back to article US Dept of Defense to shift 4 million devices onto Windows 10

The US Secretary of Defense has ordered all Department of Defense (DoD) agencies to shift four million Microsoft-based devices onto Windows 10 over the next year. The department said it will install Windows 10 on millions of computers, tablets and handsets by February 2017, according to a blog post by Yusuf Mehdi, corporate …

  1. Joerg

    Barack Hussein Obama is giving Microsoft plenty of money....

    Barack Hussein Obama is giving Microsoft plenty of money....

    ... so what is going to happen? Microsoft is going to be bought by the US Government ?

    The only way that this Microsoft can get money anymore. The whole Metro/ModernUI and the Windows10 spyware crap is the most hated thing they ever released as well as the worst overall.

    1. tekHedd

      Re: Barack Hussein Obama is giving Microsoft plenty of money....

      The thing is, I agree with everything in this comment. Except for the unnecessary jingoism/racism. Downvoted for being a... I can't be bothered to figure the right word actually-- downvoted for ruining a perfectly good comment with partisan BS name-slinging.

      And they wonder why I drink.

    2. Lysenko

      Re: Barack Hussein Obama is giving Microsoft plenty of money....

      I seriously doubt that a department as closely linked to the NSA as the DoD obviously must be gives a rats ass about any MSFT attempts at "spying".

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Barack Hussein Obama is giving Microsoft plenty of money....

      "Windows for Warmongers" ?

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Barack Hussein Obama is giving Microsoft plenty of money....

      You live in a bubble my friend.

      Extrapolating the hate from your fellow ms-haters to the rest of the world just makes you look stupid.

      How many millions of win10 users will it take for you to stop frothing?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    Next year...

    "The U.S. Defense Department to downgrade 4 million devices to Windows 7" :)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Next year...

      Nah. Instead, the developers will throw their collective hands in the air and run around shouting about it "...breaking mission critical systems! Waily! Oh, waily! The sky is falling!" Then some non-technical person without authority to write a waiver will do so and won't be discovered until an audit some time in the nebulous future. At that time, a POAM will be put in place that maps out the way forward but is really just a delaying tactic to get through the next several audits... This is why we can't have nice things still have XP.

  3. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
    WTF?

    Nothing says DoD & National Security

    Like an OS with the spyware baked directly in.

    A Russian & Chinese wet dream.

  4. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Obviously....

    They'll have a 'non slurp' version of the OS.

    If they don't then they obviously don't have any secrets left to steal.

  5. chivo243 Silver badge

    +1 from me Steve Davies 3

    A special update or such points all US gov't computers to a different slurper, Windows 10 being the Slurpee, sorry Southland corp and 7-11 stores across the universe, comedy is comedy.

    p.s. I would gamble it's a registry key, which El Reg reader can find it?

    1. psychonaut

      hklm\5eyes\LookStopSpyingOnMePleaseImOneOfYou

      that ones going in my script

  6. psychonaut

    "giving its two-million-plus civilian and military staff access to Windows 8"

    fuck me they must have been foaming at the gash about that.

  7. Bladeforce

    Well...

    "Terry Halvorsen, CIO for the DoD, issued a memo to combatant commands, services agencies and field activities late last year "to rapidly transition to Microsoft Windows 10 in order to improve our cyber security posture, lower the cost of IT, and streamline the IT operating environment.""

    How much have Microsoft paid this guy for the typical lies?

  8. hplasm
    Terminator

    On August 4, 2016, Skynet was launched

    At 2:14 a.m., EDT, on August 29, it failed to become self-aware, as it was still running Windows 10.

    Batteries not included.

  9. Palpy

    Yes. Well.

    Expect sensitive computers to have non-standard installation of Win10.Speaking of the military:

    "The different services each have their own 'Gold Disk' that systems are loaded from. You should never see a military computer using OEM Windows."

    Also, in some applications the DoD uses Linux (Red Hat, mostly). They've an ongoing contract with a reseller of the OS.

    Take all that with some cubic crystals of sodium chloride. Given the blunders we've seen in other branches of government, it's likely that at least some "non-Gold-Disk" PCs will see info they really shouldn't see.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yes. Well.

      I do wonder if the DoD version of RedHat will have system.

      1. Paul Crawford Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: systemd

        I presume? I guess they wanted something that would know what svchost.exe was up to....

        1. chivo243 Silver badge

          Re: systemd

          other way around, what svchost.exe wasn't up to... which seems to be nothing.

    2. Tree

      Re: Yes. Well.

      Maybe Apple would be less likely to be compromised and decrypted. Ask the FBI

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So that's what happened to No. 9

    The DoD seem so confident that, unless they've taken leave of their senses, Microsoft must have been able to offer them an improved OS which contains no trace of the metro/store/telemetry/control freakery crap that the rest of us are stuck with.

    Makes me wonder if they developed an improved OS (like 7 with whatever is good about 8.1) which would have been Windows 9, then decided to reserve that for Military and Gov customers. Then they went and piled all the crap on it to make 10 for the rest of us.

  11. Jeroen Braamhaar
    Mushroom

    Who needs enemies ...

    ... when you got Microsoft offering you a free OS update.

  12. Bota

    This will keep the Chinese and Russians happy

    For a second there I'm sure they were concerned they'd switch to Linux and change default passwords.

  13. Kev99 Silver badge

    Well, we know at one person at Defense who a job waiting after he leaves Washington. Just ask the British Navy how good Windows is.

  14. Oengus

    I wonder if they will get in while the upgrade is still free...

  15. PaulAb

    4 million devices !!

    Me and my USB stick are available for deployment into the upgrade zone, Mr Prez.

    I hear that all the ICBM Silos will communicate via Outlook and get the launch codes from Logmein123 sessions

  16. excollier

    That must've been a very fat brown envelope from Redmond to Washington

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    NOT because the Dept. of Defense wants too...

    For those who do not already know... consumers and enterprise are being coerced into updating to WIN10 even when they do not want WIN10 for obvious technical reasons. To force consumers and enterprise to update to WIN10 Microsoft is refusing to support new CPUs being produced by AMD, Intel and Qualcomm in Win 7-8. Microsoft will only support new CPUs with WIN10 even though Windows is obligated under law to provide full Win 7-8 customer support thru 2020. This is a class action lawsuit waiting to be filed and I hope that it is filed VERY SOON as consumer and enterprise should not be blackmailed into using WIN10 when Win 7-8 with patches will provide just fine service for most Win 7-8 users.

  18. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Does Microsoft have their own PAC, and who gets how much? Election campain coming up...

  19. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Seriously, you'd think the US military of all people should be able to develop and maintain their own OS. But of course that would mean less money spent on contractors... Eisenhower was right about the military-industrial complex.

  20. philyboy1

    Which Service Branch?

    Does anyone know which service branch they will us? LTSB or CBB etc? Would be interested to know.

    Thanks

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    in denial?

    It never ceases to amaze me how many excuses the ms-hate camp can come up with that explains why win10 continues to grow despite their "expert" opinions of how shite and privacy-invading it is. Keep pissing into the wind chaps, its very amusing...

  22. zen1

    we're doomed.

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