The life and death of Windows 10: Was it a success?

CRN spoke to four experts to get their take on the impact of Windows 10 and the move to Windows 11

Before Windows 10 was even launched back in 2015, Microsoft employee and developer evangelist Jerry Nixon told the company's Ignite conference that it would be the "last version of Windows".

But six years later, the tech giant has set a date for when Windows 10 will no longer be supported, 14 October 2025, and has unveiled its new OS, Windows 11, which CEO Satya Nadella claims is "the first version of a new era of Windows".

It came as a shock to many. Microsoft had been going down the route of smaller, more regular updates but is now set to embark on a complete upgrade, with Windows 11 reportedly set to become generally available later this year.

Windows 10 will still be supported for some time yet, but with the Windows 11 rollout to begin soon, companies will have to start thinking about plans to transition to the new system before the plug is pulled on their existing one.

For some, though, it has not been long since they upgraded from Windows 7. Windows 10 took time to reach a wide audience due to several factors, particularly among businesses and the public sector, with many persisting with their existing system well into the later stages of its rollout.

But was it a success overall? CRN spoke to four experts to get their views on the legacy of Windows 10, its impact and what the shift to Windows 11 means for the IT industry.

A brief history and key milestones

Windows 10, the successor to Windows 8, was released to the general public back in July 2015 having first been unveiled the year before, but uptake was slow in the channel upon its release with only 150 machines pre-installed with the new OS being sold through European distributors in its first week, according to data from Context.

Marie-Christie Pygott, senior analyst at Context, tracked the rollout of Windows 10 at the time and looking back on its release, described the first few months as "bumpy".

"The adoption was quite a bit slower than in previous releases with Windows 10 and the reasons at the time were, I think it was the first time there was a free upgrade and consumers were pretty aware of that," she said.

"And so there was less demand for new Windows 10-based products from retail. It's quite difficult to imagine now but, at the time, there was a lot of older PC stock in the channel that hadn't been sold and that needed to be sold first. So the initial take up of Windows 10 was a bit bumpy."

But by mid-2016, data from StatCounter showed its market share in the UK jumped above that of Windows 7 for the first time, despite still lagging behind its predecessor globally.

There continued to be gaps in its adoption between home users and business users too. Western European data from Context released in late 2016 showed that in the home space, Windows 10 had a 100 per cent share of the market, yet in the business area it was 92 per cent with just 26 per cent of that covering the version which did not allow the user to re-downgrade to Windows 7.

This was also the case with public sector organisations. Out of the 102 NHS trusts which replied to a freedom of information request from CRN back in March 2017, Windows 10 was running on just 1.8 per cent of PCs, with Windows 7 running on 82.9 per cent.

However, as research analyst Trang Pham from Canalys, explains: "It's about budgets and skills, which are usually limited in these organisations.

"Secondly, it's about hardware and software compatibility. This partly stemmed from lack of budgets and skills and eventually trapped organisations in a vicious circle."

March 2017 saw Windows 10 reach a notable milestone as it surpassed 50 per cent of the OS market share in the UK for the first time. Just under a year later it would reach a bigger one, though, as it finally overtook Windows 7 globally to become Microsoft's biggest OS.

Yet at the start of 2018, a FOI request by CRN found that 83 per cent of Windows machines in local authorities were still running Windows 7 despite the fact that support for the OS was ending in two years' time.

By March 2020, Windows 10 was running on more than one billion devices, an astounding figure despite Microsoft originally setting that target for within three years of its release.

Data from StatCounter also shows that, at the start of this year, Windows 10 had a desktop and laptop market share of more than three quarters of Windows-based systems, making it the most popular OS on the market. Despite that, just over 18 per cent of the Windows market share still belonged to Windows 7.

It's fair to say that while Windows 10 is now dominant in the market, it took longer than Microsoft had originally hoped for it to reach these lofty heights, and uptake was particularly slow in the public sector. But was it a success overall?

Success or failure?

The experts CRN spoke to were in agreement that Windows 10 can be counted as an overall success, despite some areas of concern that tarnished its reputation.

"Looking back, Windows 10 was definitely a success, so much so that Microsoft had originally intended this to be the last OS release," Pham added.

"Windows 10 was warmly received, helped by the fact that Windows 8 was a huge flop. Windows 10 returned to what defined Microsoft's original success: it was a simple operating system that just worked."

Pygott echoed Pham's thoughts, dubbing Windows 10 as "pretty successful overall," despite its gradual rollout to start with, and also highlighted several other strengths of the OS - notably extra security, the return of the start menu and faster operations - that went down well with users.

