Microsoft Backtracks On 'Nasty Trick' Upgrade To Windows 10 (bbc.co.uk)

Reader Raging Bool writes: Days after angering many users with its so-called "nasty trick", Microsoft has reversed its crazy decision to infuriate users by upgrading them to Windows 10 automatically. Users were angry that clicking the cross to dismiss the box meant that they had agreed to the upgrade. Based on "customer feedback", Microsoft said it would add another notification that provided customers with "an additional opportunity for cancelling the upgrade". Microsoft told the BBC it had modified the pop-up as a result of criticism: "We've added another notification that confirms the time of the scheduled upgrade and provides the customer an additional opportunity for cancelling or rescheduling the upgrade. If the customer wishes to continue with their upgrade at the designated time, they can click 'OK' or close the notifications with no further action needed."

Comments

Malware trick

[Anonymous Coward]

A typical malware trick, make the close button install the stuff.

Criminals.

Re:Malware trick

[Infiniti2000]

Agreed. Fuck you, Microsoft. I had already trained my 9yo son to press the X to close the upgrade window whenever he might see it (he uses my computer more than I). Saturday morning, Windows 10 was installed. Goddamn it.

Re:Malware trick

[wkwilley2]

Almost seems like they were betting on the vetted response for popups, which is to hit the X immediately after it pops up.

Re:Malware trick

[JohnFen]

Microsoft retrofitted much of its Win 10 spyware into Windows 7 updates a while back.

Re:Malware trick

[NatasRevol]

That no matter what they do, Microsoft will try to screw them?

Re:Malware trick

[oh_my_080980980]

At your own risk: ""My attempt to roll it back to Windows 7 resulted in the blue screen of death and a dead PC. I now have to reinstall my home computer from scratch because of this so-called 'free' upgrade."

RTFA.

Re:Malware trick

[JohnFen]

Unlike with Windows 10, with Windows 7 you actually can remove the spyware. Check out this link: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmas...

Re:Malware trick

[Obfuscant]

Unless you cancel, it will upgrade. That's pretty automatic.

If you enable automatic updates, that pretty manual. That's what's happening here. Users who have opted to automatically install recommended updates are being notified that there is a scheduled update to Windows 10. Clicking the "x" on the notification doesn't stop the scheduled update, it only closes the notification window -- which is what the 'x' is supposed to do.

It's like a notification that pops up that says "you have new email". You wouldn't expect the system to delete your email if you click on the 'x' to close the notification, would you? Of course not. Well, this is a notification that tells you that there is a scheduled update going to happen. Clicking 'x' closes the notification. If you don't want the scheduled thing to happen, change the schedule.

The issue is NOT that "clicking the x performs the update", because it doesn't. The issue is that Microsoft made Windows 10 a recommended update, which is catching people who have automatic updates turned on.

Re:Malware trick

[Gr8Apes]

In short, install W7 from a known "clean" source, as much as that exists, and then manually download and update only those pieces that you deem necessary. There's a list out there somewhere with what you need.

While I may be flippant above, it actually is the right answer for 99% of windows users, including most admins. If you're running any still supported windows, you will need to expend significant effort to ensure that you are both "safe"* and not subject to those "bad" updates.

I say this from the POV of someone that has gone through that process with NT/2K/XP/2003/2008/2008R2 in stripping down the OS to only what was needed, removing large amounts of useless (to me) and insecure components and only keeping those that were needed updated. The first step in any of these processes is to remove Windows Update entirely from the system. The second is download all updates you need. If you're lucky, a service pack can be used and then stripped down post install. In others, be prepared for a couple of days of fun getting everything packaged up. Slipstreaming an install disk used to be the way to go. With the latter few OSes we didn't have to install much, because those were appliances that were heavily restricted and cordoned off from just about everything with only 2 services really available. Keeping up with the updates is a different story though, that's almost a full time job.

