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Windows 10 Upgrades Are Being Forced On Some Users (arstechnica.com)

grimmjeeper writes: According to Ars Technica the Windows 10 upgrade option is being selected by default for some users. A dialogue box is appearing that only permits them to reschedule the upgrade process, not cancel it. "For the first year of its availability, Windows 10 is available for free to most Windows 7 and 8 users, and Microsoft has been trying to coax those users to make the switch by delivering the operating system through Windows Update. Until now, the OS has been delivered as an optional update; while Windows Update gives it prominent positioning, it shouldn't be installed automatically. This system has already generated some complaints, as Windows Update will download the sizeable operating system installer even if you don't intend to upgrade any time soon, but, over the last couple of days, the situation seems to have become a little more aggressive. We've received a number of reports that people's systems are not merely downloading the installer but actually starting it up." Update: 10/16 11:35 GMT by S : Microsoft said, "In the recent Windows update, this option was checked as default; this was a mistake and we are removing the check."

12 of 374 comments (clear)

  1. Heck of a Mistake! by geek111 · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the article - 'In the recent Windows update, this option was checked as default; this was a mistake and we are removing the check.'

    That is one heck of a mistake!!!

    1. Re:Heck of a Mistake! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      That may seem huge to you, to Microsoft its only about 7% of their user base if you go by the OS usage statistics shown on Wikipedia. Most Windows users still use Windows 7.

  2. Welcome to Anti-competitive practices 2.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Microsoft better curtail this.

    Remember the last round with the Web browser, and later the media player? Small potatoes. Imagine what happens when someone running bootcamp runs this and borks their Mac. Or someone dual-booting Linux and completely obliterating the Linux partitions.

  3. Time to turn of automatic updates! by bobbied · · Score: 4, Informative

    As much as I hate to do it, If they don't stop this Windows 10 push garbage I'm going to turn off the automatic updates feature. I'm running Windows Media Center on a windows 7 box and I DON'T want the upgrade, at least not until there is some option for a replacement DVR solution that can playback protected content. Please Microsoft, STOP pushing this, I don't want 10 (or 8 for that matter) so stop asking.

    I've noticed that Microsoft is getting really pushy about this upgrade thing and has pushed yet another update that has that annoying "Get Windows 10" icon even after I uninstalled and blocked the first update with it. I disabled the Icon notices, but I really would love to unload the new update. Anybody know which update this new one is?

    All this really does is convince me that as soon as somebody can come up with a Linux alternative that his fully DRM blessed to play back protected content from my Cable Card tuner, I'm switching and ditching Microsoft and their "we rule the world, do as we say" attitude.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:Time to turn of automatic updates! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Type the following in a text file:

      [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx]
      "DisableGwx"=dword:00000001

      Save it on your desktop with the extension '.reg'. Then right-click it, 'Run as administrator', and if necessary confirm that yes, you do want to make changes to your machine.

      Tada, no more Windows 10 nagware.

  4. Re:Thanks, Microsoft by bigfinger76 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mint is an Ubuntu fork. And it is wonderful.

  5. Annoying, horrible and badly thought out by wilhil6128 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I support quite a few companies and Microsoft have created so much hassle for me recently with this, we now try to block these updates from happening, but, like most people, the first wave caught us off guard. Windows 10 is not compatible with 2nd gen i3/i5/i7 processors with internal graphics - it causes many BSOD and various system problems after about 30-90 minutes usage. Intel have not to date released a driver upgrade. Microsoft does not block these systems from upgrading to Windows 10.

  6. Re:Thanks, Microsoft by Da+Cheez · · Score: 4, Informative

    Mint is an Ubuntu fork. And it is wonderful.

    +1 to this. I actually switched my wife to Mint with Cinnamon from Mac OS. All the drivers worked without any tweaking. My wife's not technical at all, but had zero issues using the system and finds it very intuitive. She particularly likes the blend of clean aesthetics and great functionality - she's an artist, so I take her approval of the aesthetics quite seriously.

  7. Re:Media Center by jrumney · · Score: 4, Informative

    If I could find a suitable alternative to Windows Media Center

    Kodi?

  8. Re:Serves you right... by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Want to know the truth? Get an XP box with no updates connected to the internet without a firewall? Countdown to infection is around 30 to 45 seconds!

    I saw that paraded so much that eventually i tried it, and no it is complete bullshit.

    You aren't as right as you think. There was a time when a fresh install of XP was indeed infected before updates could be downloaded from Microsoft. That pretty much ended with SP3. Actually, I think it was addressed with SP2, but the first SP2 also broke XP on AMD machines, causing an endless reboot cycle. Naturally I was quite biased against SP2 for that reason.

    Just because your experiment failed doesn't mean that the stories are lies. I experienced that "complete bullshit", thank you very much.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  9. Re:Serves you right... by chipschap · · Score: 5, Informative

    I did that (hide the Windows 10 install update). Guess what? When I "check for updates" it's back, and selected by default. What are also back are the other updates I've hidden that backport telemetry to Windows 8.1 (although they at least aren't force-selected for install). Hiding does no good.

    I have Windows 8.1 on a partition for use when I absolutely can't avoid doing something under Windows (thankfully not often). Otherwise I never even touch that steaming pile and run off my Linux partition, where I can get work done without having to watch my back, not just for hackers, but to protect myself from the vendor that wants our trust and does everything possible to lose it.

  10. not in their favor.. by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Informative

    ..however it fits PERFECTLY with their recent actions, so I REALLY DON'T FUCKING BELIEVE IT TO BE A MISTAKE.

    like, first they make the fucking popup come up every 15 mins or so to get you to download the update, then they port some 'diagnosis'(presumably to diagnose why people are not installing windows 10) back to 7/8, then they move to downloading the update in background regardless.

    THEN they start popping up the installer WITH ONE BUTTON.

    would MS do such a mistake? I mean, this is the microsoft that has already for few years perverted their own UI standards to coax people into making choices they want the user to make rather than giving the user a clear choice to decline, there's ample examples of that behavior such as on new windows installation making screens that have a button element and another button that's a link element that _functionally_ both act as buttons - the one that is made to look not like a button however is the choice they don't want you to make - so it would fit perfectly with that UI shenigans to make on purpose a popup that had no cancel button on it since "hey if the user closes the dialog then that counts as a cancel, amirite???".

    it's bullshit. and it's remarkable bullshit coming from a company that had nailed the easy to use window UI down 15 years ago already and should just have stuck with that and their own guidelines that they did with real science and real user studies that just were done to benefit the user, since that it has been downhill for them(really, win2k era was the pinnacle, then they started skinning and just doing cutesy shit and now even worse they started to 'guide' the user).

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.