Microsoft Asked To Compensate After Windows 10 Update Bricked PCs (www.bgr.in)

Microsoft has been asked to pay compensation to customers who suffered malfunctions on their PCs when upgrading to Windows 10. Several customers have complained in the past one year about issues such as their computer upgrading to Windows 10 without their consent, and high-data usage due to automatic downloads of Windows 10 installation files in the background. The consumer watchdog has told Microsoft to "honor consumers' rights" and compensate those who have faced issues because of Windows 10. From a report:"Many people are having issues with Windows 10 and we believe Microsoft should be doing more to fix the problem," said Alex Neill, director of policy at Which? Of 2,500 people surveyed, who had upgraded to Windows 10, more than 12 percent said they ended up rolling back to their previous version of the operating system. More than half stated that this was because the upgrade had adversely affected their PC. "We rely heavily on our computers to carry out daily activities so, when they stop working, it is frustrating and stressful," Alex Neill, Director of Campaigns and Policy, was quoted as saying.

Comments

Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Coward]

No seriously, how do i get in on this. This is going to be a wonderful mess.

Re: Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Coward]

The lawyers will get 50%. Everyone else will get the rest, so after splitting it over millions...probably a dollar.

What will you spend your dollar on?

Re:Where do I line up?

[BarbaraHudson]

Sorry, this is just a British consumer rights lobby. Call me when Elizabeth Warren goes on the warpath over this.

Re:Where do I line up?

[nnull]

I'm surprised this isn't getting more traction. A manufacturing facility not far from me is heavily reliant on Telepacific (If anyone knows, they have lousy expensive service and mostly the only choice in industrial areas), had all his PC's downloading the Windows 10 upgrade on a T1. Suffice to say, his network was dead slow for over a week until I came in and just pretty much blocked Microsoft completely on his firewall. Not a good solution, but it kept his business from going under because they couldn't reply to emails.

Worst of all, that still didn't stop some PC's finding a way around it. The whole Windows 10 upgrade was like a virus trying to find a way to download itself. Unfortunately I can't move him to Linux like I did my facility since he would need a competent IT guy there (Even though half his work is done through a putty console, yeah) and the current IT guy there is barely competent in anything Windows.

That wasn't the only woes I've seen. I've seen a multi-million dollar bottling machine grind to a halt because of the Windows 10 upgrade (To my amusement in front of me) and I've seen a CNC machine just stop working requiring a complete software overhaul because of the Windows 10 upgrade (Which wasn't so amusing because I needed the parts). Perhaps it's the manufacturers and the owners fault for using/requesting Windows in the first place (I've made my agreements force manufacturers to use Linux, or no deal, I don't know why people are afraid of doing this), but Microsoft should definitely be liable for this.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Grishnakh]

Perhaps it's the manufacturers and the owners fault for using/requesting Windows in the first place

Exactly.

but Microsoft should definitely be liable for this.

No, it shouldn't. If you're dumb enough to design an obviously-defective software product into your mega-$$$ industrial machine, then *you* should be liable. The makers of these machines should be liable for this, not MS. They've been building windows into these machines for a couple decades now, stupidly, and they need to suffer the consequences. Windows was never the right tool for the job.

If some avionics company stupidly decided to use Windows for the avionics on a passenger jet, and the jet crashed because of a Windows 10 update, would you blame MS or the avionics company? I'd blame the avionics company. Windows was never designed for any kind of safety-critical application, or any kind of application at all where reliability is required.

To my amusement in front of me) and I've seen a CNC machine just stop working requiring a complete software overhaul because of the Windows 10 upgrade

My home-built CNC machine doesn't have this problem; it runs on Debian.

Re: Where do I line up?

[zlives]

i am just looking for 3.50

Re:Where do I line up?

[sudden.zero]

Me too. When my PC automatically upgraded to Windows 10 it made my PC useless for quite some time. First my video-card burned up due to the NVidia card driver issue, and then once I replaced my video-card my power-supply gave out a few days later. I'm still having video issues, and I'm probably going to call MS and have them roll me back to windows 7.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

True, but don't underestimate the power of Which?. They have a high profile, and when these guys speak, the media pays attention. This could bring an ugly issue for Microsoft to much wider public and therefore political awareness than any number of geeks calling Microsoft out for it in their geeky online forums.

Also, it's not token compensation Microsoft has to worry about in this situation, even though such compensation might wind up outweighing any near-future benefits from the big GWX campaign financially. The real problem they're going to have is if someone wins a suit against them for consequential losses and whatever weasel words they have in their legalese don't get them out of it, opening the floodgates to thousands or even millions or similar claims. Well, that or actual criminal charges for unauthorised access to computer systems, given that clearly a lot of people believed they had declined the update but then had it installed anyway. Given that we have quite strong consumer protection laws here in the UK, I wouldn't consider either of those possibilities out of the question unless a real lawyer can explain why those rules clearly couldn't apply here.

Re: Where do I line up?

[thundercattt]

Same here, it upgraded then failed. Lost everything.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're having hardware failures that you blame on windows, and you're not marked as troll?

Re: Where do I line up?

[D00MSlayer]

God Damn Loch Ness Monsta! I Ain't givin' you no Tree Fidy!

Re: Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Coward]

CNC = Command and Conquer. It's a fun game.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows was never designed for any kind of safety-critical application, or any kind of application at all where reliability is required.

Total BS on the latter. Windows is designed and sold for business use.

Re:Where do I line up?

[BarbaraHudson]

Let's play devil's advocate.

The unauthorized access was easy to avoid - turn off updates. Microsoft will argue that all those popups informed users that Windows 10 was an update, and like any other update, if you didn't turn updates off, that's your problem.If the repeated prompts were that much of a pain, a quick search shows what to do.

They will also argue that the maximum liability is set at $5 for the original OS, and Windows 10 is just an OS update, so the liability terms haven't changed.

Which?, or one of their staff, should take Microsoft to court if they got hit with the update. Not going to happen - it's easy to vent on the internet, hard to actually do something in the real world.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Khyber]

I'd definitely mark troll for the power supply comment. Windows has exactly zero to do with that. For the GPU issue, that could very well be caused by Microsoft.

Re:Where do I line up?

[mindwhip]

Given the number of documented malware-like tricks (deceptive buttons, hidden options, X that means "accept", disguised and misrepresented patches, unable to disable without additional software etc.) The should have jst turned updates off argument won't stick.

As for the eula $5 limit... doesn't wash and isn't legal in a good chunk of the world as it can't trump the consumer rights laws especially when the product is actually retail priced around 25x that value.

Finally while people say "Which? is just a consumer rights group" should realise that they have a very good reputation both with consumers and with Trading Standards (or whatever they call themselves these days, stupid government "rebranding") in the UK who are the legal authority that could force Microsoft to compensate (either directly, or through the courts depending on the specific situation). There have been many Which? articles in the past that have progressed into full on legal sanctions to companies.

Re:Where do I line up?

[LeftCoastThinker]

You are completely wrong here. First off, Windows is marketed as a business tool, and MS has spent millions in advertising to convince the business world that Windows is reliable and well supported.

Further, you are conflating mission critical safety applications, like avioncis, with manufacturing operations, like a CNC machine or bottling plant. Mission critical safety applications, where there is risk of great bodily harm or death go through a much more rigorous set of criteria than a piece of manufacturing hardware or a plant controller. For mission critical safety applications, ever line of code is scrutinized, every piece of hardware is tested for function and reliability and the entire system is rigorously tested for every possible failure mode.

This would be prohibitively expensive for most industrial automation applications, which are concerned mainly with making everything work properly. The few safety critical areas are relegated to safety rated hardware that overrides the industrial automation controller to protect life and limb.

Microsoft marketed and sold Windows as a business OS, and they marketed it with the expectation of continuous reliability and security updates until the stated end of support/end of life. They then deceptively used the Windows update pathway to force a new, incompatible OS with spyware, paid ads and forced updates on their paying customers. If that results in business losses, I am pretty sure that even a jury of non-technical people can follow the logical liability train back to MS and award damages.

Re:Where do I line up?

[LeftCoastThinker]

Unless when his video card CATOD it weakened the power supply (overheated the voltage regulators, pulled excessive current, etc.) and it was just dying a slow death after that.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's not like GPU overheating often causes the GPU VRMs to fail.
...
Well, at least a VRM failure doesn't usually manifest as a dead short from 12V to ground.
...
Well, at least shorting 12V to ground couldn't possibly cause a marginal PSU to kick the bucket.
...

Re:Where do I line up?

[thegarbz]

Production critical equipment has unfettered internet access and this causes problems? Colour me surprised.

In the mean time we have 10s of thousands of Windows 7 PCs from office workers to factory controlling, SCADA, and any number of other services including one that plays internet radio in the office gym. Non of them attempted to install anything because our IT administrators have a clue.

Maybe Windows 10 was a good thing, as it finally brought to attention the frailty of a company's dependence on a computer to the forefront.

Re:Where do I line up?

[thegarbz]

would you blame MS or the avionics company?

I would blame myself and hope that I would get fired for giving a critical system uncontrolled access to the internet. Windows is an OS. It runs everything from critical equipment to toys. Linux likewise. Both of them show similar failure modes here. Windows is used in tens of thousands of production facilities in the world, if not more and the vast majority hum along quite nicely without someone doing something as stupid as giving the computer access to the internet.

Re:Where do I line up?

