All devices are HP or ASUS of various models.</p>

  • Waethorn

    24 August, 2017 - 5:02 pm

    <p>I still see lots of customers without it. The real fail is that they're getting automatic updates successfully, as evidenced by their Windows Update log, but it takes me actually clicking on the button "Check for updates" for it to be offered.</p>

    • hrlngrv

      Premium Member
      24 August, 2017 - 9:11 pm

      <p><a href="#168540"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></p><p>Curios: what % of your customers/clients have their internet connection set to Metered?</p>

      • Waethorn

        25 August, 2017 - 10:27 am

        <blockquote><a href="#168584"><em>In reply to hrlngrv:</em></a></blockquote><p>None. Nobody knows to turn it on, even though I do have some customers on cellular connections out of town.</p>

  • Waethorn

    24 August, 2017 - 5:07 pm

    <p> "<strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Windows Insiders barely register in the wider user base."</strong></p><p><br></p><p><strong>*grumble, grumble* stable builds as buggy as beta's *snort*</strong></p>

  • Waethorn

    24 August, 2017 - 7:06 pm

    <p>Meanwhile in Chromebook land, almost every Chromebook is on version 60, and the ones still on version 59 are already in the channel for Play Store runtimes and will get their version 60 in the next week or so.</p><p><br></p><p>Google keeps the Chrome update trains running on time…like some famous historical figure….</p><p><br></p><p>Who was that again?</p>

    • hrlngrv

      Premium Member
      24 August, 2017 - 9:10 pm

      <p><a href="#168562"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></p><p>Wasn't there a Rocky &amp; Bullwinkle arc where the latter played Mooselini?</p>

    • skane2600

      25 August, 2017 - 7:26 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#168562"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></blockquote><p>You can't expect the update process for Windows being as simple as it is for a Chromebook. The more limited native capability, the lower diversity of devices, and the much, much smaller installed based make the update process much simpler. As unexciting as one might find recent Windows updates to be they have been more feature-rich than Chromebook updates, I'd bet. Adding Android support might make Chromebooks update process a little more complicated in the future but we'll have to see.</p>

  • Boo

    Premium Member
    24 August, 2017 - 8:54 pm

    <p>About&nbsp;1/3rd of our PC's at work haven't received the update? We're based in Australia. </p>

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    24 August, 2017 - 8:59 pm

    <p>Re Insider, I use it in a VM and not all day, every day, but maybe 20 hours/week total. I figure I'm not unique in this respect. That'd depress usage figures.</p>

  • fbman

    25 August, 2017 - 12:56 am

    <p><em>"Windows Insider build of the OS account for only .7 percent of all Windows 10 PCs. If you assume that Microsoft’s 500 million figure is still correct, that means that only 3.5 million PCs are actually running Insider builds."</em></p><p><br></p><p>I am an insider and I run my insider builds in a virtual machine, I dont surf generally on that machine. I am sure a large number of the insiders will run their insider installations inside a virtual machine.</p><p><br></p><p>My main machine (production) will always have public version of Windows 10. So this system will my detect machine as Creator update not as a Fall Creators update.</p>

  • Jules Wombat

    25 August, 2017 - 8:22 am

    <p>You would think that with all their W10 Telementary and feedback Microsoft could have soon worked out that CU is not actually being offered to many/ most users machines. Hey Ho, nobody really cares. </p>

  • mortarm

    25 August, 2017 - 10:49 am

    <p>&gt;…<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Surface Studio? O.0 percent.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Oh.zero?</span></p>

  • skane2600

    25 August, 2017 - 6:52 pm

    <p>I was prompted to update my PC multiple times and each time the update failed at 90%. Rebooting recovered the Anniversary version and then a few days later another prompt to update. I'm not the only one although the percentage varies. </p>

  • Angusmatheson

    26 August, 2017 - 10:53 am

    <p>I have 3 1 maybe 1/2 year old powerful hp towers. None of them have creators update. I have 1/2 dozen odd upgraded windows 10 computers and none of them have creators update. I haven't forced the upgrade, but I thought it would happen by now….before the new upgrade is released at least.</p>

  • Win74ever

    26 August, 2017 - 2:35 pm

    <p>Of course it's a fail. There's nothing about "creators" in this update.</p>

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