Why the Windows 10 story is a problem

The deadline for free Windows 10  has passed and I won't be using it, indeed I wouldn’t use Windows 10 if I was paid to, having tried it for free for some 10 months at Storyspring I can say it is a nightmare to use. Worse still I don’t trust it or Microsoft and that means they have a big problem with their story. All companies make their own story by their actions and MS need some major help in that area to regain credibility. Currently their story is toxic to too many of the people they need to win over. So how have they created that story and what are its consequences?

Microsoft admit they won’t reach their target of 1billion users on time and PC sales using Windows 10 are slowing down. I like millions of others world wide have had a horrible experience with Windows 10, the aggressive and duplicitous pressures to use it -1.2million complained alone in China https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36397835 and worst of all its unreliability and damage to data. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36657890, oh and its secretive logging of all our use on Windows 10 https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2016/01/06/windows-10-spying-secret/ MS seem to have a very dismissive attitude to customers (trying to cheat them into loading Windows 10 when they haven’t asked for it). So why when the benefits of using PCs e.g. networking etc are being reduced by the week due to cloud and other developments of use would this company compound its problems by actively reducing the trust of its consumers?

Increasingly we are living in a world where trust is in short supply, which in itself is a big problem for us all, and if a company like MS creates its own story which really says to consumers, “don’t trust us and we don’t trust you”, that sounds like a horror story, and it will have a big problem to solve in the future. Millions of people have complained about Windows 10 and the problems it causes, including trashing data (MS has had to pay out compensation https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36640464 ) . MS has previous history in not making its own story worth us listening to, with Vista and other products and now they have said, “have something for free to make up for it”, and for too many it has been a poisoned sweet. I will be saying goodbye to MS as soon as I can and will not be using Windows 10 on our other machines and will switch to alternatives.

In the period that I tried Windows 10 on one of our machines, deemed by MS as Windows 10 complaint, it has spent more time not working than working, with endless restores, restarts, blues screen freezes, “can’t starts” and four complete reinstalls of the Windows 10 at the PC menders and still it doesn’t work properly for more than a day or so and gets locked into endless restarts lasting days and days.   They seem to want us to do their own research and development of a product that they made big claims for but hadn’t got right and which is in my view is worse than Windows 7.

I could also say a lot about what a clunky messy user face it has, but I will concentrate on the fact that it isn’t reliable The story they alone have created is one in which customers, their time and trust don’t matter. That’s not the kind of story any service industry should want to have. Companies need to have authentic stories and ones that serve trust and MS clearly have a mountain to climb.

David Pearson, and award winning film maker works with companies to improve and best understand their story. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36367221

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36824687

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37431343