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Microsoft Denies Rogue Windows 10 Upgrades, Says Users Remain Fully In Control (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: Despite significant user outcry that Microsoft Windows 10 upgrade mechanism has gone rogue, installing on customers' Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 machines when their backs were turned or they were otherwise away from the computer, Microsoft is pleading innocent. News broke of the automatic Windows 10 upgrades over the weekend, and in nearly every case, it was claimed Windows 10 installed without user intervention. Microsoft issued the following statement regarding the alleged unplanned upgrades: "We shared in late October on the Windows Blog, we are committed to making it easy for our Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 customers to upgrade to Windows 10. As stated in that post, we have updated the upgrade experience to make it easier for customers to schedule a time for their upgrade to take place. Customers continue to be fully in control of their devices, and can choose to not install the Windows 10 upgrade or remove the upgrade from Windows Update (WU) by changing the WU settings." However, users are still reporting the Windows 10 has allegedly forcefully taken over their machines. Hundreds and maybe thousands of users and IT admins are still chiming in on various threads around the web that they've "been had" by Microsoft.
Happened on my wife's Windows 7 system over the weekend.
Which is why I shut off updates completely
The popup before the forced install said "do you want to install Windows 10 now, or download it for installation later". Either of those option is consent to install Windows 10. You probably selected "download for later installation" thinking you'd have a chance to refuse the installation. What you should have done is click the close-box top right.
It was a trick.
We have some old machines which are clearly unable to run Windows 10. They barely run Windows 7. Yet, they keep getting notifications to upgrade to Windows 10, and list it on available updates. It is never going to run on a Pentium M or D machine. Microsoft, include a hardware check before you try to push it!
Happened to my daughter's computer. Unfortunately, her internet access was obtained over an LTE device (Rogers "Rocket Stick") - the Windows 10 downloads resulted in a $100 Cdn bill.
Yesterday I had a customer call because one of his PCs has updated to Windows 10 without asking. According to the user, she had come back to her PC to see the update already installing. Of course I cannot know if that is the complete story, users are notoriously unreliable, but a couple of things come to mind.
First, the customer called mainly because some programs stopped working. If things stop working it's not an "upgrade", its a whole new OS, and you have to market it that way, and wait for people to install it proactively. Anything else is irresponsible.
Second, reports like this one are suddenly multiplying. There is no real difference in my mind between starting the "upgrade" on Windows' own volition or offering the "upgrade" to the user so many times and in so different ways as to make it practically sure that he or she will accept it by mistake.
Microsoft is clearly confident in that its ecosystem is so solid in the desktop that nothing they do will change that. They are probably right, most of my customers are so heavily invested in the MS environment that nothing at all will make them change. One tried to switch away from Office to LibreOffice and, after a couple of years, had to backtrack licking its wounds.
So you have a monopoly, but also a saturated market. You miss out on the Web revolution because you don't like centralized services, you like distributed better, that's your business. Then you miss out on the mobile revolution because the interface is so different from the one you have, and in your religion there is only one commandment, and it is :"There is only one Windows, and all pledge loyalty to It". So God forbids that you make something imaginative, like another system that works well with Windows. Afterwards you foul your cash cow by changing the interface that was working (desktop Windows) to be usable in the touchscreen world, apparently ignoring that people are well capable of learning and using two different interfaces with ease.
So you prod your customers in the direction you want, even if you are not very sure of it being a good direction. It may be a winning strategy, who knows, not I, I have never earned the fat bonuses these marketing geniuses make. But in my book, prodding customers isn't a winning strategy.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
In my case the solution was completely disable the Windows Update service (denying the service from booting, not just change a setting on the control panel). No more Windows updates for me, but these days I no longer trust the service to leave it on.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
That was my experience as well. EXCEPT I had successfully rescheduled it several times AND THEN one night, it started upgrading without warning me. IT threw me off without a restart notice, there was no countdown that you mentioned. I was very disappointed to lose what I had been writing in a web app hosted by my Uni caused by the sudden and unexpected restart.
[Customers] can choose to not install the Windows 10 upgrade or remove the upgrade from Windows Update (WU) by changing the WU settings.
Hear that? It's not automatic IF YOU OPT OUT by changing the WU settings.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
> Just use your Windows in a 32GB partition.
That's the workaround? I mean, I bet that works. It's just like... Windows users will put up with ANYTHING!
I ran Windows Update last night, and the 'Upgrade to Win 10' (an optional update) was auto-selected.
The Windows Update page at this point had only one option to click. Begin installation of Windows 10.
Just like this: http://postimg.org/image/qkvw8...
You had to go into "show all available update options" which is in small blue text. Deselect the optional update, so that you can select the "important" ones.
Today, I thought, I'll open Windows Update to see what the small blue text was, to be more accurate...and guess what... yeah the Windows 10 "optional" update is reselected, and if you bother looking at the image above, again the only option to proceed unless you "show all available update options"
So Microsoft can claim whatever the fuck they want. It's bullshit.
The jerks at M$oft are drunk with corporate cool-aid and follow other objectives abusing their customers.
Happens a lot, just look at any larger corporation, where the only goal it to increase bottom-line - take them to the cleaner!
It is not as if Microsoft does not employ people who are competent at designing and testing proper user interfaces: People who know and expect how users will interface with Windows Update.
They expect people to install it by mistake.
The forced update is nothing else but intentional douchebaggery.
To blame the users is probably what they had planned to do all along.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Do you not find it remarkable that each and every one of these... "incompetent" mistakes are always in their favor?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?