* "safe" means you have the updates necessary for security for those components you have running, as much as windows can be made "safe". You'll note elsewhere that my opinion on windows (in)security can be summed up as "a castle built on sand". Everything you code in windows has to design around the masked security tokens they use, where each process must have a maximum permission token for the process with permissions masked for anything you wish to reduce. There is no permission elevation, only removal of mask(s). This is why every buffer exploit in windows is a potential System level process, since just about every process starts with System when it's spawned.

Re:Malware trick

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

It's like a notification that pops up that says "you have new email". You wouldn't expect the system to delete your email if you click on the 'x' to close the notification, would you? Of course not.

I also wouldn't expect the e-mail client I've been happily using for years to one day automatically schedule an update that reorganised its whole UI, started randomly cancelling e-mails I was in the middle of writing to reload itself every now and then, started quietly forwarding my mails to some unknown third party, and corrupted 25% of my saved mail if I tried to back the update out, and then just pop up a random notice not even asking for my active consent to go ahead but just telling me how I'm going to be screwed unless I click the tiny text hidden in the middle of the dialog instead of any of the controls I've been using for those past few years.

Re:Malware trick

[Darinbob]

Nonsense. Why technically clicking cancel did not cause the install (which was pre-scheduled), the effect ws intended to be the same. By having a big button that lets up upgrade immediately they trick people into thinking that anything else stops the upgrade. Once you see the notification, the upgrade is *already* scheduled and *will* happen unless you take action to prevent it. This makes even very smart people able to make mistakes. It is easy to mistake this for yet another Windows 10 advertisement and unless you read and understand every word in the notification you can easily be misled.

Let's make this clear: You will automatically be upgraded to Windows 10 if you do nothing, you will automatically be upgraded if you ignore that notification, you will automatically be upgraded if you reboot your computer. The only way to stop the upgrade is to OPT OUT.

There are three buttons on that notifier, but you only see two. Two buttons are in standard Windows notifier style, the third is in Metro style and is a single word in a small font colored blue, and that third easily overlooked "button" is what must be pressed to cancel the scheduled upgrade.

This current turn around is false. They say "If the customer wishes to continue with their upgrade at the designated time, they can click 'OK' or close the notifications with no further action needed." This is the same behavior as the notification people are complaining about! If you close this second-chance notification by clicking on "x" then it will still install Windows 10 according to the schedule! Theyve given no hints that they will make the second-chance notification be clearer and less ambiguous than the first notification! And they've got the journalists duped as they're reporting a Microsoft "backtrack" when they're still going full speed ahead into the iceberg.

Re:Malware trick

[Darinbob]

Some people have ended up broken when trying to revert and had to reinstall W7 from scratch.

Re:Malware trick

[Darinbob]

The notification will install Windows whether or not you have administrative privilege. That notification basically says that you WILL be upgraded unless you take active steps to stop it, administrator or not. Windows is scheduled to be installed and it will install even if you do nothing at all! This will happen even with a guest user account! Though I suspect you do need administrative privilege to cancel the upgrade...

You're still stuck in the mode of thinking that Microsoft is doing everything properly, or that only idiots can misunderstand a notification designed to fool people, or naively assuming that Windows would never upgrade itself without opt-in permission.

Re:Malware trick

[Darinbob]

Actually that "X" is legitimate. It does exactly what any "X" does and closes the notification. The snag is that Windows 10 upgrade is already scheduled to happen even if you do nothing and click on nothing! The way to stop it is to click on the "here" in the sentence "Click here to change upgrade schedule or cancel scheduled upgrade." In other words you have to click on something that is not a button.

The "X" button is probably the only innocent thing in that notification.

Re:Malware trick

[jez9999]

Here's my personal page I follow for avoiding Win10 & Telemetry:

http://game-point.net/misc/dontEnableAutomaticUpdates/

Re:Malware trick

[dpidcoe]

Doesn't Windows auto-generate a System Restore Point when you do an "Upgrade"/"Update"?

