Microsoft trumpets one million Windows 10 preview participants

Microsoft has announced that one million people had registered with its Windows Insider program, which provides easy access to the Windows 10 Technical Preview. "Over the weekend, we hit 1 million registrants for the Windows Insider Program," said Joe Belfiore, a Microsoft executive who leads the Windows design team, in a blog post Monday.

Belfiore did not state the number of downloads, however, the metric that Microsoft typically touts for its sneak peek software. It's unclear why he did not do so, as Microsoft certainly knows that number.

Microsoft released the Windows 10 Technical Preview on Oct. 1.

But if the one million participants equaled the number of downloads -- customers can also directly download the preview as an .iso file without registering with the Insider program -- the uptake of Windows 10 is more than twice that of Windows 8's similar Developer Preview, which Microsoft released Sept. 13, 2011.

Technology companies, Microsoft included, have a habit of trumpeting dissimilar metrics year to year or edition to edition, but some arithmetic revealed a rough uptake comparison.

On Dec. 7, 2011, Microsoft cited three million downloads of Windows 8 Developer Preview over the 86-day stretch (inclusive of the start day), for an average of one million downloads every 28.7 days. Windows 10 reached the one-million mark in 11 or 12 days -- Belfiore said only "over the weekend" -- which represented an uptake tempo 2.4 to 2.6 times faster than its predecessor over a longer period.

The Windows 10 preview will expire on April 15, 2015; however, Microsoft has promised another build, one that will include consumer-oriented features, early next year.

To register with the Insider Program and begin the Windows 10 download, users should steer to this page on the Microsoft site. The .iso files can be downloaded directly from the links posted here.