[BarbaraHudson]

The people in charge don't care. If their own computer craps out, they are so used to this being normal behaviour, same as everyone else. Malware, surfing porn, whatever, they just figure it's normal and get someone to fix it, or they buy another one. If the peons have anything at all potentially embarrassing on their computer and are using Windows 10, just the rumours of what the telemetry reports back to the mother ship will make them keep their mouths shut and just re-install rather than risk their computer being the one that is subpoenaed to destroy the case.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Grishnakh]

No, you are completely wrong here.

First off, Windows is marketed as a business tool, and MS has spent millions in advertising to convince the business world that Windows is reliable and well supported.

Yes, and they lied. GM and Chrysler have been trying to tell me their cars are reliable for decades, and they lied too. Caveat emptor.

Mission critical safety applications, where there is risk of great bodily harm or death

You've never heard of factory machines killing people or hacking their limbs off? It's not quite as risky as aviation stuff, but there's still a high degree of risk with factory machinery.

This would be prohibitively expensive for most industrial automation applications

There's lots of RTOSes out there that don't cost significantly more than Windows. And if you really need graphics, QNX has been doing that for ages; they even use them in Fords now for the infotainment. Windows is the absolute worst choice here. You can even run Linux; it's free and works far better for realtime tasks that Windows. You don't have to engineer those machines to the degree that you do mission-critical avionics, but that doesn't mean you have to use the absolute biggest POS OS available either.

Microsoft marketed and sold Windows as a business OS, and they marketed it with the expectation of continuous reliability and security updates until the stated end of support/end of life. They then deceptively used the Windows update pathway to force a new, incompatible OS with spyware, paid ads and forced updates on their paying customers. If that results in business losses, I am pretty sure that even a jury of non-technical people can follow the logical liability train back to MS and award damages.

Good luck with that. MS has lots of money for lawyers. The US government couldn't even do anything to them in the infamous antitrust trial. This should serve as a lesson to anyone that builds Windows into their products, or even uses it. I've been telling people for almost 2 decades that MS was a bad company to do business with, so I don't have one iota of sympathy for anyone who's getting burned by their business practices now.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The unauthorized access was easy to avoid - turn off updates.

If the user didn't intend to authorise it, there's a strong argument that is was unauthorised. If the user actively attempted to avoid it, for example by cancelling out of dialogs in a way that would normally cause no further action to be taken, that's a very strong argument that it was unauthorised.

The burden of proof would fall on Microsoft to show that it was authorised, but a lot of the arguments they might try to make would be easily undermined at this point by direct and obvious comparisons with techniques used by malware that everyone would agree was unauthorised.

They will also argue that the maximum liability is set at $5 for the original OS, and Windows 10 is just an OS update, so the liability terms haven't changed.

Well, we're talking about the UK, so I'm betting that the maximum liability was not set at $5. In any case, consumer protection laws are relatively strong here, so terms like that could well be unenforceable.

Which?, or one of their staff, should take Microsoft to court if they got hit with the update.

They don't have to. This is Which? we're talking about. They'll probably be taking it up directly with Trading Standards and possibly other government representatives, all of whom will no doubt have received complaints already from other sources as well. And those government authorities will then be in a position to take direct action against Microsoft if they find it appropriate.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Khyber]

You do know what a diode is, right? You do know those are on every rail of even the utterly crappiest of PSUs, right? You do know that since pretty much the 80s the PSU is rather well-isolated from the rest of the system as far as electrical feedback and reverse voltage goes, right?

Do you even have any electrical experience? I've got a bare PSU mounted to a board right now powering a motherboard, again mounted bare to the same plank. De-shrouded GPU, etc. I bet you're the kind of person that hasn't ever turned a screw in your life.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Khyber]

The PSU is very well-isolated. Even the crappy P4 PSUs that came stock with many systems and only had one 6-pin PCI-E power plug for the GPUs of then (7000+ series nVidia) had diodes and capacitor decoupling in the PSU. No, the PSU was very unlikely to have been killed by the GPU.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux? It's overrated and it's a nightmare to deal with. Yes, with windows 7 takes ages to install and then update the machine compared to linux but once it's done it's pretty much rock solid. Plus, all open source software is easy to install and configure on windows than on linux. CodeBlocks and Netbeans(just to name a few) nothing but issues for me on OpenSuse, Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, But flawless on Windows. Even game emulators run better on Windows. Than, comes the dreaded crackle and pop on Linux audio. Than, comes the open source video driver issues and I can't install the proprietary from AMD because it's not available for the current stable kernel. I forced installing the previous AMD proprietary video release for the new 16.04.01 distro and it froze during boot. That's another problem with linux no driver compatibility and than you have the whole system going down. With windows 7 if the driver has issues it's the driver that crashes not the kernel or the whole system you just go into standard video mode. Torvalds and his cohorts like to dicking around with the kernel and it's no wonder proprietary can't keep up.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you ever think that maybe it's a good idea to remove video and sound drivers before upgrading? Than download and install the appropriate drivers from the Vendors like AMD and Nvidia. I did a couple of upgrades in the past and it never quite worked out, no driver issues, but software application issues. I just install an OS from scratch. I keep my personal data on a second drive and usb flash drives. All OS's(Winddows, OSX, Linux, BSD, etc...) have issues after upgrades.

Re: Where do I line up?

[DRJlaw]

I want my $2!

Signed, an earlier reference from an even better era of entertainment.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Coward]

IT administrators have a clue.

Most companies have incompetent IT. And when it comes to industrial automation, IT is not allowed near this equipment since most IT people in the states have no clue about electrical circuits or controls for that matter.

Re:Where do I line up?

[nnull]

Windows was never designed for any kind of safety-critical application, or any kind of application at all where reliability is required.

Doesn't stop these companies from using it. Beckhoff PLC's are all Windows mini PC's. There's quite a bit of Windows based equipment being sold into mission critical applications, you'd be quite surprised.

My home-built CNC machine doesn't have this problem; it runs on Debian.

That's great, fun for the garage or little hobbies. But major CNC manufacturers all mostly run Windows based software, Makino (The one I saw become completely useless thanks to Windows 10, lol), Haas, etc. Windows is and has become an "Industrial Standard" in many industries unfortunately, even with all its problems. I'm still the minority and unusual guy for requesting Linux.

Re: Where do I line up?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want Microsoft to pay any fines or lawsuits, I want to see their executives put in prison. Anything short of that isn't going to matter.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Grishnakh]

I'd like to see these companies get sued by their customers for making unreliable machines; using Windows was their own choice, and should fall on them.

Re:Where do I line up?

[nnull]

Then you haven't been to many facilities, have you? There are PLC's connected directly to the internet (Siemens sure loves marketing this a lot) and have them sending emails to their phones. Many machines are connected to the internet as many equipment manufacturers now offer monitoring service and remote troubleshooting via the wonderful tool known as Teamviewer. I can name some very big equipment manufacturers that do this without a care in the world about security or problems. So yes, this is quite common in a lot of production facilities in the vast majority of places, not just the US. Is this a good idea? Probably not, but it's happening and it's all over the place.

Re:Where do I line up?

[david_thornley]

So what you're saying is that the companies being victimized should have kept their knees together?

Re:Where do I line up?

[macs4all]

Sorry, this is just a British consumer rights lobby. Call me when Elizabeth Warren goes on the warpath over this.

But you're Canadian. How is Elizabeth Warren going to help you?

Re: Where do I line up?

[zlives]

mmmm 67 camaro

Re:Where do I line up?

[BarbaraHudson]

She would set a precedent that would be useful elsewhere.

Re:Where do I line up?

[Grishnakh]

Well if Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy asks you out on a date, do you accept?

Re:Where do I line up?

[thegarbz]

Actually I have been and I do digital security for many. Interestingly Siemens does most definitely NOT market PLCs connected directly to the internet. That requires ignoring their installation guidelines which clearly require their approved firewalls and machine to receive one way traffic on the far end of it. Similarly most vendors follow a multi-tiered network architecture which most definitely does not include any direct connection to the internet. And remember just because you see a modem doesn't mean it's a direct internet connection.

Most PLCs I see typically are setup with some VPN.

But I do agree, there are idiots everywhere and I frequently have to tell people they are doing it wrong. Just not typically vendors.

Re:Where do I line up?

[david_thornley]

Not comparable. Microsoft has been pretty reliable over the years.

Already compensated

[Anonymous Coward]

The consumers were already compensated. They received a FREE upgrade to Windows 10, the most powerful and secure windows Ever, a 119.99 value!

Consumers could decline the upgrade, or if already upgraded, pay for a new copy of Windows 7 with selective downgrade rights.

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 is not free. Win8 is for most home users a service pack to Win7/8, which everyone has already paid for.

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you've fallen into Poe's Law.

I can't tell if you're a moronic shill of a troll; or a brilliant satirist troll. Doesn't matter much, though. Either way you're a troll.

Re:Already compensated

[Coisiche]

You're one of the Microsoft lawyers, aren't you?

Re:Already compensated

[hcs_$reboot]

The consumers were already compensated. They received a FREE upgrade to Windows 10

Yeah but many (most?) users didn't want this upgrade, even for free.

Re:Already compensated

[D00MSlayer]

I'm hinting sarcasm, but sometimes it's hard to tell on the interwebs, so just in case you're serious...

The consumers were already compensated. They received a FREE upgrade to Windows 10, the most powerful and secure windows Ever, a 119.99 value!