Two problems with this:

1) The installation and subsequent restore take a significant amount of time (we're talking 2-3 hours on a laptop hdd). My mom experienced the joys of this when her computer spontaneously decided to update in the middle of her typing a report for work. It took 2 hours to install windows 10 (no way to stop it once it starts), and then another 2 hours to restore back to windows 8.1 when I declined the windows 10 EULA.

2) If the computer can't boot to windows 10 after the "upgrade", restoring it back to the previous OS as if nothing ever happened gets complicated (if not impossible). I haven't experienced it firsthand, but other slashdot users have reported windows 10 spontaneously installing on older computers that couldn't support it and basically requiring a clean reinstall in order to work.

Re:Malware trick

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm sorry, but you are defending the indefensible. If Microsoft were being as reasonable and transparent as you suggest, it wouldn't be literally front page news that they've upset so many people who were surprised at what happened, didn't want it, and in particular explicitly thought they hadn't agreed to it.

The behaviour we're talking about, installing recommended updates automatically, is the default. It's what someone gets if they don't know to actively change it. If someone didn't install Windows 7 themselves but instead bought a PC with Windows pre-installed, it's unreasonable to assume that they would have any idea there was even anything to change. And for about a decade, the default policy was sensible, because it meant users who didn't know these things still received important security and stability fixes.

Suddenly making an entire new OS (let's not insult anyone's intelligence by pretending it's anything like a normal Windows 7 upgrade, please) recommended is a drastic change in the expected behaviour.

Turning back on various updates that users have explicitly and actively declined previously is a drastic change in behaviour.

Bundling nag messages about the update within otherwise unrelated security updates is a drastic change in behaviour.

You can dress it up however you want, but the end result is still the same: users are being tricked into upgrading, and many of them very clearly didn't want to be and didn't intend to make the choice you blame them for. Microsoft's reputation isn't going to do any better because of the dubious technicalities you're basing your argument on. If this winds up in a court, it's unlikely those types of argument will do them much good either.

Re:Malware trick

[wierd_w]

Yup. Paid close attention to the dialog last night.

My shiny new SSD arrived from Amazon for my upstairs gaming PC, so I decided it would be a good time to do a fresh reinstall.

Did the base install, installed SP1, installed IE11 (Because so much shit wants IE for who knows what gods awful reason), installed security essentials, did the "takes forever and uses lots of ram to check updates" manual update, did the convenience rollup, then checked for updates.

Yup, GWX showed up in an even nastier form than before. It told me proudly that I was scheduled to upgrade on saturday at 11:00am. THERE WAS NO CANCEL BUTTON. I dug through the settings and menu choices. There was no option to cancel the upgrade. The window was just a notification that it had set up the hidden automated task, and when it would happen.

I had to install GWX control panel and use THAT to cancel the update, and remove the GWX components.

From the sound of the summary, microsoft still has "upgrade by default! We KNOW you secretly want it!" as the default, and closing the notification does not cancel the upgrade. They have just begrudgingly added a cancel button, in the disused settings menu, behind a sign that says "beware of the leopard."

It's almost like they simply refuse to accept that what is angering their customers is the "upgrade by default!" behavior, and are acting confused why people dont want to switch.

"an additional opportunity"

[mrchaotica]

Microsoft says they'll give "an additional opportunity for cancelling the upgrade" -- because respecting the user's choice the first (or second, or fifth, or 20th) time clearly isn't considered by those assholes to be an option!

Re:Duh

[evileeyore]

They're not the market leader anymore, they don't have the advantages of monopoly,

While i agree with your overall sentiment the above is not even close to true. Microsoft has a stranglehold on the PC market as it pertains to OS. https://www.netmarketshare.com... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Sadistic fucks

[SeaFox]

Seriously, what kind of sadistic fucks come up with these idiotic schemes?

The marketing people, likely under the pressure of getting adoption rates up to the C-levels' expectations.
What happened here was they crossed a line into doing something that was directly comparable to malware, and I bet their legal department stepped in to say this was a bad idea.

