Windows 10 Version 1903 Usage Tripled Since Last Month

The surge is on: Windows 10 version 1903 now accounts for fully one-third of all Windows 10 usage worldwide, according to AdDuplex.

“The usage share of Windows 10 [version] 1903 has tripled since last month,” the latest AdDuplex report explains. “It is now on 33 percent of more than 100,000 PCs surveyed worldwide. We are in a historically unique situation where three versions of Windows 10 have almost equal usage shares. On the other hand, if upgrades continue at this pace, we will be back to the usual spread with two latest versions covering the vast majority of the PCs in use by this time next month.”

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Looking at the data, Windows 10 version 1803 barely squeaks out a first-place finish, with 33.1 percent of usage, compared to 33 percent of version 1803 and 28.7 percent for version 1809. Very interesting.

As you may recall, usage growth of Windows 10 version 1903 had been slow to date. It accounted for just 11 percent usage last month, the first time it had hit double-digit share. Previous months saw 6.3 percent and 1.4 percent usage, respectively.

The big loser in version 1903’s rise, of course, is the previous champion, Windows 10 version 1803, which has fallen from 61.1 percent usage in May to 58 percent in June and 53.7 percent in July. So it looks like Windows 10 version 1903 has finally turned the corner. And just in time, too, since version 19H2, now called 1909, is waiting in the wings.

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Conversation 15 comments

  • Tony Barrett

    28 August, 2019 - 9:11 am

    <p>I see MS seem to have slid their way through too many high profile issues with the 1903 update, but the way they've done this is to rapidly issue update blocks on huge swathes of devices. If these devices don't get the update, they don't have the issues, which means no bad press. Believe me, MS have had a lot of issues with 1903, even on their own Surface devices, but they've managed to keep a lid on the main problems. One issue I can see though is that 19H2 will be delivered as a patch and not an OS upgrade, which means it will be dependent on 1903. I would guess this means we may see more Win10 fragmentation if many can't actually upgrade to 1903 in the first place!</p>

    • codymesh

      28 August, 2019 - 9:44 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#452307">In reply to ghostrider:</a></em></blockquote><p>Fragmentation is a steve jobs-era lie. Why do people keep saying this like it has any merit?</p>

      • MikeGalos

        28 August, 2019 - 11:52 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#452325">In reply to codymesh:</a></em></blockquote><p>Because if you're actually in the software business then the number of unique configurations you have to support vastly changes the amount of coding you need to do and the amount of configuration bugs you deal with and the amount you have to spend on support.</p><p><br></p><p>That Steve Jobs was able to ship products that were buggy even with a tiny number of configurations doesn't mean that fragmentation isn't a problem. It's a sign that Apple never did enough testing on their own products.</p>

      • Greg Green

        01 September, 2019 - 12:01 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#452325">In reply to codymesh:</a></em></blockquote><p>One of the goals of One Version of Windows was to reduce fragmentation. They now have more fragmentation than before the Win 10 debut.</p><p><br></p><p>Couple that with their short support for Win10 versions and we now have a situation where 38% of Win 10 users (1803 and earlier) are operating unsupported OSes.</p><p><br></p><p>This isn't how their plan was supposed to work.</p>

  • Patrick3D

    28 August, 2019 - 9:13 am

    <p>1903 has been showing as available on all our machines at work (thanks to that new message they added in the updates section a few weeks back) but is not being pushed by Microsoft, yet… Once my phone starts ringing off the hook from people wondering what the hell "Teams" is, then I'll know it's getting pushed. ;)</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      28 August, 2019 - 9:32 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#452309">In reply to Patrick3D:</a></em></blockquote><p>We are on Office 365, with Teams set to not install in the distribution tool. Unfortunately the July Office 365 updates ignored that setting and installed the app on every PC, even though their configuration says don't install, that Teams is disabled for every user and that Teams itself is disabled on our tenant…</p><p>In the end, we changed out Antiv-virus tool to blacklist the Teams application directory and executables, because it was asking the users to log on at every reboot – and manually deinstalling Teams would see it re-installed on the next reboot.</p>

  • madthinus

    Premium Member
    28 August, 2019 - 9:38 am

    <p>Windows sandbox is still broken. The single biggest feature of 1903 is broken after months in the field. Yeah, the quality is great, ship it. </p>

    • wunderbar

      Premium Member
      28 August, 2019 - 9:45 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#452319">In reply to madthinus:</a></em></blockquote><p>How is it broken for you? I use it almost every day with nary an issue.</p>

  • wunderbar

    Premium Member
    28 August, 2019 - 9:45 am

    <p>At what point do we become concerned that 1803 is still on 33% of Windows 10 computers and that version goes out of support in 3 months?</p>

  • Stooks

    28 August, 2019 - 11:20 am

    <p>5000+ installs at work have been moved to 1903.</p>

  • RobCannon

    28 August, 2019 - 11:49 am

    <p>My HP relatively new Spectre x360 is still blocked from 1903. I have downloaded all of the latest drivers from HP, so there are still blocking issues that keep this from going out to everyone. I wonder if I will end up skipping to 1909 because it should be out soon.</p>

  • warren

    28 August, 2019 - 1:59 pm

    <p>"Windows 10 version 1803 barely squeaks out a first-place finish, with 33.1 percent of usage, compared to 33 percent of version 1803"</p><p><br></p><p>Pardon?</p>

  • warren

    28 August, 2019 - 2:12 pm

    <p>About four months after the release of macOS Mojave, the adoption distribution was:</p><ul><li>Mojave 36%</li><li>High Sierra 27%</li><li>Sierra 13%</li><li>The three versions before that: 20%</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Even now, a year after Mojave's release, it only has about 50% of the Mac market.</p><p><br></p><p>People take time with upgrades. It's no big deal.</p>

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    29 August, 2019 - 3:10 pm

    <p>Gotta wonder whether the apps or sites AdDuplex uses to measure Windows usage has any underlying seasonality of usage. 1903 really wasn't available until college/university spring semesters/quarters were nearly over. Would back-to-school have much impact on their data collection? Just wondering. I'm not going to try to find last year's reports to check.</p>

  • edward23144

    16 September, 2019 - 6:41 am

    <p>That Steve Jobs was able to ship products that were buggy even <a href="https://www.krogerfeedback.vip/&quot; target="_blank">krogerfeedback</a> with a tiny number of configurations doesn't mean that fragmentation isn't a problem. It's a sign that Apple never did enough testing on their own products. </p>

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