Businesses that lost revenue due to shady Windows 10 upgrade practices should most definitely be compensated for said lost revenue.

Consumers could decline the upgrade, or if already upgraded, pay for a new copy of Windows 7 with selective downgrade rights.

Or ya know.. Microsoft could just stop aggressive malware tactics that forced Windows 10 onto their customers. You have to be out of your mind if you think it's fair to make a consumer pay for a windows 7 license that THEY ALREADY HAD in order to use it again.

Re:Already compensated

[LichtSpektren]

I for one am going to cherish this comment. It is not often one gets to hear the Hellmouth speak our tongue.

Re:Already compensated

[Grishnakh]

Businesses that lost revenue due to shady Windows 10 upgrade practices should most definitely be compensated for said lost revenue.

No, they shouldn't. If they don't like Microsoft's business practices, then they should stop using Microsoft products. Otherwise, they should shut up and stop complaining.

Or ya know.. Microsoft could just stop aggressive malware tactics that forced Windows 10 onto their customers.

Why should they? They can run their company however they want. If you don't like it, don't buy from them any more.

What are you going to do if they don't stop their aggressive malware tactics anyway? File a complaint?

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty incredible that "pay for a new copy of Windows 7" isn't obvious to so many people. This site's userbase gets dumber by the day.

Re:Already compensated

[BarbaraHudson]

That's okay, let's give them all the FREE DRINKING WATER they ever wanted, direct from Flint, Michigan. The old pipes could stand a good workout to help slake off some of the metal contaminants that have accumulated since it was put out of service.
And FREE THALIDOMIDE to give them a reason not to breed any more like them.
And FREE ATOMIC WASTE to help keep them warm in the winter, because Fukushima is still too hot to handle.
And FREE KIDDIE PORN on their hard drives so we can then rat ou the rats.
And FREE MOVIE DOWNLOADS so Sony can kick their ass. (the two kind of deserve each other, don't you thing?)
And FREE WINDOWS PHONES just 'cuz.

Sometimes, free stuff ends up costing a lot more.

Re:Already compensated

[UnknownSoldier]

AIDS and other STD's are free too -- doesn't mean I want them.

> Consumers could decline the upgrade,

Except _they_ couldn't if they had Automatic Updates turned on. It became a mandatory upgrade

Re:Already compensated

[Opportunist]

Come over here and you'll get a FREE kick to your gonads. Hell, make it two, I'm in a generous mood.

Re:Already compensated

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Okay, I'm fine with giving people kiddie porn, atomic waste, and poisoned water, but giving people Windows phones? Doesn't that fall under the "cruel and unusual" clause or something??

Re:Already compensated

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Brilliant trolling, you have loads of people frothing at the mouth right now, lol.

Re:Already compensated

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

It's satire.

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Coward]

My friend's Windows Phone fell out of his shirt pocket 50 feet into a rocky ravine. I consider gravity + fate having done him a favour. May we all be so blessed.

Re:Already compensated

[D00MSlayer]

Wow you are completely unaware of the real world. Your total lack of understanding of the intricacies of this issue speak to your profound level of ignorance, coupled with your complete lack of empathy.

It's not as simple as you would like to make it. Businesses can't just simply port to Linux or Mac if the software they use are not compatible with or made for those platforms.

Microsoft used malware tactics to force Windows 10 on unsuspecting customers, who should have a legal right to refuse a different OS from the one they purchased. They didn't purchase licenses for Windows 10, they purchased licenses for Windows XP, 7, or 8. Nobody ever expected Microsoft to force an OS change, because they never have in the past. When Windows Vista rolled out, it was an offered upgrade for XP users, but they never strong-armed them into it. Same for when Windows 7 came out. They offered an upgrade to windows 7 from Vista, but it was voluntary, and was never forced upon the end-user.

This Windows 10 OS upgrade was at first a voluntary upgrade. You had the option to decline. They changed that a few months ago when they changed the GWX application to essentially force or trick unsuspecting users into upgrades they didn't want or need. They used malware tactics(i.e. remove the ability to close out of the prompts, forcing them to click the 'Upgrade' option(because there wasn't another option at the time), or if hitting the "X" to close the window still initiated the upgrade, or making people "schedule" the upgrade for later, still forcing it to happen because there wasn't an opt-out choice), and in the process they crippled business that are stuck with legacy software for one reason or another(i.e. costs), and ruined numerous PC's whose owners lost data because the Windows 10 upgrade crashed their machine, requiring a factory OS re-install. I know this first-hand because I used to do support for the MS Surface tablets and we had and endless number of customers call in who couldn't get their tablet to boot windows anymore due to corrupted/incomplete upgrades, and the only option we had was a factory OS re-install. Their data was essentially gone unless they were smart enough to back it up somewhere.

Re:Already compensated

[LVSlushdat]

hehe Windows 10 *is* a computer version of an STD, as in a CTD (Computer Transmitted Disease).. Soooooo flippin' glad I've been MS-free since 2010, even though before that, I used/supported that crap for close to 20 years.. (shudders)

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If they don't like Microsoft's business practices, then they should stop using Microsoft products. Otherwise, they should shut up and stop complaining.

That seems a weak argument when we're talking about people who did try to decline the update to Windows 10 but wound up getting it anyway.

Re:Already compensated

[D00MSlayer]

Also, I'm pretty sure that there have already been countless consumer complaints to the FTC and the US AG about this. Who knows what will happen in the end, but this isn't appropriate behavior by a company who's already experienced anti-trust lawsuits.

Re: Already compensated

[Anonymous Coward]

The Geneva Conventions are rules that apply only in times of armed conflict and seek to protect people who are not or are no longer taking part in hostilities; these include the sick and wounded of armed forces on the field, wounded, sick, and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea, prisoners of war, and civilians. POWs shall not be subjected to Microsoft Windows, or updates, including devices.

Re:Already compensated

[unixisc]

Since Microsoft has this, they are in a good position to eliminate - what was it, cancer or all disease? Windows 10 is like the cowpox vaccine

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Coward]

The consumers were already compensated.

Not sure if stupid, shilling, trolling or any combination thereof.

Regardless: Fuck off.

Re:Already compensated

[HiThere]

They've, indeed, "already experienced anti-trust lawsuits". That let them know how serious the penalties were likely to be (i.e., you need to start bribing government officials...of course that's not officially called bribing, it's called making campaign contributions, lobbying, etc., but bribery is what it is by any usage except the strongly "gammed" legal definitions).

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't tell if you're a moronic shill of a troll; or a brilliant satirist troll. Doesn't matter much, though. Either way you're a troll.

Yes. There is absolutely no reason to assume that trolls are trolls.
If someone acts like a moron then the best bet is to assume that they are morons.

"It's just a prank bro!" should be ignored, if someone behaved badly then they behaved badly even if they thought it was a joke.

Re:Already compensated

[thegarbz]

Businesses that lost revenue due to shady Windows 10 upgrade practices should most definitely be compensated for said lost revenue.

I think not. They should be given the finger and a lecture about control and reliance on a critical piece of infrastructure for their office.

No seriously if your computer caused you lost production and you didn't have the facility to quickly and easily get production up without some major rigmarole then you should have learn't your lesson and not be compensated for stupidity.

I wasn't worried about the Windows 10 upgrade on any of my machines. Why? Because I could right now put a bullet through their HDDs and be back up and running 10 minutes later. If your business that critically relies on your computers isn't able to do the same, maybe it's time you suffered slightly before you suffer severely for something that's not related to windows 10.

Re:Already compensated

[Grishnakh]

They didn't decline to use Windows in the first place. Windows Update is an integral part of the OS, and the only way to get security updates, so of course they can also use it to sneak in stuff you don't want. MS never made any promises not to do so, or to give you the freedom to pick and choose what you want; it's possible to selectively apply updates if you go to a lot of extra trouble (though now they're bundling them to make this harder), but that's not the default option. Again, if you don't like the way Microsoft treats you as a customer, stop buying their products. Or continue spending all your time and effort trying to work around and deal with all the issues they cause.

Re:Already compensated

[D00MSlayer]

Look, you may be able to restore your system in 10 minutes, but I'm talking about businesses like mom n pop business shops e.g. small medical practices. They don't have the financial wherewithal to hire a dedicated IT rep to manage their tiny infrastructure on a day-to-day basis. They may hire an IT vendor to set up the basic infrastructure or the do it themselves, but if they chose to go with Windows 7 Pro, for example, they will receive the windows 10 upgrade prompts.

Desk clerks and Doctors aren't IT gurus and don't know how to manage Windows updates like some of us do. If they aren't keenly aware of the specific update that installs the GWX application, then they will be susceptible to the problem of being forced to upgrade to Windows 10. And then once that happens, now they have to spend the unnecessary time it takes to roll back.

Time is money, Garbz, and they're losing money while wasting time because Microsoft decided that they wouldn't take no for an answer.

Re:Already compensated

[Grishnakh]

My lack of empathy comes from the fact that Microsoft has a history spanning 3-4 decades of being a predatory monopolist, so anyone doing business with them has had more than enough warning. No, they can't "just simply port to Linux or Mac" in a short time, but they should have made the correct decision before, which was to avoid using Windows if at all possible. Now they're stuck and they're sufferent the consequences for it, and I'm glad.

