Windows 10 now powering 200 million active computers

Six months after the release of Windows 10, Microsoft’s newest desktop operating system, it is already powering 200 million active computers worldwide. The company revealed the stats today, adding that Windows 10 has seen the fastest adoption rate across all versions of Windows.

Microsoft released Windows 10 on July 29, 2015. The successor to Windows 8.1, the new desktop operating system was well received with users, hitting 50 million install count in just 2 weeks since the release. The company announced on Monday that the desktop operating system has hit the 200 milestone active install base count.

And that’s just one of the things Microsoft has managed to achieve with its newest desktop operating system. The company added that Windows 10’s growth is accelerating. To give you an idea, more than 40 percent of new Windows 10 devices have come to the pool after last year’s Black Friday.

Microsoft added that Windows 10 has also outpaced Windows 7, the most widely used desktop operating system on the planet, by a staggering volume. Windows 10’s adoption rate is 140 percent faster than Windows 7’s, and nearly 400 percent faster than Windows 8’s.

Among some other neat tidbits, the company shared the following. “We’re seeing increased preference for Windows 10 with consumers. Since Black Friday, US retail PC share* for Windows 10 grew 16 points to 62% compared to the prior four weeks.  Windows 10 mix of PCs rose to 87% from 58% prior to the holiday.”

Windows 10 is also getting love from enterprise and education sectors. “We are also seeing accelerating and unprecedented demand for Windows 10 among enterprise and education customers. As of today, more than 76% of our enterprise customers are in active pilots of Windows 10, and we now have over 22 million devices running Windows 10 across enterprise and education customers.”

To put this into perspective, Microsoft shared that in December 2015 alone, people spent over 11 billion hours using Windows 10. As for Microsoft Edge, the new desktop Web browser Microsoft ships with Windows 10, people have spent 44.5 billion minutes using it. Cortana, the digital voice assistant has been asked 2.5 billion questions since launch, and Bing has captured an impressive 30 percent more queries on Windows 10 when compared to any other version of Windows.

Games are also showering love to Windows 10, having spent over 4 billion hours playing PC games on their Windows 10 computer. And a staggering 82 billion photos have been viewed on Windows 10 Photo app.