Windows 10 hits a big milestone ahead of Surface event

At this point, it seems that Windows 10 is something of an unstoppable force. Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 10 is now running on 900 million devices around the world. That means Windows 10 is on track to hit one billion devices at some point in 2020, which will be a pretty monumental achievement when it happens.

This milestone was confirmed by Yusuf Mehdi, the corporate vice president of Microsoft's modern life, search & devices group, in a post to Twitter today. That 900 million figure doesn't just comprise computers, as it also includes products like HoloLens, Xbox One, and the Surface Hub.

While those non-PC devices definitely add some big numbers to the total, it seems like most of the devices making up that 900 million would be PCs of some persuasion. Microsoft was certainly helped along by the free upgrade campaign it ran for Windows 10 at the start of its life, in which it offered free upgrades to Windows 7 and Windows 8 users.

That campaign could definitely be classified as annoying at times, as it employed things like pop-up notifications on desktops to advertise these free upgrades. That aggressive promotion seems to have worked in Microsoft's favor, though, because with 900 million devices running Windows 10, one has to imagine that a decent chunk of those devices took advantage of the free upgrade offer.

Still, Mehdi said in his tweet today that the company has "added more new Windows 10 devices in the last 12 months than ever before," so it sounds like Windows 10 installs may actually be accelerating. We'll see how quickly Microsoft can hit 1 billion installs, but more immediately, we have next week's Surface event to look forward to. We'll be covering that event as it happens, so check back here with SlashGear on October 2nd for all you need to know.