They didn't purchase licenses for Windows 10, they purchased licenses for Windows XP, 7, or 8. Nobody ever expected Microsoft to force an OS change, because they never have in the past. When Windows Vista rolled out, it was an offered upgrade for XP users, but they never strong-armed them into it. Same for when Windows 7 came out. They offered an upgrade to windows 7 from Vista, but it was voluntary, and was never forced upon the end-user.

This upgrade wasn't forced on anyone either. They allowed it to be done, and didn't opt out. Oh, the opt-out mechanism didn't work right? Or the rollback mechanism didn't work right? That must be user error... or maybe a small bug, sorry! If that's not a good enough explanation for you, too bad, good luck getting a court judgment. Suing a behemoth like MS isn't a simple or inexpensive task (unless you take it to small-claims court as at least one person has done, but if you're a big business trying to claim serious losses, that's not the right venue).

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

They didn't decline to use Windows in the first place.

What does that have to do with the price of fish? Obviously no-one purchasing Windows 7 back in 2010 knew what the situation would be today, nor did they necessarily give any consent to anything Microsoft today might do unless it was clearly part of their contract of sale. For that matter, someone who purchased a new PC with Windows 7 installed last week presumably wasn't expecting or asking for that PC to be "upgraded" immediately to Windows 10 instead. (You did realise that Windows 7 PCs are just about still available from OEMs today, right?)

Windows Update is an integral part of the OS, and the only way to get security updates, so of course they can also use it to sneak in stuff you don't want.

That may be true technically, but it's far from true legally. That's why they could be in trouble now.

Also, keep in mind that security updates necessarily imply that the original product was defective. The main reason big software companies get away with not being sued all the time for shipping defective products and the damage caused by those defects is that as long as there is a reasonable culture of ongoing support, in particular fixing serious defects such as security vulnerabilities for free and in timely fashion, there is a happy if somewhat informal understanding. Microsoft have long published the lengths of time they commit to giving that support for as part of their lifecycle documentation, and their customers have made purchasing decisions based on that public information. They don't get to go back on that now without taking the consequences, nor does any practical need for them to provide security patches somehow imply that they have permission to do anything else using the same technical mechanisms.

Again, if you don't like the way Microsoft treats you as a customer, stop buying their products.

Perhaps a lot of people already did, but that in no way affects what they are entitled to in connection with any purchases they already made.

Re:Already compensated

[Grishnakh]

Why isn't it appropriate? What are you or anyone else going to do about it? Maybe take them to court, and they'll get a tiny slap on the wrist like what happened with their infamous anti-trust case. Did you completely forget about that? As soon as Bush took office, the government just dropped it and there was no actual punishment.

If you're dumb enough to keep doing business with a company that behaves this way, that has behaved this way for decades (that case was back in 1999!), and apparently even the US Government doesn't feel like reining in, then you deserve whatever happens to you.

Re:Already compensated

[Grishnakh]

Windows 7 came out long after their anti-trust trial where their abusive business practices were brought to light. They've been behaving badly for decades. Everyone has had more than enough time to figure this out and stop doing business with them.

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Where in the anti-trust trial was the part about deceiving users into installing a completely different operating system from the one they thought they were getting, even if they actively didn't want it? Either I missed that minor detail, or you're just making stuff up to support a poor attempt at trolling.

Re:Already compensated

[thegarbz]

but I'm talking about businesses like mom n pop business shops e.g. small medical practices.

So? You're saying mom n pop stores should put the weight of their entire family fortune on a PC? Even they should learn some basic risk.

As for dedicated IT reps, what the heck are you talking about. You don't need a team of IT critical person to help you keep your mom n pop store running. You also don't need a team of dedicated IT gurus to get people to not put critical machinery on the internet. You don't need a team of IT people to ensure that you have a backup working machine offline. You practically don't need any management once a small network is setup in ways that most 15 year olds are perfectly capable of doing.

Windows 10 today.
A spam relay that gets your IP address blacklisted from sending all emails tomorrow.
A ransomware attack next week.
The entire customer database and all their work public on the internet next month.

Who cares what happens? The actual attack is irrelevant. The point is that running a business is not easy. There's things you need to learn, tax forms you need to fill in, payroll and a warehouse to manage. You either have that expertise in-house or you pay a small sum to outsource it. Thinking computers are just a few toys in your business, treating them as such, and yet revolving critical operations around them is just another lesson that mom n pop either learn the easy way or the hard way.

Especially now when the almighty cloud makes everything super easy for everyone a computer shouldn't be interrupting your operations at all.

Re:Already compensated

[Grishnakh]

I'm not making anything up. No, the anti-trust trial wasn't about that specific issue at all, but it's irrelevant. The anti-trust trial proved that the government is completely unwilling to rein in Microsoft's behavior, which they have a 30+ year history of (remember "DOS isn't done 'til Lotus won't run"?). So if you want to sit around and whine about how bad MS is, go ahead, but it isn't productive and it's annoying. The only rational solution, if you don't like the way they're treating you, is to vote with your feet.

As for "trolling", that's not what I'm doing; I'm giving Microsoft users a reality check. You have exactly two choices: 1) continue to use their products, and we'll see if things change for the better and MS has a change of heart and suddenly decides it wants to be nice (I think that's rather naive and stupid, considering their past behavior and also the behavior of every corporation that grows that large and powerful--Apple isn't any better these days, IBM was just as bad at their peak, etc.), or 2) you can find a better vendor.

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, I didn't want the latest update to Win 10 either, it erased all my history & menu saves!

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

So if you want to sit around and whine about how bad MS is, go ahead, but it isn't productive and it's annoying.

Strange that you're still posting in this discussion if you find it so annoying. Also strange that you seem to equate everyone's comments here with mere whining, when at least the people I've been reading and debating with seem to be more interested in talking about actions that might usefully be taken in the real world.

The only rational solution, if you don't like the way they're treating you, is to vote with your feet.

Well, no, we could also raise awareness of the issues to put pressure on them to change their behaviour, and if that doesn't work, we could take legal action on various grounds, which is customarily how one enforces one's rights against a business that is misbehaving and refuses to do better.

or 2) you can find a better vendor.

The trouble is, if all anyone ever does it post online about how they'll take their business elsewhere, that doesn't magically create any better vendors to move to. It takes competition in the market place to do that, and part of that competition comes from holding vendors to the standards we require of them in terms of treating their customers fairly and punishing those that do not meet those standards.

Re:Already compensated

[david_thornley]

Many businesses rely on software that runs on Windows and nowhere else. Many have communication needs that basically require Microsoft Office. Moving away from MS is not necessarily something a business can do and survive. A business has to make decisions that work for them.

The upgrade may not have been technically forced, but it wasn't necessarily consensual. MS used trickery and misdirection to downgrade people from 7 and 8.1 to 10. If Microsoft was directed by a court to show actual consent for many of these downgrades, they'd be in trouble.

Re:Already compensated

[D00MSlayer]

Simply put - You may understand the intricacies of what MS's dirty past has been, but not everyone is as knowledgeable as you are about their history. Considering, again, that MS has a 90% market share on PC OS's to this day, everyone's first thought is get a Windows computer and Windows compatible software.

Trust me, I agree with you and it would be refreshing to see more businesses see MS for what they are and do their damnedest to get away from them, but a majority of small businesses either don't care enough, or don't have the resources to make that decision.

 

This upgrade wasn't forced on anyone either. They allowed it to be done, and didn't opt out. Oh, the opt-out mechanism didn't work right? Or the rollback mechanism didn't work right? That must be user error... or maybe a small bug, sorry! If that's not a good enough explanation for you, too bad, good luck getting a court judgment. Suing a behemoth like MS isn't a simple or inexpensive task (unless you take it to small-claims court as at least one person has done, but if you're a big business trying to claim serious losses, that's not the right venue).

The upgrade, for a time, was forced. There was a brief period of about 1-2 months where MS adjusted the GWX app to remove the options to sidestep the upgrade. Literally the only option you had was "Upgrade", then they made a slight change to have "Upgrade" or "schedule upgrade later", which if you chose the latter, when the day came that you chose to upgrade, it makes the upgrade happen with no option provided to delay it again or stop it completely.

And their response to that? "Oh, just roll back if you don't like it"

If you recall, the internet had an uproar about this, it hit the news, and microsoft acknowledged this and backed off on the aggressive upgrades by altering the GWX app to have a cancel option, but it wasn't until after it was all over the news because they couldn't hide it anymore.

They knew what they had done and fessed up and changed it back.

Also, the failures that occurred were NOT user-error. I know exactly how the upgrade process works, and the only thing the end user does is click "upgrade" to start it. From there, the system literally handles it itself. All you do is sit there and wait for it to end, and there were many cases where the upgrade failed, and due to corruption or damaged/missing files, it was unable to roll back as it's intended to do.

The fact that Microsoft put this out with a foolproof attitude, that every system out there would upgrade seamlessly, is incredibly naive of them.

Suing MS likely would prove fruitless, for obvious reasons. But if enough customers and businesses that were impacted made formal complaints to a government body like the FTC, they would have the power to go after MS and hit them in the bank.

Re:Already compensated

[david_thornley]

Ever actually dealt with a business?

There's lots of things that go wrong in a store. A mom&pop grocery store could be in real trouble if the refrigeration fails, for example. This doesn't mean they need to have an expert on that on payroll. Perhaps they have the system inspected annually, and know who they can call for repairs. What they don't expect is someone sneaking in to vandalize the equipment, particularly the guy who is supposed to be inspecting it.