People keep asking in the comments on these stories why no civil/criminal charges have been brought against Microsoft for these "forced upgrades" and here is an example of the company actually worrying about that.

be ware of the leopard

[Anonymous Coward]

something tells me that this additional option will be on "display", like in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

“But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.”
“Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.”
“But the plans were on display ”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.”

Re:be ware of the leopard

[just_another_sean]

Happy Towel Day!

http://www.towelday.org/

Next Try

[PPH]

A popup with an "Upgrade to Windows 10 now? [ ]Yes [ ]No" message.
Where the "[ ] No" checkbox is animated and keeps running away from the mouse.

Re: Duh

[cfalcon]

> Also, Apple gave away Mavericks for free. I don't see anyone complaining that Apple plans to move to a subscription based model for OS X. Why not?

Because Apple sells hardware.
Because Apple doesn't have a history of absolutely rampant customer abuse.
Because Apple has motivation to keep their ecosystem good.
Because Apple has legitimate ways to make money.
Because Apple doesn't hunt down and delete your old version of Solitaire, put a special flag that doesn't let it run in its most modern OS, offer a new version of Solitaire with ads, and then offer a subscription.

Seriously, if you don't think Microsoft's treatment of Solitaire and Minesweeper is a canary, you're being stubborn. If you want Windows 7 Solitaire- which you payed for and own- to work on Windows 10, you must first back it up, and then you must patch the binary to not demand it only run on Windows 7. At which point it runs fine. But this is absolutely a template for how to force people into a subscription model. At the very least, you can see that disabling ads will become a pay service at some point, right? Given that they JUST DID THAT?

Huh?

[Andreas Mayer]

If the customer wishes to continue with their upgrade at the designated time, they can click 'OK' or close the notifications with no further action needed.

Isn't that exactly what they were doing already in the criticized "nasty trick" dialog?

Let me quote from the slashdot submission on that thing:

"This means dismissing the box does not dismiss the update."

And now it reads:

"If the customer wishes to continue with their upgrade [...] they can [...] close the notifications with no further action needed"

So they are "listening to user feedback" by doing the exact same thing a second time?

It's not a nasty trick

[Dunbal]

Let's call it what it is: FRAUD. The "X" symbol in the top right corner of a window has been used to close a window since windows has existed. Therefore there's a pretty clear precedent established that when a user clicks there, he means to close the window. Changing the meaning of this symbol and causing it to do something completely opposite to what is intended without prior notice is a completely deceptive practice. Microsoft should be ashamed. Microsoft might also be liable. After all, any EULA for the current OS cannot cover or hide DECEPTIVE PRACTICES BY MICROSOFT. And of course you can't be held under any Windows 10 EULA since you quite obviously chose the "X" to not install it. So I hope these fraudulent installs trashed or tied up some important machines and lawyers are getting ready to take them to court. It's no less than they deserve for stooping to the level of scam internet pop-up ads.

And yet

[JohnFen]

And yet, I still hear people saying things like "Microsoft has changed", "Microsoft isn't evil anymore", or even "Microsoft is a good guy now".

How many times does Microsoft have to demonstrate that they're still the same old Microsoft before people stop believing this nonsense?

Re:Why do people getting so stupid about this?

[OzPeter]

Seriously two simple solutions, either A) Google Aegis Script Windows 7

How the hell do I know to google something that I have never heard of before? (Seriously .. I just had to google it to find out what you mentioned)

or B) Format and install Linux.

This trope has to die. There are many applications that are windows only and will never ever in a million years have a FOSS equivalent, and there just as many exceptions to "just run wine".

And running VM's instead means that you have to be a Linux admin as well as a windows admin.

Lesson Number Two in MBA school

[ThatsNotPudding]

"Better to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission."



Lesson Number One is "Steal, rob, and lie at will."

There are no other lessons. Here's your MBA.

