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It's coooming: Windows 10 October 2018 Update adoption slows ahead of the next release

Assuming you can actually install 19H1, as the test build is yanked from the Slow Ring

With the next release of Windows 10 looming, adoption of October's Update of the Damned remains woefully low, according to figures from AdDuplex.

Things appear to have slowed, with the figures for March creeping up by around 5 per cent to 26.4 per cent of machines. The previous update, 1803, still holds a commanding lead, squatting on 66.3 per cent of Windows PCs.

The ad-slinging platform had the October 2018 Update on 21.2 per cent of Windows 10 machines in February, an impressive jump from January's 12.4 per cent.

AdDuplex surveyed around 100,000 PCs running apps that use its ad platform which, in the absence of official figures from Microsoft, gives the world and their dog a pointer as to how things are going.

19H1 is due to hit in the coming weeks, and the apparent slowing of 1809 adoption hints that Microsoft may well be opting to pretend the thing never happened and just move users directly to the next release.

For those with PCs able to accept the updates, of course.

Enterprises, on other hand, will struggle to avoid 1809. The build was adopted for the Windows 10 Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) and so will be supported until 2029. LTSC releases occur every two to three years.

The next version of Windows, expected to hit in April, is having troubles of its own as the Windows team battles to push it over the finishing line. After a relatively uneventful development cycle, the last few weeks has seen a flurry of builds emitted to Slow and Fast rings.

Aside from a stubborn issue with anti-cheat code in games that has proven difficult for the team to close, even getting the OS installed has been a challenge for insiders. Microsoft took the step yesterday of pulling the latest Slow Ring build (18362) after Insiders reported failures in the set-up process when trying to upgrade from the earlier 18356.16 (KB4494123) release.

Build 18356.16 hit on 19 March. At the time, Microsoft insisted "This update contains nothing new. We simply updated the version numbers of several components in the OS".

That "nothing new" appears to left things looking a wobbly. ®

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