You're talking about malware that runs on W10. Typically, that malware requires some sort of user action to enable, but uses deceit to get the user to make that fateful click. You may recognize this as how W10 got installed in many cases, and if W10 is unwanted and causes problems it's malware. Why do you think it's fine for MS to spread malware and not private parties?

Re:Already compensated

[D00MSlayer]

but I'm talking about businesses like mom n pop business shops e.g. small medical practices.

So? You're saying mom n pop stores should put the weight of their entire family fortune on a PC? Even they should learn some basic risk.

As for dedicated IT reps, what the heck are you talking about. You don't need a team of IT critical person to help you keep your mom n pop store running. You also don't need a team of dedicated IT gurus to get people to not put critical machinery on the internet. You don't need a team of IT people to ensure that you have a backup working machine offline. You practically don't need any management once a small network is setup in ways that most 15 year olds are perfectly capable of doing.

What I'm saying is that they don't have daily in-house IT support like larger businesses do. They don't have someone to consistently consult to, to address their computer infrastructure on a daily basis. They simply can't afford it.

Sure, some small businesses would have a vendor that comes out once in a while to make sure they have backups working, or other infrastructure essentials, maybe like once a quarter, but they don't have that person there every day helping them make these decisions.

And I'm pretty damn sure "many 15 year olds" are NOT perfectly capable of setting up a small business. You're smoking crack for giving them that much credit. It's not super sophisticated, but it's not just a simple setup, either.

Windows 10 today.
A spam relay that gets your IP address blacklisted from sending all emails tomorrow.
A ransomware attack next week.
The entire customer database and all their work public on the internet next month.

Who cares what happens? The actual attack is irrelevant. The point is that running a business is not easy. There's things you need to learn, tax forms you need to fill in, payroll and a warehouse to manage. You either have that expertise in-house or you pay a small sum to outsource it. Thinking computers are just a few toys in your business, treating them as such, and yet revolving critical operations around them is just another lesson that mom n pop either learn the easy way or the hard way.

Especially now when the almighty cloud makes everything super easy for everyone a computer shouldn't be interrupting your operations at all.

Well no shit Sherlock Holmes, of course running a business isn't easy. But they don't treat their PC's like toys, they get used on a daily basis for data entry, usually in proprietary software application(that likely only work on a specific OS), not browsing reddit or whatever all day. If they go down, they may have a backup to recall to, but they have to close up shop for a day or two(or longer depending on how the infrastructure is) while working on the restoration process. That day or two of being down costs them money and prevents them from making income.
Yes, they should have a better system in place, but say for example they are barely getting by, where are they going to get the money to modernize their infrastructure? Nowhere!

As david_thornley put it, the Windows 10 upgrade was deceitful, and has attributes similar to malware. If the only option you have to click on is "upgrade" and you cannot delay it outright, it is acting in a malicious manner. Especially if it cripples your system.

Microsoft firmly acknowledges this by reverting their upgrade practice back to allowing one to stop the upgrade completely, like they did when they first started it.

Re:Already compensated

[Grishnakh]

You're not going to get that competition you talk about by threatening to sue a monopolist and simultaneously refusing to actually try out any other vendors. You can't force a company to meet your standards unless you can get a court verdict against them, and that's already been tried with Microsoft and it failed.

Re:Already compensated

[Grishnakh]

but not everyone is as knowledgeable as you are about their history.

Anyone who works in IT should be roughly as knowledgeable.

it would be refreshing to see more businesses see MS for what they are and do their damnedest to get away from them, but a majority of small businesses either don't care enough, or don't have the resources to make that decision.

But it's not just resource-strapped small businesses, it's medium-size and big businesses too, and governments of all sizes as well. They're all on the MS bandwagon, and showing no sign of changing (except for a few rare cases in Europe, with things like the city of Munich). These organizations have the IT personnel with expertise and knowledge of MS's long-term behavior, and they have the resources to make changes, but they don't, they just stick with Windows and McAfee ("the worst software on the planet" -- John McAfee). And it makes sense why for most of them: they're only focused on the short-term, and short-term it's cheaper to stick with Windows, so they're getting burned in the ass now, and it serves them right. Sure, I might feel some empathy for some little 2-person small business that's just using the tools that are available for their industry, but I don't feel any sympathy for any big company that's having problems with Windows. They should have known better.

But if enough customers and businesses that were impacted made formal complaints to a government body like the FTC, they would have the power to go after MS and hit them in the bank.

After seeing what happened in the infamous anti-trust trial, I seriously doubt it. Maybe in other countries though, but then MS will just do things on a region-specific basis, acting nicer towards EU customers and screwing the American ones.

Re:Already compensated

[D00MSlayer]

Sure, I might feel some empathy for some little 2-person small business that's just using the tools that are available for their industry, but I don't feel any sympathy for any big company that's having problems with Windows. They should have known better.

That's who I've been talking about. Small businesses who don't have and can't afford the resources get hosed by shit like this.

I work for a medium-sized business now and thankfully we've got our shit together. I agree, if a medium-sized business or a large business gets taken down by something like this, they should absolutely fire their entire IT dept and learn a hard lesson.

But if enough customers and businesses that were impacted made formal complaints to a government body like the FTC, they would have the power to go after MS and hit them in the bank.

After seeing what happened in the infamous anti-trust trial, I seriously doubt it. Maybe in other countries though, but then MS will just do things on a region-specific basis, acting nicer towards EU customers and screwing the American ones.

If enough people stopped being lazy assholes and actually filed formal complaints against microsoft to the FTC and the AG, that could potentially sway them to re-analyze microsoft's anti-trust lawsuits, and re-open them/file new ones. Now that's a fucking pipe dream, but it's a dream, damnit.

Re:Already compensated

[thegarbz]

Ever actually dealt with a business?

Yes I provided IT support to several. All of them were setup with redundancy and backups that mitigated the kinds of disasters we're talking about, and they were paying me school student side job rates for it.

There's lots of things that go wrong in a store.

A refrigeration system doesn't shutdown an entire store, but only spoils a few select products. If you're business depends entirely on refrigeration you'd be putting a bit of effort into that too.

I didn't say Windows 10 isn't malware. I just said companies don't deserve compensation for not having a crash plan. They deserve the financial hit. Maybe then they'll take their business seriously. Today it's a Windows 10 upgrade. Tomorrow it's your credit card details leaked by a hacker. IT should be taken seriously by all.

Re:Already compensated

[thegarbz]

What I'm saying is that they don't have daily in-house IT support

If you need daily in house support then you're doing it wrong.

And I'm pretty damn sure "many 15 year olds" are NOT perfectly capable of setting up a small business.

You don't sound old enough to be repeating the comments of our fathers. Though the iPhone generation may actually be the first to be less technically minded than their parents. I know a lot of people who had A+ / MCSE and one even with some Cisco certification before they left highschool. One guy didn't even leave highschool, he just walked off the graduation podium and into the system admin chair. Don't assume that technically minded nerds aren't capable of setting up something as SIMPLE as a redundant setup for a mom-n-pop store. Especially given how many modern services make this turn-key.

Point I'm making is it's not as hard or as expensive as you make it out to be, and there's no excuse for a business that relies on it's computers to prevent severe financial impact not to have some way around it.

Plus I'm still trying to figure out how these critical systems ended up on the interwebs. Maybe if you can't handle a simple thing like a windows upgrade the computer should have it's network cable unplugged and a condom wrapped around it.

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

You can't force a company to meet your standards unless you can get a court verdict against them, and that's already been tried with Microsoft and it failed.

Erm... Say what? For one thing, Microsoft has lost some of the biggest lawsuits and been subject to some of the most severe penalties in the modern corporate tech sector. For another thing, the issues around their direction with Windows 10 haven't been litigated yet, and the kind of consumer advocacy we're discussing in this very thread is often how that process starts.

Re:Already compensated

[Grishnakh]

Say what? For one thing, Microsoft has lost some of the biggest lawsuits and been subject to some of the most severe penalties in the modern corporate tech sector.

Citation needed. This sounds like something out of an alternative universe.

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Microsoft have been fined roughly $2B in Europe for various antitrust-related violations, as well as ultimately being forced to change their software. As far as I'm aware, they are still the recipient of the largest fine of that nature in history.

In the US, at one stage a court even ruled that Microsoft should be broken up because of the nature of their software bundling arrangements, though that was subsequently overturned on appeal.

Numerous sources can be yours for the price of entering "Microsoft antitrust" into the search engine of your choice.

Re:Already compensated

[Grishnakh]

I remember the antitrust trial of the 90s well. Yes, the judge said they should be broken up. The Bush took office and the whole matter was dropped. Nothing happened to them. Nothing's ever happened to them in the US.

The only place they've had any trouble is over in Europe. That means they can do whatever they want to American customers, they just have to watch themselves in the EU market. It's not at all unusual for companies to have different products for different markets and treat customers in different markets differently.

Re:Already compensated

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Well, since this entire discussion is about advocacy by a European consumer rights group, Microsoft having previous trouble to the tune of billions of dollars in fines in Europe is relevant, no?

Re:Already compensated

[david_thornley]

I'd imagine that the usual response to a systems failure would be to call someone, not have the cashier spend five minutes restoring everything. That would be the crash plan (along with backups and other support). So, until you can get to the business, they're down due to an OS update. This appears to be a lot more common than in previous versions of MS Windows, so I don' see how it could be considered the store's fault.

