"Facts are stubborn things," John Adams once famously observed.

Far more than two centuries later, those words still ring true, especially with this troubling caveat behind them: Whoever controls the foundation data can too darn easily influence the resulting "facts."

Assuming the data is inaccurate or incomplete, facts go completely away the window.

This month's instance is a two-week-old story with which has not aged well, frankly.

A flurry of headlines after May reported that Microsoft's latest Windows 10 feature update were being installed by one half of all eligible PCs in under a month.

That number was not even just about accurate, plus the actual adoption rate was probably not even half of what that estimate claimed.

Details were bad purely because they were according to questionable data from being a small Windows app cross-promotion network called AdDuplex. You may also noted the moment, "a closer look points too the data behind that report is, position it charitably, weak."

Today, mainly because of a bit of chest-thumping from Microsoft, we've got some better data. "The April 2018 Update is officially the quickest version of Windows 10 to achieve 250 million devices, achieving that mark inside of half the time it took the autumn Creators Update," officials said within the blog post yesterday.

Haveing a announced installed base of roughly 700 million active users, imagine Windows 10 version 1803 has now reached about 35 percent of all devices eligible to receive the upgrade after six weeks on the whole release.

That's impressively fast: a pace of 5-6 million devices day by day and roughly 40 million PCs 7 days. At that pace, on May 29, after the headlines said this version of Windows had reached more than half the installed base, the entire number was more detailed 20 percent.

So, not even close.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft could have knocked down this story built it were released by sharing the important upgrade data. Those telemetry dashboards keep very precise numbers, and this would have taken only seconds as a style them up.

Nevertheless the company refused to talk about those numbers if i asked. In addition they refused on offer any details while i asked some specific questions concerning yesterday's announcement, either.

The truth is, for a company that brags about its big data and AI skills, Microsoft is disappointingly not wanting to share details.

This agency only reveals numbers with regard to the adoption rate for Windows 10 will cause fits into an advantageous narrative with them. Momentum stories feed the good news cycle, especially around major events much like the Build developer conference.

The same is true for reliability data. Yesterday's short article says their early returns on version 1803 are "very positive ... [with] higher satisfaction numbers, fewer known issues, reducing support call volumes as opposed to previous Windows 10 releases."

This was followed by a litany of positive statistics, including "a 20 percent reduction in system stability issues [and] 20 percent total loss of operating system and driver stability issues."

Concerning no reason to doubt individuals numbers are true, but you're also founded upon cherry-picked data and generally are context-free.

In this case, the data's so limited that it is impossible to fact-check Microsoft's assertion. You'll take their numbers on faith or reject them as a result of skepticism, nevertheless can't verify them.

And among people who support Windows 10 machines in business settings, I'm sensing they can don't have the same trust in this new feature update, or indeed on the patching process itself.

A feedback post via Windows MVP titled "Patch quality and reduction in trust" has received upwards of 500 upvotes (know that the post are only able be viewed during the Windows 10 Feedback Hub app, in support if you are signed along with an account that's registered with the Windows Insider Program):

Surface devices mustn't BSOD on 1803. Enterprise detection of May updates need not need metadata revisions. We've got to not be losing Nics in a number of platforms. Should have trust in the updating method that would we want to feel comfortable in installing updates a few days they come out not mandate which of us are waiting and seeing what issues occur.

We, the patching community, your prospects have lost trust in your patching processes.

I've heard similar grumbling from some fellow Microsoft watchers.

My colleague Mary Jo Foley, as for instance, says she's hearing noticeably more negative feedback with that release: "I have gotten a lot more questions and complaints from readers within the April 2018 Update than I have about the previous two updates."

That's getting expected, after all, given the steady growth in the installed base of Windows 10, that's growing by over a hundred million PCs per annum.

Even a miniature percentage of problems on a population that giant is a very big number, competent at creating so much of anecdotal data points.

So maybe what's happening is now normal. Or maybe it's not. We literally can offer no way to check.

I wish Microsoft would be radically more transparent in regard to the data it shares, although i doubt we'll notice happen soon. Instead, as a result of company's stubbornness, we'll be forced to pick from bad data and incomplete data.