Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 10 operating system has finally passed the 1 billion active devices mark four years and eight months after its launch.

“Today we’re delighted to announce that over 1 billion people have chosen Windows 10 across 200 countries resulting in more than 1 billion active Windows 10 devices,” Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft corporate vice president, Modern Life, Search & Devices, said in a blog post. “We couldn’t be more grateful to our customers, partners and employees for helping us get here.”

Along with one in seven people globally now using Windows 10, 100% of the Fortune 500 are said to be now using the operating system. The installed base includes PCs, laptops, tablets, Xbox One and Hololens devices. Windows 10 is said to today power 80,000 models and configurations of laptops and 2-in-1s from more than 1,000 different manufacturers.

Some 17.8 million customers are now said to be part of the Windows Insider Program, the open software testing program that allows users of Windows 10 to register for prerelease builds of the operating system.

Although a billion active installations is a notable milestone, it was achieved nearly two years later than planned. Microsoft had originally planned to hit 1 billion Windows 10 installations within three years before admitting in 2016 that it was not going to be able to achieve the goal as planned.

That said, the growth of Windows 10 has been impressive particularly over the last year. It was estimated that there were 700 million installations in January 2019, the same month Windows 10 passed previous versions of Windows to become the most popular version of the operating system.

The embrace of Windows 10 has prompted Microsoft to drop support for older Windows versions, with free support for Windows 7 ending in January. Businesses still running Windows 7 can still obtain support but only through a paid program.

Possible coronavirus delays aside, the next update to Windows 10 is expected to be released in the spring. Along with several new features, the new version will include a major update to Cortana that will replace the voice assistant’s consumer-oriented features with email, calendar and productivity capabilities aimed at the enterprise.

Image: okubax/Flickr