"User's choice"

[The MAZZTer]

I think the problem is users are confusing the dialog for a typical multiple-choice decision dialog. It's common to click the close button when you're not sure since that typically selects the "safe" option. But the close button does not always do this, it depends on the type of window. If I close Outlook, I expect it to still have all my e-mails when I open it up again; if I find it cancelled my account I would be upset. In that case, clicking close is assumed to mean that the user does not want any changes to happen to their e-mail; they are done with it for now.

Microsoft was a bit overzealous in scheduling upgrades for users. The dialog that shows up is NOT a decision dialog; the decision was already made by Microsoft! It was an informational dialog to notify you of the decision (and gives you an apparently difficult-to-find control to change this decision). Informational dialogs, by definition, do nothing when you close them; the upgrade would have been kept and that was perfectly in line with the standard for Windows UX. Unfortunately it also proved to be confusing, but I don't think it was malicious. Clearly Microsoft needed to change it since it was confusing users, and they are doing so.

Windows Update works the same way. If you start an update and close the window, the update does not stop. Instead it continues running in the background, since it is an important (to Microsoft) process. So it's understandable a similar process, the upgrade, would be designed to work in a similar way. Like I said, actual user experience now shows it was confusing so it's good MS is changing it.

Re:"User's choice"

[Darinbob]

The close button does indeed close the notification. But the rest of the notification is designed to fool people. Most of the dialogue is in older Windows GUI style. The "Upgrade now" choice is a classic button. But the opt out method is not a button but is a metro style web like "link" to click on, with only a change in color and thus easily overlooked (especially by people on Windows 7 not used to the metro UI).

Re:Why do people getting so stupid about this?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Seriously two simple solutions, either A) Google Aegis Script Windows 7 or B) Format and install Linux.

I picked option B, and installed Linux Mint (dual boot) on my laptop. Works like a charm .

Windows upgraded the Win 7 on the Windows partition to Win 10 without permission, and promptly locked me out by asking for anon-existent login and password. I was able to do the "make it fail 3 times when booting" trick and revert to Win 7 on that partition, but it was too little too late. I doubt I'll ever boot into Windows on the laptop again because Mint seems to be working just fine. The best part of doing system updates on Mint is that (so far, anyway) I've never had to reboot after the updates.

Re:Duh

[Killall -9 Bash]

I don't mind windows, or any other brand, having a add supported version. My problem is that you walk into best buy, purchase windows 10 for $170, and you get the same experience as the guy who paid nothing.

You don't have the option of purchasing a non-douchy version of windows 10. So instead, I will be running windows 7 SP1, with updates turned OFF for the foreseeable future.

Re:Dear Microsoft

[Z00L00K]

About as much as I want herpes.

How many times do I have to tell Microsoft...

[QuietLagoon]

from TFA: Based on "customer feedback", Microsoft said it would add another notification that provided customers with "an additional opportunity for cancelling the upgrade".

How many friggin' times do I have to tell Microsoft that I DO NOT WANT WINDOWS 10 ON MY PCs?

.
If Microsoft is this tone deaf about my desires now, what would it be like when/if I ever decide to upgrade to Windows 10, what will I lose control of then?

Nicely done, Microsoft

[Sax Russell 5449D29A]

Sure thing, remove the feature after all the damage has been already done. This was a calculated move, and everybody knows that. There were voices inside the company who said this was a bad idea, but execs took the Pinto route and calculated the PR damage to be less than the market share gains. Shows us just how crooked they are under all the sweet talk.

My wife was infuriated when her computer suddenly started installing Windows 10. That was the last straw for her, she decided to buy a Mac.

Re:It took the BBC to do this?

[Darinbob]

No, if you look closely there is no apology or backtracking. They are offering a second chance notification that will probably do exactly the same thing.

"If the customer wishes to continue with their upgrade at the designated time, they can click 'OK' or close the notifications with no further action needed."

In other words, if you close the notification then you'll be upgraded to Windows 10. No where have they said that they'll make it easier to opt out, and the statement above means that they will not go to an opt-in process and are still relying on the strategy of fooling the users.