"Overall, it did get to where it needed to be by the end. Public sector and some other users would have been pretty slow but I don't think that is so unnatural. I think that happens a lot," she said.

Westcoast MD Alex Tatham

And Alex Tatham, the managing director of distributor Westcoast, said it was received well among the customers the company deals with and drove a "new refresh of hardware" that provided a boost to channel firms.

He said: "I think people would have generally said it was a big improvement to the operating systems of the past. Most people have made the upgrade and that tends to be a big thing, I think that takes quite a long time to do."

Windows 10 did not go without technical hitches and criticism from consumers, however. Complaints were made around Microsoft's eagerness to push its new OS onto customers, with Pygott highlighting the "hassle" of "constant reminders" as a weakness, along with automatic updates which she said were "annoying" to some people because it "stopped their workflow".

And despite extra security being a key feature of Windows 10, Pham picked out "security and privacy concerns" as some of the main criticisms of the OS. A year after its release, the French data authority claimed Microsoft was gathering an "excessive" amount of personal data on users that was "not necessary for the operation of its service".

The vendor also faced calls to compensate some of its customers from consumer group Which?. It claimed to have received hundreds of complaints that upgrading to Windows 10 had "adversely affected" machines, including loss of data and files, and that despite users selecting not to upgrade, it happened anyway.

Windows 10 legacy and the move to Windows 11

Yet despite these faults, the experts say Windows 10 has had a long-lasting and powerful impact in the OS sector.

Rich Gibbons, ITAM services director at the ITAM review, described its legacy as "disruptive" because of Microsoft's decision to roll it out as a free upgrade, and its plans for it to be the last ever version.

"Windows 10 was massively disruptive, but I think overall it's been worth it," he said.

"Everyone was geared up for ‘you buy the new version of Windows, you roll it out, then it is what it is, and then in three years there'll be another version and you decide, do I want to upgrade or not?'"

"Lots of organisations would do a massive piece of work to upgrade and then not really touch it for three-plus years. Whereas Windows 10 made it a bit more of a constant where there's always a new version to upgrade or a new update or something, and so I think shifting from that every three years to every six months or every 12 months was a big change."

And Pham said the strengths of the system were enough to win back support for Microsoft after the unsuccessful Windows 8 release, which she said "forced users to relearn the whole system".

"Windows 10 brought with it a familiar, but cooler, UI and UX to that of Windows 7. This simple visual overhaul was enough to win back loyal Windows fans.

"It was also the first to tap into the Windows platform ecosystem across multiple devices, including Windows Phone and tablets, with universal apps that can be downloaded from the Windows Store."

So why decide to change it? Pham sees it as "a strategic move to stay competitive and relevant" on Microsoft's part, while Tatham believes the vendor is right to move in a new direction, claiming it is "time for a refresh".

But opinion over whether Windows 11 should be a completely new system is divided. Gibbons said Microsoft's new OS "did not seem that different" and that he could not "see anything so far that's going to make people migrate to it".

But Tatham was positive about the announcements made for Windows 11 - praising new features like improvements for touch screen, new organisational tools and the ability to download android apps - while claiming he thought most people "would upgrade very quickly".

That is despite some concerns around compatability. The specification requirements for Windows 11 are much more stringent in an effort to boost security, as Pham explains:

"When it comes to hardware compatibility, Windows 11 is the first version to enforce specific processor requirements which are Intel Core processor from 2017, or AMD Zen 2 processors from 2019, so Windows 11 would limit many existing PCs that are three years or older."

Gibbons claims many customers he has worked with have machines which will not be able to run the new Windows, but Tatham does not see this as an issue, instead claiming that "most machines" will be able to run it and that it will not require "an enormous change".

The new Windows 11 start menu

While being able to upgrade is one concern, some also pointed to many users not wanting to do what is necessary to upgrade because of the complexities involved.

Pham believes Microsoft "might struggle to incentivise users to upgrade" because Windows 10 has the basic functionality that 11 does, while Gibbons "could not see a compelling reason for an organisation to go through the cost and the disruption of a new hardware rollout", if that is what is required.

Channel businesses, however, will likely be hoping that Windows 11 does inspire a move to new hardware to offer a sales boost, and despite Tatham's warning that it will not "drive the refresh that Windows upgrades have in the past", Pham believes it will provide "an important sales tool in their kit bag".

There is still plenty we do not know about Windows 11, and opinion on how good an OS it will be, along with the impact it will have, are divided. But the move away from Windows 10 signals a seismic shift from Microsoft given the years taken to build Windows 10 into the popular, widely used system it is today.