Microsoft software - it's not just good, it's just good enough! People have relied on this in the past, and Microsoft has generally not screwed them over like this.

Re:Already compensated

[thegarbz]

I'd imagine that the usual response to a systems failure would be to call someone

Actually the response plans I would setup would be to fire up another computer and keep working. I've been called out to plenty of computer failures, but thanks to the way I've helped people set it up none of them have ever been an emergency, even catastrophic failure of the main machines, and at one point powersupply failure in their little local Windows Home Server box (I really have nothing good to say about HP anymore).

Redundancy and backups go beyond data and should include usability as well. If I take an axe to my computer right now I'd get out my laptop. If I take an axe to my NAS I keep working and buy a new NAS on the way home. If I set fire to the building I may lose up to a week worth of data at the most, but then I'd likely have bigger problems anyway and my home isn't important enough to justify more frequent backups. That's just a simple home. It was neither expensive nor complex to setup, and these days it's impossible to justify not to with appliance style machines you can buy at pennies for a pound + tax deduction that handles all this for you.

I do agree Microsoft's position is not good. But a store suffering a loss due to this is still the store's fault. We've changed business name and the logo of the attacker, that shouldn't change your strategy for dealing with things that could affect your business.

Re:Already compensated

[D00MSlayer]

Back then when I was 15 I was learning networking, but I probably wouldn't have had the full skillset to set up a business network. I knew maybe one or two people I graduated with that would, maybe, but not certainly. As of recent, I haven't met any teenagers remotely close to being knowledgeable enough to set one up.

I'd admit that there are probably a few around, but your average 15 yr old now-a-days knows jack shit about setting up reliable business networks, properly at that.

Point I'm making is it's not as hard or as expensive as you make it out to be, and there's no excuse for a business that relies on it's computers to prevent severe financial impact not to have some way around it.

It's more sophisticated than a home network, which is what most people are familiar with.

Plus I'm still trying to figure out how these critical systems ended up on the interwebs. Maybe if you can't handle a simple thing like a windows upgrade the computer should have it's network cable unplugged and a condom wrapped around it.

Again, small businesses are not the same as big or medium-sized businesses in how their computers are managed.

Example: https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...

A woman runs a travel agency. She probably has one, maybe two computers if it's just her and one other person that works there. They need internet access on those systems to operate their business. A small business doesn't always have the luxury of having dedicated offline-only databases. It's not always practical for one reason or another.

Re:Already compensated

[david_thornley]

I like the way you set up your response plans, but you're going to be significantly more expensive than someone who doesn't do it right.

The owner of a very small business needs to decide who he or she will hire for the IT support. You're charging more, probably pushing more infrastructure than the owner was expecting, and claiming that bad things can happen if he or she goes with the other guy, who is assuring (probably sincerely) the owner that nothing's wrong with his approach. Very small businesses tend not to have people who can tell which of you is right and which is BSing. Businesses make wrong choices for vital functions all the time, and recover or don't. I don't see that making the wrong decision in one of several areas is the business's fault.

Who's Which?

[Art Challenor]

Some organization that I've never even heard of is asking Microsoft to, pretty please, compensate users in some unspecific fashion for an unclear problem. How did this make the news?

Re:Who's Which?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only educated people know Which. Uneducated people can queue up behind Art Challenor for a session on the municipal library PC and ask the Library attendant "Linda" to use "The Google"

Re:Who's Which?

[Shimbo]

Which? is a well known (in the UK) consumer advocacy magazine that does product comparisons. It's better for "vendor X sucks for warranty repair on their washing machine".

It's newsworthy in the sense that the BBC has a technology site and they have to put some stuff there.
Why one would take a report from an Indian site and run it on /. is a different issue.

Re:Who's Which?

[ITRambo]

The problem is not unclear. It is, however, non-specific other than innumerable issues were caused by Windows 10 upgrades where drivers weren't available or worse. Our shop estimated that about ten percent of our income for the past year was Windows 10 related, most were problems. One was quite serious when a Microsoft GWX notification came up and informed a local Township treasurer than her Dell XPS Windows 7 laptop was compatible with Windows 10 and was ready to be upgraded. It was not compatible, as she painfully learned. The Windows 10 Pro installation prevented booting due to a fingerprint reader driver not being updated by Dell, and Microsoft did not design Windows 10 to automatically install the existing driver in such cases We did a clean install of Windows 7 to get her up and running again. Dell's website clearly stated that her XPS model should not be updated to Windows 10. And yet somehow Microsoft did not get the message, or simply didn't care to check with all OEM databases for compatibility. There must be many thousands of stories like this one where a properly functioning PC was rendered unusable thanks to Microsoft's lack of quality assurance with Windows 10.

Re:Who's Which?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a similar situation with my colleague's laptop, but with the integrated video card. After the upgrade to Windows 10, the display remains blank, with no ability to trigger safe mode or roll back. Even the recovery partition was hosed (when I tried to trigger a factory reset from the BIOS, Windows 10's recovery shows up). I ended up reformatting it completely and loading a fresh Windows 7 installation.

(As a side note, it was a Lenovo, so the fresh installation comes with none of the bloatware. It was a win-win for my colleague.)

Re:Who's Which?

[Opportunist]

It's a British organization, they are polite. They "ask" you "politely" to appear in court, which is not much different from your ass being hauled to the bench in the US, but it has a nicer ring to it.

Re:Who's Which?

[Grishnakh]

I fail to see the problem. Your business got extra work and revenue thanks to the idiot treasurer selecting this vendor that has a long track record of shoddy products and poor customer service.

And yet somehow Microsoft did not get the message, or simply didn't care to check with all OEM databases for compatibility.

Why should they bother? If someone gets burned by their shoddy work, like your treasurer, what are they going to do about it? Are they going to switch to another vendor? Didn't think so. Microsoft is doing the right thing by not wasting employee time checking things like this, or doing other basic QA, and just pushing Windows 10 out everywhere and letting customers deal with the ensuing problems themselves; this increases their profits, which is good for the company and its shareholders.

Re:Who's Which?

[NotAPK]

"so the fresh installation comes with none of the bloatware"

Let me fix that for you:

"so the fresh installation comes with none of the spyware"

Re:Who's Which?

[Waccoon]

Based on my experience, it seems the Win10 readiness tool only checks for CPU speed, memory, and free storage space. Every machine on which I ran the analyzer has told me it's compatible with Windows10, only to find out after the update, half the hardware on the machine doesn't work.

Oh, and the tool never tells you when programs are incompatible with Win10. I had a system where 11 applications were automatically uninstalled from the machine, with no prior warning, and I was informed that they were removed only after the OS upgrade had fully completed. Thanks for the heads-up, MS.

Thankfully, all these systems were owned by other people who wanted me to update them to Win10. I wouldn't dare do it to my own workstation, or even my gaming rig.

Re:Who's Which?

[martinfb]

Sidebar:

MS and other corporation have truly incompetent managers in many tiers of the organization that push these ideas through. These middle managers are better at socially engineering the competent execs that oversee these companies, than they are at understanding the full ramifications of their ideas (like to damage to those PCs that are not compatible, or that many people actually do know what they want in their PCs).
Further, and not-so-ironically, these companies are better at marketing than they at being good at their product!

If a public utility decided to lace my drinking water with, e.g. fluoride, with the intent of serving the community, and it turned out that 10% of the consumers there got sick as a result, what would you suggest as a resolution?

Microsoft Spokesman here...

[Anonymous Coward]

On behalf of Microsoft, I sincerely apologize for your inconveniences and troubles. In return, please accept a free upgrade to Windows 10.

Re:Microsoft Spokesman here...

[Tablizer]

On behalf of Microsoft, I sincerely apologize for your inconveniences and troubles.

In return, please accept a free upgrade to Windows 10, and a free Wells Fargo banking card.

(FTFY)

Re:Microsoft Spokesman here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and no need to activate it, we've taken care of that for you.

Re:Microsoft Spokesman here...

[fahrbot-bot]

On behalf of Microsoft, I sincerely apologize for your inconveniences and troubles.

In return, please accept a free upgrade to Windows 10, and a free Wells Fargo banking card.

... and Galaxy Note 7.

Re:Microsoft Spokesman here...

[Tablizer]

Galaxy Note 7 running Windows 10? ... RUUUNN!

Re:Microsoft Spokesman here...

[antdude]

And a free Yahoo! account.

And how many lied...

[Anonymous Coward]

Many would say "Windows 10 bricked this or that" when in reality it did no such thing and they are just cavemen who dislike change.

Re:And how many lied...

[Anonymous Coward]

People use "bricked" as a very specific term meaning "the computer is functionally an inert pile of electronics that cannot do anything."

Re:And how many lied...

[bobbied]

Many would say "Windows 10 bricked this or that" when in reality it did no such thing and they are just cavemen who dislike change.

No, I can say it actually did brick the inlaw's machine.... Of course it was an old pile of garbage that was on it's last legs, but it sure stopped working when my mother in law accidently hit that "Install Windows 10" button after I told her not to.. Don't know if the disk drive, mother board or what couldn't take the strain of an install, but the hardware was toast when I went to re-install 7.

Re:And how many lied...

[Anonymous Coward]

My ex-wife's machine stopped booting after it upgraded its self to windows 10 and none of the recovery/repair steps we could find would resolve it. On the plus side, she and my kids are now using Linux full time... Either Windows 10 has serious issues or the year of Linux on the desktop has finally arrived.

