Ask employees if they’re happy with their Windows PC and you’ll likely get a common response — Laughter. End-users and IT admins alike know that “happiness” with current Windows versions amounts to getting through the day without long login time and without too many apps failing to launch or refusing to play nicely with other programs and the network. It’s a small part of the larger picture: Despite the abundance of technology, users aren’t happier; in many cases they’re simply more frustrated than ever while IT departments do their best to play catch-up and get business technology back on track.
The good news? Windows PCs make an ideal jumping off point for the next post in our series on the IT happiness hypothesis: How can IT pros make using these machines better for everyone?
Market Forces
There’s no doubt that Microsoft still has a firm grip on the PC market. According to CNET, the Redmond giant already counts more than 110 million Windows 10 users with over 1 billion visits to the app store. In other words, on paper everything looks stellar — adoption is up and businesses are embracing the use of Windows 10 as support for older versions is phased out. But this doesn’t mean these deployments are free of issues. For example, while Windows 10 is more stable than its predecessor, Windows 8, users still experience at least one major crash every few weeks. While that doesn’t sound so bad at first glance, big problems can emerge if users are working offline or making changes to an unsaved document.
As noted by Tech Radar, security is also an issue with Windows 10 PCs. Consider the “Wi-Fi Sense” feature, which lets users share your network’s encrypted password with anyone else connected to the device or workstation. While this sounds great for collaboration, it also gives hackers a rather obvious attack vector. And last but not least is the problem of mandatory updates — unless companies are running the Enterprise version of Windows 10 all app updates are applied automatically and can’t be denied. The issue? According to ZDNet this often leads to a scenario where computers don’t perform the same way they did the day before — apps may work differently, refuse to play well with other apps or force users into an endless “boot loop.”
New Tools
While it’s possible to collect data on employee unrest from users themselves, this method of tracking Windows 10 issues is unreliable at best and detrimental to overall performance at worst, since you’re relying on non-tech personnel to detail highly technical issues to the best of their knowledge. Another option? Go to the source. Install the Nexthink Collector on all workstations and get access to on-demand, real-time endpoint analytics that help create a clear picture of what’s happening on these PCs, why, and how you can fix it.
It’s no surprise: Windows PCs are making users unhappy. Don’t wait for Microsoft updates to fix (or worsen) the problem — take ownership of employee satisfaction with end-user analytics.
