All about Technology: Only 2.8% of Windows 10 PCs have the October 2018 Update installed

Thursday 29 November 2018

Only 2.8% of Windows 10 PCs have the October 2018 Update installed

You may recall that much fuss was made about the April 2018 Update for Windows 10 being rolled out at a blisteringly fast pace, but the October 2018 Update is a very different story according to the latest stats – although that comes as no real surprise given that it was paused for ages thanks to some major bugs.

According to AdDuplex, which monitors Windows 10 installations on PCs that run its ads (via apps from the Microsoft Store), the October 2018 Update is only on a rather pitiful 2.8% of computers at this point, following its release at the beginning of October.

As mentioned, though, when a major bug was discovered that was deleting user data – along with some other gremlins in the works – the update was paused for quite some time. The rollout subsequently resumed mid-November.

There is even a suggestion by AdDuplex concerning whether the rollout has indeed been fully resumed, as the company asks: “Windows 10 October 2018 Update was re-released two weeks ago... Or was it?”

The firm concludes that “this seems to be a very cautious release”, and indeed since the re-release, we have seen other problems crop up which have meant the update has been blocked on certain PCs.

Sample set

At any rate, before we get too carried away with possible theories about the rollout speed here, we should bear in mind that this is a limited sample of the overall PC population out there – but still, we’re comparing it to figures drawn from a similar sample set by AdDuplex in the past. And it’s worryingly low, for sure.

According to the figures, the April 2018 Update is the version of Windows 10 installed on the vast majority of PCs out there: 89.5% of them to be precise.

Indeed, 3.9% are still running the Fall Creators Update (the upgrade previous to the April 2018 Update), which is actually more than the number of folks using the October 2018 Update.

As an aside, AdDuplex also breaks down the composition of Surface devices out there, and the most popular model remains the Surface Pro 4 with 25.3% of users, followed by last year’s Surface Pro on 18.6%.

The new Surface Pro 6 is making quick headway on 5.2%, though, considering that it has only just been released, and it’s already equal to the original Surface Book in terms of the numbers, and not far behind the Surface Go which is on 7.3%.