Re:And how many lied...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have fixed two laptops which refused to boot after Windows 10 had infected them. On both cases the W10 had installed itself without users consent and on both cases the only cure was to re-install Windows 7 and CWX control panel to prevent the new infection. Microsoft really needs to start paying back the money users waste because the W10 installs are forced into their machines.

Re:And how many lied...

[donaldm]

Many would say "Windows 10 bricked this or that" when in reality it did no such thing and they are just cavemen who dislike change.

No, I can say it actually did brick the inlaw's machine.... Of course it was an old pile of garbage that was on it's last legs, but it sure stopped working when my mother in law accidently hit that "Install Windows 10" button after I told her not to.. Don't know if the disk drive, mother board or what couldn't take the strain of an install, but the hardware was toast when I went to re-install 7.

To be fair I did install Windows 10 in a virtual machine using a legitimate Windows 7 license and I did not have any problems installing it. It did take a little time to do the installation since I chose to customize and what an eye opener. All the settings were on by default and some were quite intrusive so I ended up turning all the settings off.

I had to do some searching on the web to find out how to lock down the operating system further and low and behold you have to hack the Registry which we all know is so easy for the average user to edit (sarcasm off). Even after that, I found that Windows 10 still likes to chat (Wireshark is your friend) to machines that are owned by Microsoft that may not even be in the same country as you. Yes I am aware of third party software that can help lock your Windows 10 machine down further although it is very doubtful that it can fully lock it down - this is sort of like what malware tries to do.

I think I gave up after that and have not switched on the Windows 10 virtual machine since and that was over two months ago. Honestly, I don't miss it.

Re:And how many lied...

[Anonymous Coward]

My brother-in-law's computer was bricked by Windows 10 by the exact definition.
It upgraded to Windows 10, installed some updates, and restarted. The only problem was that it didn't restart.
The machine doesn't:
-recognize keyboard
-recognize mouse
-autostart from the cd drive with a windows 7 install cd
-do anything but spin the cd drive on restart

After researching, the problem was windows 10 wasn't compatible with the bios drivers.
The only advice was to wipe the CMOS with a switch on the mobo and removing the battery. I did both of those and nothing.

Windows 10 bricked the computer.

Re:And how many lied...

[LVSlushdat]

I think the shit-storm that is Windows 10 has done more for Linux than any other thing... I used/supported MS products for close to 20 years in my working career but when I retired in 2010, I decided I was done with MS, and since I am retired, I have become the defacto "tech support" for my church and neighbor, and if I had the business acumen to start a business, I believe I could make a profitable go of moving disgruntled Windows users over to Linux. Since Windows started shipping, I've done over 20 friends/neighbors over to Linux, and I keep getting others wanting to move over.. Hey, I'm retired, I wanna rest..

Re:And how many lied...

[NotAPK]

You are right. A bricked device is unrecoverable and no longer works.

However, I see many use the term in a lighter sense, when they mean that the device was functioning but after action XXX it no longer works. Thus, to them, the device is now "bricked". Of course in most cases it is then possible to reinstall the OS, or restore from a backup, or rollback the upgrade.

One can truly "brick" devices via a failed firmware upgrade or bios update, rendering the motherboard useless. Another problem I read about recently, was caused by systemd loading the bios firmware/filesystem as r/w on Linux. If the user then executed "rm -rf /" on the filesystem (and either didn't have the "nopreserveroot" feature or for some reason set the flag, etc...) then this would delete the bios firmware and brick the motherboard. Here is a dodgy source, but there are many comments there questioning the veracity of the claim.

Re:And how many lied...

[D00MSlayer]

Guess what! The upgrade DID brick PC's! As I mentioned to someone else, I did tech support for a period of time for the MS Surface tablets. We received countless calls from customers whose Surface Pro tablets were no longer functional(couldn't boot / blue screen errors) after the Windows 10 upgrade due to corruption/failed upgrades. Not only that, but they were supposed to revert back to 8 if the upgrade failed, but even that didn't work half the time due to the corruption or damaged/missing files. We had no choice but to re-install the factory image via USB because there was way in fixing it any other way. Believe me, we tried! Not only that but they lost their data if it wasn't backed up! This lead to a large number of pissed off customers who swore off MS forever.

Re:And how many lied...

[D00MSlayer]

Accidentally a word. I meant to say:

We had no choice but to re-install the factory image via USB because there was no* way in fixing it any other way.

Re:And how many lied...

[omnichad]

Wipe the main drive after backing up, put a bootable Windows installer onto a SATA drive and boot off off that. No BIOS settings changes needed.

Did you even try to boot it without a main drive?

Re:And how many lied...

[omnichad]

Only if you didn't recommend that they have someone local do manual recovery of the files. Telling people to wipe their own drives is unconscionable if you don't make them aware of the alternatives.

Re:And how many lied...

[GerryGilmore]

Maybe not the perfect definition of "bricked", but the W10 upgrade also enabled "fastboot", meaning I could NOT get into the BIOS setup with any of the normal keys on my brother-in-law's laptop. After appropriate google-fu, I disabled it within W10, installed Linux Mint and he's happy as a clam.

Re:And how many lied...

[D00MSlayer]

You don't understand. The drive is encrypted on the Surface tablets. You cannot access the data outside of the OS due to bitlocker encryption. Getting your files would be impossible.

Re:And how many lied...

[omnichad]

Did you at least ask if they had their recovery key? That would make it possible.

Re:And how many lied...

[D00MSlayer]

Have you seen how Surfaces are built? Good luck taking it apart and putting it back together without cracking the screen or keeping anti-tamper tape in one piece. Ifixit gave it a 1 out of 10, I believe. I think they went through 3 or 4 surface pro's before they got one taken apart successfully without cracking the screen, and it was a tedious process.

If someone is willing to throw away a $1000-$2500 tablet for some data, sure, they can rip the HDD out and use the recovery key, but then you're SOL because your warranty is void due to tamper.

Re:And how many lied...

[omnichad]

It can't boot from USB for cloning?

Re:And how many lied...

[D00MSlayer]

The problem is that you need to unlock the drive with the recovery key, but if you boot to a cloning device you never get the prompt for entering the key to unlock the drive.

If the cloning software has a functioning command prompt feature available, then you can unlock the drive using some command lines to enter the recovery key.

Re:And how many lied...

[omnichad]

You don't have to unlock the drive before cloning it. You can unlock it later - or from another PC. The important thing is that there is an opportunity to make a backup.

Re:And how many lied...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen this a bunch. Usually it's the hard drive that got pushed over the edge by the update and install process. Most of the other "fail to boot" problems stem from the fact that windows, instead of being made of concrete, seems to have a foundation built on sand. (Especially 10!) So there is zero guarantee that not only your computer will boot up after the install, but you have no guarantee that the rest of the OS is even in a functional state. (Especially for people who downgraded to 7 on 8 machines)

But there have been a few unlucky souls who's computers took their Win10 update, rebooted, and never POST'd again. I want to say all of the ones I've seen are Dells, but that may be from Dell being popular.

Re: And how many lied...

[Anonymous Coward]

I like change when change is good. Windows 10 is in no way good, from an awful UI to the spyware to the forced auto updates. It has no new features which are any kind of useful which are not accompanied by so many negatives as to not be worth it.

I am sick to death of the ad hominem 'you fear change' or whatever mindless BS people spew forth every time somebody does a massive screwup like Windows 10 and people call them on it. Change must be beneficial otherwise it's garbage. Most change is garbage because most changers are idiots.

Re:And how many lied...

[D00MSlayer]

Actually, I don't think your suggestion or even my suggestion of ripping the drive out would do you any good unless you put the cloned drive back in the same system because of the built-in TPM on those things. That key won't work unless it's in the same system with the matching TPM data. It just dawned on me that we'd only have half the key, essentially.

Re:And how many lied...

[omnichad]

No, that's specifically what the recovery key is for. Your password won't work on another computer, because of TPM - but the recovery key is intended for situations like this.

See: System Recovery details here.

Re:And how many lied...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll have to give it a shot this weekend. It's one of those dreadful all-in-one computers. Hopefully it isn't too much of a pain.

Thanks for the tip!

Re:And how many lied...

[david_thornley]

By that definition, no computer is ever bricked. You can always get one back to working by replacing components as necessary, possibly including the motherboard, and making a fresh OS install. I'd happily use "bricked" to describe one that was completely useless and required component-level replacement or wiping the disk.

Re:And how many lied...

[NotAPK]

I agree with you, that's exactly what "bricked" should mean. And with regards to a PC, and assuming no component failure, pretty much means a corrupted BIOS.

I was only hi-lighting the more common usage that I'm seeing online: not endorsing it.

Unfortunately language is rather fluid, so no matter what you think a word/term means, the wider society ultimately gets to decide.

This says a lot about Linux...

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows has, in later years, literally turned into a living nightmare. I say this as a Windows user since 3.x and MS-DOS days. It's just horrible. I feel no joy using my computer anymore. Both all the privacy and usability things are making me genuinely sad and frustrated.

But *even in spite of all this*, Linux is *still much worse*. I've given up on my regular attempts to install and use Linux, which has remained an almost identical experience since the early 2000s. This says a lot about the state of Linux/FOSS. It just isn't properly done, and I don't see how it could be, given the history of the PC and the inability of FOSS people to agree on anything or work on anything that isn't "fun" (according to them -- I personally don't think coding anything is "fun").

