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Windows 10 Now a 'Recommended Update' For Windows 7 and 8.1 Users (betanews.com)

Mark Wilson writes: Microsoft has been accused of pushing Windows 10 rather aggressively, and the company's latest move is going to do nothing to silence these accusations. For Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users, Windows 10 just became a 'recommended update' in Windows Update.

This is a change from the previous categorization of the upgrade as an 'optional update' and it means that there is renewed potential for unwanted installations. After the launch of Windows 10, there were numerous reports of not only the automatic download of OS installation files, but also unrequested upgrades. The changed status of the update means that, on some machines, the installation of Windows 10 could start automatically.

22 of 581 comments (clear)

  1. Number, please? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What's the KB code number so I can hide it?

    1. Re:Number, please? by omglolbah · · Score: 4, Insightful
  2. fuck you microsoft! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    take your nasty crappy spyware modern metro flat ugly boring os and shove it up ballmers ass! we dont want what your giving away for free!

  3. Critical by NicoNet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Next it will be a critical update.

  4. Microsoft Recommendations by rcase5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've made it my business to never do what Microsoft recommends. That has served me well over the years.

  5. This is what happens when monopoly revenue falls.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Windows Revenue is down 50% because of the mobile revolution. Then there are technologies like Citrix that are challenging Microsoft's dominance in corporate America.

    The new business model is obvious; monetize non-business customers by trapping them in a windows through a walled garden while selling their personal information to the highest bidder while protecting the corporate deployment base.

    Microsoft thinks all their customers are mom and dad surfing e-mail on their home pc's when in reality they just killed tens of thousands of small businesses, small pc shops, SOHO offices and so forth running windows PC's with legacy code. This is the knucklehead moment where they behead themselves and the market realizes just how dangerous Microsoft really is. They are going to tick off a lot of people and impress nobody if they pull this off successfully; given the state of the market and computers in general I doubt they are going to get out of this unscathed.

  6. Re:MS Wants to Own Your Machine for Good by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And after all they work of training users to keep systems patched, Microsoft goes out and makes patches a bad thing. Nice move!

  7. Re:This is what happens when monopoly revenue fall by houstonbofh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yep. They just made all those alternatives (Android tablets, chrombooks, Mac, Linux...) a lot more attractive.

  8. Re:As someone who "upgraded" to Win10 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This post makes no sense.

    1) Why would you use ctrl-leftmouse to move a window? When I had Win10, I dragged the windows around as usual, using the titlebar.
    2) Are you sure your mouse or trackpad are not dirty or defective? Sounds like random movements caused by lint in the optical sensor, or a wet trackpad
    3) Is your laptop set to suspend when the lid is closed, or keep running? Sounds like the latter
    4) Ok, this one might be true. Once, after rebooting, trying to change the wallpaper gave an error message about some kind of URL handler, but started working again after five minutes
    5) I didn't run Win10 long enough to check, ditching it for Win7 after a couple of days

    Let's try to keep our Win10 complaints realistic, like the shit UI redesign and the privacy nightmares. Hardware problems are not the fault of the OS.

  9. Re:Make sure Windows 10 does what you need it to d by mykepredko · · Score: 3, Insightful

    At least I wasn't told to reimage the PC...

  10. Re:If you're still mucking about with com ports... by AmazingRuss · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's .... ugly. I had no idea.

  11. Re:This is what happens when monopoly revenue fall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    in reality they just killed tens of thousands of small businesses, small pc shops, SOHO offices and so forth running windows PC's with legacy code.

    So what? The value of a Windows 7/8/8.1 user is $0 to Microsoft. The value of a Windows 10 user is $x per year. The only thing that matters is converting as many people as possible to Windows 10. If in the process they break a PC that cannot possibly run Window 10, then it's not a loss.

  12. Reading between the lines by scdeimos · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From TFA:

    ...we are committed to making it easy for our Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 customers to upgrade to Windows 10.

    In other words they're making it as difficult as possible to avoid upgrading.

  13. Re:I am wondering what would happen after 1 year by Scorch_Mechanic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At this point I expect that the supposed cutoff date will roll around, and then one of two things will happen:

    1) They start charging whatever they're charging for it. But it won't stop being a "Recommended" update for 7 and 8.1. Meaning of course that some loser will turn updates back on or boot up a laptop that spent seven months without a battery, get updated, and suddenly find their copy of Windows 10 isn't licensed and they have a thirty day countdown. Pay up, sucker.

    2) Nothing happens. It remains free. Eventually Microsoft will get around to yanking the updates, but probably not before something like option one happens. Credits to carrots the nagware will stick around though, just different. And no way are the telemetry updates getting removed.

    Look deep into your heart. Which one do you think is gonna happen?

    --
    You should turn signatures off.
  14. Re: MS Wants to Own Your Machine for Good by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because it's MY MACHINE, perhaps?

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  15. Re:Most people don't defend against creeping abuse by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When a business no longer provides a worthwhile product or service which it can sell, it switches to lock-in/rent-seeking mode.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  16. Re:Family member's WIN computer got locked out by jones_supa · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Rather than fiddling with keys and password recoveries, we have just installed Linux Mint.

    No complains or further questions. People use computer for browsing mostly.

    If you guide them through the narrow path to only start up a web browser, then I guess it stays in one piece for some time.

    However, generally my Linux experience consists of swimming in a sea of "Sorry, something went wrong" error messages and manually fixing various glitches. Makes me much more angry than Windows.

  17. Re:MS Wants to Own Your Machine for Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I just turned off windows updates on my win8.1 netbook. Sure, it might get rooted by random internet script-kiddies, but that's still better than a 100% chance of immediately getting rooted by Microsoft's own script-kiddies.

    Windows Update is simply no longer trustworthy.

  18. Re:Farewell to the soulskill and samzenpus by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    " Iâ(TM)ve heard reports from credible sources of layoffs at Slashdot, with many longtime employees being shown the door, with their jobs either eliminated or handed over to less costly and relatively inexperienced staff. Goodwill or no, this canâ(TM)t have a positive effect on the siteâ(TM)s usersâ(TM) experience."

    It can hardly get any worse, can it? The longtime employees weren't doing their jobs. The editors didn't edit, we still can't copy and paste without stupid characters appearing in the copy, they would post at least one dupe a week...

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  19. Re: And when are they going to allow 7 Enterprise. by NotDrWho · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Jeebus, look at how complicated those instructions are just to disable it. If they had wanted to they could have made it a simple checkbox in the install pop-up.

    I don't know why MS is pushing this update so crazy hard. But it's made me NOT want to install it...not ever. I actually was interested in upgrading to Win10 at first. But seeing how aggressively they're pushing it has made me suspicious that something skeevy is going on here behind the scenes. No way am I going to install it now.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  20. It's malware. Sue them. by Chas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seriously, the Win10 upgrade crap has reached the point where it's effectively malware.

    AV/Anti-Malware providers need to start killing it on an automated basis.

    And a lawsuit needs to be brought against Microsoft for infecting their users computers with it.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  21. Re: And when are they going to allow 7 Enterprise. by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Jeebus, look at how complicated those instructions are just to disable it. If they had wanted to they could have made it a simple checkbox in the install pop-up.

    Yes, but then people would have used it.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...