Microsoft has resorted to a little fearmongering to push adoption of Windows 10

You’d think that reaching roughly 200 million devices in less than six months would be something worth celebrating, but Microsoft isn’t settling for anything less than total adoption of their latest operating system.

It’s something that Microsoft’s Marketing Chief, Chris Capossela, made quite clear throughout his talk with Leo Laporte, Mary Jo Foley and Paul Thurrott, during the popular Microsoft-focussed show Windows Weekly.

Capossela is head of marketing for all things Microsoft, so it’s fair to say that he speaks for the company at large.

And, frankly, his attitude isn’t something to criticise. We get it. The more devices they can get to install Windows 10, the more money they make, and we’ve got no problem with that policy – they’re a business after all.

“The more we get a big install base for Windows 10, the better off our phone is,” said Capossela. Beyond that, he reiterated their move to a freemium business model and its dependence on ease of use, its integration with their other products and, ultimately, end-users adopting it.

Developers are only going to create apps for Windows if there’s a market to sell them to. Companies and are more likely to use Office 365 if they’re on Windows 10. And just about everything else Microsoft is currently working on, like Microsoft Azure, the Xbox One and anything connected to the cloud, works better with Windows 10.

That’s all good and dandy, but when Capossela resorted to what is commonly known as FUD (or Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), we got kind of annoyed.

We do worry when people are running an operating system that’s 10 years old that the next printer they buy isn’t going to work well, or they buy a new game, they buy Fallout 4, a very popular game, and it doesn’t work on a bunch of older machines. And so, as we are pushing our ISV [Independent Software Vendor] and hardware partners to build great new stuff that takes advantage of Windows 10 that obviously makes the old stuff really bad and not to mention viruses and security problems.” Thanks Fudzilla.

First of all, Fallout 4 was a rather poor example and downright confusing to those who aren’t clued into PC gaming.

If your game is not working, it’s almost certainly got to do with your hardware, and in the case that it’s not, it’s likely a corrupt driver or some form of incompatible software installed – it is not your OS.

Moving to Windows 10 will not make Fallout 4 work, and if it does, it’s because the installation of the new OS erased whatever software conflict you had unintentionally created by installing this and that over the years.

And to say things like, “new stuff that takes advantage of Windows 10 that obviously makes the old stuff really bad and not to mention viruses and security problems”?

That’s a rather odd choice of words. Does that not imply that all of security promised when Microsoft was pushing Windows 7 was a lie? Or does it mean that their extended support services, scheduled to last until 2020 for Windows 7, is no good? Should we not trust the support you offer Microsoft?

Either of those outcomes is bad news for the end-user, and seems to imply that the security promised for Windows 10 is only as good as its shelf life?

The idea that casting a poor light on older products will sell the newer ones is a bad approach to any business model, and really just serves to cast doubt on the company instead.

It’s also untrue to suggest that Windows 7, or Windows 8 for that matter, is any less secure or capable than Windows 10.

Don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying don’t install or use Windows 10; its use is your prerogative, and it certainly does have its advantages.

But Windows 10 also has its issues, like security and privacy woes, incompatibility problems as well as a number of ongoing issues.

“You are absolutely in control of your own data,” said Capossela. And you are, a lot of the time, but Windows 10 never tells you what it’s monitoring and records absolutely everything unless you tell it not to.

We’re sure most of you are aware by now, but Windows 10 has a built-in keylogger that tracks everything you type, write and/or say while using your device.

We don’t mind ads, they pay for a lot of the free content and services offered to us, and personalised ads are okay for the most part, but tracking our every word is disconcerting.

Windows 10 is not perfect and fearmongering and disorientation isn’t the right way to go about incentivising us. Instead, give us that killer app.

Like any platform, many of us require a justification to move, more than it simply being newer.

Too many times have we been burnt by the promise of something grand in a new app’s near future, only for that greatness never to materialise.

Personally, it’d have to be a DirectX 12 game that I just have to get my hands on.

A large portion of Steam’s user base is already using Windows 10 and a recent survey we conducted ourselves shows that Windows 10 is definitely out and about, but we bet that very nearly every gamer that has Microsoft’s new OS installed would be perfectly happy with Windows 7 or 8, until that one game releases we need DX12 for.

Clear marketing messages and transparency is what we want, especially when there are already doubts about privacy and security.

Capossela did promise that they’d continue to push the OS, something we’ve expected for a little while now.