UPDATED 23:22 EDT / FEBRUARY 17 2016

NEWS

Windows 10 just got a big thumbs up from the Department of Defense

Microsoft has been given a huge lift this morning with the news that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has agreed to migrate more than four million devices to Windows 10 by January next year.

That’s a big boost for Microsoft, which revealed in January that Windows 10 was running on more than 200 million devices, although only 22 million of those were installed in enterprise or education environments. Enterprises are traditionally a bit on the slow side when it comes to upgrading Windows, and that’s forced Microsoft to push its new OS very aggressively as it strives to reach its goal of having Windows 10 run on one billion devices in two years. As such, an additional four million extra users, coming from an organization as serious as the DoD, is a huge endorsement for the platform.

Microsoft said that the upgrade will include laptops, desktops and mobile devices, including its Surface tablets. Microsoft didn’t reveal exactly how many Surfaces the DoD is using (that information is probably classified) but it did remind us about the important security certifications the device has achieved that make it appealing to even the most security-conscious of government agencies.

In its post, Microsoft also said the DoD is looking to implement a few of the new security features found in Windows 10, such as Windows Hello, which uses biometric identifiers like user’s iris scans, fingerprints and facial recognition. The DoD is also interested in Secure Boot, which shuts down malware even before the machine boots up, and Device Guard, which only lets certified applications run.

The DoD is also looking at using Microsoft’s anti-malware service Windows Defender, the company said.

Yusuf Mehdi, a corporate vice president at Microsoft, described the upgrade as an “unprecedented move for a customer with the size and complexity of the DOD.”

Photo Credit: Defence Images via Compfight cc

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