That’s it – that’s the post.

Windows 10 (Version 2004), aka the May 2020 Update, is running fine in my small home network of seven machines. These devices range from three home built desktops running AMD motherboards and CPUs, Surface Book (OG), Surface Go (OG), and Surface Book 3.

Here is a reality of an operating system that is in use on more than 1 billion devices – the variety of hardware is mind boggling – that means there is going to be incompatibility across hardware configurations. The slightest difference in hardware, even one model to another of a specific line of devices, could provide very different end user experiences.

This is just the way it is.

Now, there is never a lack of posts, articles, stories, and social media commentary on the issues surrounding Windows 10 and its associated services.

Even this week, an article was published by someone who doesn’t even use a Microsoft cloud storage service, aka OneDrive. The intent was to purely stipulate that despite recent additions and enhancements to the service, this individual would not be using the service no matter what Microsoft added for end users.

Granted, this type of article is a unicorn – not many people use ink to write about new features in a service and then to say – nope – no thanks Microsoft, not going to use it no matter what you do.

Of course, just visit the Windows 10 forums on Reddit and you will find plenty of users having problems with Windows 10. Some of these are no doubt genuine concerns about issues within the operating system. I would say just as many, if not more, are a result of the end user making changes to the operating system for whatever reason they see fit or necessary. They then come to Reddit and other online forums to complain about what happened, sometimes blaming Windows 10 itself, and then asking for help to fix their computer.

It is from these type of forums that some websites go to find problems users are having and then write them up as content on their site. Since there is a bit of an echo chamber in the World of Windows on the Web, these often get picked up and repeated until they look to be a widespread problem.

Granted, that is possible every once in a while but many times it does get blown out of proportion.

Now, using this as a method of researching and identifying potential issues is just fine. It has and could eventually identify a larger issue. However, many times these are small scale issues that happen across a very small number of widely different machines in the more than 1 billion devices running Windows 10. A grain of salt is needed as these type of articles appear in your feeds. The term “some users are reporting” could mean anything from one to multiple users. I follow the Windows 10 subreddit and most of the time it is a very small number of users having a particular issue.

Now, this is not to say that Windows 10 is perfect. When you have a massive operating system like Windows 10, which has large chunks of legacy code for compatibility and a huge hardware ecosystem, there are going to be issues and have been as we know Everyone will remember the disastrous feature update that had to be pulled after its release due to an issue with deleted files after the upgrade.

Of course, that should never happen. I am still not convinced how widespread that issue ever was because Microsoft never released numbers to lay that out. When I think just on percentages alone, with more than 10 devices in my home network, shouldn’t I have seen this crop up on one device if it was seriously widespread?

Again – I am not saying this did not happen. Microsoft pulling the update made it clear that it was happening to some devices and had to be dealt with immediately.

This brings me to the headline of this post – Windows 10 Is Running Great!

It stands to reason that if there are issues with Windows 10 that there are also users who are just getting along just fine with this operating system.

The big difference is that no one takes to social media, a blog, or write articles for a publication that say Windows 10 Is Running Great! 

This is the issue with online shopping and services. Users are more likely to go online to complain about a situation than they are to say something was great. We even have seen abuses of online product feedback when something is bombarded with 1 Star feedback ratings. It has happened to products, services, and movies.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of 5 Star reviews across the Internet and on various sites, it just seems that they are not as prominent as the 1 Star comments.

In closing I would like to say that this is not a scientific analysis. It is gut feelings, perception, personal experience and opinion that I am sharing. The goal is to just add to the conversation that there are multiple takes on any situation including how well Windows 10 runs for each end user.

So tell me, how is Windows 10 running for you these days?