Re: This says a lot about Linux...

[Anonymous Coward]

That is literally not what "literally" means.

Re:This says a lot about Linux...

[Opportunist]

It's been going downhill since 2k. Win2k was maybe the best Windows OS ever. XP already had a few unsightly tidbits that I couldn't really warm up to, and ever since it's been one reduction of usability after another, culminating in the clusterfuck Win10 is.

Just today I had another "big" update that not only turned a few things back on, but reinstalled some of the things I got rid of after a lengthy struggle (and of course tacked them to my quicklaunch and shortcut bar, since I SURELY cannot live without the Windows Store, OneDrive, Groove-Music and XBox), for some curious reason my (non-Edge) Browser didn't work until I reinstalled it.

I kinda doubt I'll be compensated for the time it takes to get rid again of all the bloatware and to turn off all the snooping AGAIN.

Re: This says a lot about Linux...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux has advanced a lot since 2000. I have a hard time finding things it wont run on.

Are you a sock puppet bot or does microsoft physically have their hand up your ass?

Re:This says a lot about Linux...

[flyingfsck]

My guess is that you gave up with Linux in about 2001.

Re:This says a lot about Linux...

[Anonymous Coward]

But *even in spite of all this*, Linux is *still much worse*. I've given up on my regular attempts to install and use Linux, which has remained an almost identical experience since the early 2000s.

It must be very hard clicking on what your "language" is then clicking your "keyboard type" finally followed by clicking on "quick install".

Oh! wait that is the Windows 10 install procedure for morons. The Linux procedure is ... Wait for it! ... The same.

The only difference between the Windows 10 and Linux default install is that with Windows 10 loves to send, by default everything you do back to Microsoft. Linux on the other hand, respects your privacy.

If you are going to troll do it properly that was pathetic.

Re: This says a lot about Linux...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is literally how literally has been used literally for literally longer than any of us have been alive.

Asshole.

Bricked?

[xbytor]

I haven't heard of Win10 bricking any computer. If it can be restored from a backup, it's not bricked. If you can only use it as a door stop, then it's bricked. If you don't have a backup to restore from, you just might be a brick.

Re:Bricked?

[Anonymous Coward]

The misuse of the term 'bricked' is annoying. But the trend of misusing it in Slashdot headlines is downright frustrating.

Re:Bricked?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bricking, like hacking, has lost it's original meaning. It's annoying but probably time to invent a new word for "cactus and cannot be fixed by any combination of re installation, restoration, or voodoo".

Re:Bricked?

[AmiMoJo]

For the average user, if it doesn't boot after the upgrade it's bricked. They don't have install media for their original OS, or a full backup.

Sure, it can be recovered if they pay someone, but that's almost always the case unless the device melted into slag or something.

Re:Bricked?

[LordWabbit2]

Yes but when something is "bricked" it's fucked - you throw it away or take it apart for shits and giggles. It's not "bricked" if it can be brought back to working order by someone - regardless of the level of skill of the person repairing it or the level of skill of the owner.
BRICKED == fucked
can be fixed != BRICKED

Re:Bricked?

[david_thornley]

What does qualify as bricking in your case? Blowing the mobo apparently doesn't, since you can order another and install it.

Re:Bricked?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would consider "bricking" as making the operating system unusable. This has happened to two of my three Windows 10 computers, and the third one has been limping along since the Anniversary Update. I recovered one using a Windows 7 image, and I'm not going back to 10. The other one had no image and no recovery was possible, even the reset failed. That one will be wearing Ubuntu 16 sometime tomorrow. I run my main PC in Ubuntu, and only use Win 7 (now) when absolutely essential. For all remaining Win10 users, heed this warning: Back up your system. Do an image backup.

Problem, so I went Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, on my backup pc, I ended up bricked.
Probably my fault.
So I loaded up Linux.
Probably should have given up on Win on that machine a couple of years ago.

Microsoft really should have thought the Win 10 launch up more than they did, but they have never seemed to be a Customer Centered Company.

YMMV

numbers game

[zlives]

so microsoft's "installed" numbers should atleast be reduced by 12%?

My computer was raped by Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Forcing yourself onto someone, at least in some context is rape. Call them what they are.

Re:My computer was raped by Microsoft

[LVSlushdat]

hehe I can hear it now... "My computer was RAPED by Microsoft...."....

Re:My computer was raped by Microsoft

[Scarletdown]

hehe I can hear it now... "My computer was RAPED by Microsoft...."....

Hey, if virus is now a valid term when talking about computers, computer rape could easily catch on and enter the geekly vocabulary (if you can manage to fight off the Butthurt Brigade who would instantly pitch a primadona bitch fit.)

Re:My computer was raped by Microsoft

[david_thornley]

The lingo already has adopted a lot of violent terms. Computers can crash or bomb, while remaining physically intact. They can perform illegal operations that aren't against Federal or state law. You kill processes, which aren't actually living things. "Rape" would fit in..

Bricked

[ArchieBunker]

I don't think you know what the term "bricked" means. If these computers were truly bricked then Microsoft would be buying everyone new UEFI BIOS chips.

Re:Bricked

[Scarletdown]

You know, words and expressions can have more than one set definition.

Don't get me started.

[Anonymous Coward]

At work I volunteered for a Windows 10 image when a migration to a larger SSD failed for Windows 8.

Since then I have found quite a few bugs. The first is a bricking bug, but being an IT person I found a work around. With the computer off, pull all the memory but one chip, turn it on, and wait for bios error, then power it off. Then put the memory back in, power on, wait for bios error again, then just restart and poof Windows 10 loads.

Now the real fun is that if the computer is powered down and then back on at a later time, everything works fine. However, if I apply updates and allow a restart, bricked again! Given the situation I believe it is something to do with bios changes Windows makes that don't get reset before a restart, but that pulling the memory and re-inserting causes a bios reset at some level.

And just for fun we have to run McAfee which has an issue with some of the mandatory updates that disallow loading of certain dll's into static memory locations. Of course Windows 10 does this for core functionality, so if these updates get applied the computer starts but Explorer does not, and you can't run cmd, or a variety of other system configuration tools to even attempt to figure out what went wrong. You have to bring up the task console and manually run a few commands to remove the updates, and then restart (oh and do the memory trick above). Took me a while to realize that Windows 10 did start, but the screen was just black because nothing started (no icons, no background, nothing).

So yes, thank you for the free upgrade to an OS that takes about 30 minutes of my time a week to "fix" these two issues alone!

Re:Don't get me started.

[omnichad]

Check your BIOS settings for "Fast Boot" and turn it off.

Re:Don't get me started.

[FrigBot]

I wonder if that's what happened to my desktop at home. About two weeks ago it just wouldn't boot. BIOS does POST but then the little circle thing where it says Starting Windows just dies, and that's it. I ahve been running Windows 10 for awhile now, so I wonder if it was a recent Windows Update. This started on a Wednesday after all...

Computer is a 2008-9 P35 chipset with Q6600, so yeah it's old but still. It was running fine before.

Always missing out

[nightfire-unique]

I'm always missing out on all the fun.

Is there a wine build that includes a similar forced update service so I can play too? :)

I am more interested

[taustin]

in how much they're going to compensate businesses that go offline every time there's a major update. Older versions of Windows Updates used BITS, which was, by default, limited to four concurrent connections. Win 10 uses some bastardized "embrace and extend" crap that opens, literally - I have counted - four hundred or more concurrent connections, eating up 100% of all available bandwidth, and knocking everything else on your network offline. And since this has been going on for months, with people complaining the entire time, it's clearly by intent.

I suspect that the Win 10 computers would be just fine if they weren't going through our VPN, which is also knocked down while this is going on, meaning only non-spyware versions stop working.

Windows 10 is malware, in and of itself. It is literally impossible to use for anything that matters.

No Major Issues Here

[Albert71292]

I upgraded both my desktop and laptop that came with Windows 7 to Windows 10 early last year starting with the technical builds. Only issue I've had was a graphics driver issue on the desktop after installing the Anniversary Update. A quick visit to AMD's website for a new driver fixed that right up.

Over reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

These people problem mucked up the upgrade themselves and want to blame someone else. No OS bricks a device, maybe firmware upgrades can brick a PC but certainly not a OS. Yeah you might have to revert to previous version, or do a clean install. But their are solutions and the PC is not bricked. What does Microsoft have some 350 million upgrades done? A small fraction of these had issues and apparently some never got proper support to fix their problems? Some people rather complain then seek out help to fix a problem. Some also do not do homework to check if their device even worked with Windows10. All major PC makers provided lists that said which PC's were compatible with Windows 10. Microsoft did some shady stuff getting users to upgrade, but bricking their PC's I am sure was not on their list.

Re:Over reaction

[GerryGilmore]

Bullshit. When W10 enables "fastboot", you can no longer access the BIOS (say, to be able to boot from DVD drive) even after all the "remove the battery, hold down X key while inserting the battery, etc." crap. Close enough for me, anyway.

Re:Over reaction

[D00MSlayer]

These people problem mucked up the upgrade themselves and want to blame someone else. No OS bricks a device, maybe firmware upgrades can brick a PC but certainly not a OS. Yeah you might have to revert to previous version, or do a clean install. But their are solutions and the PC is not bricked. What does Microsoft have some 350 million upgrades done? A small fraction of these had issues and apparently some never got proper support to fix their problems? Some people rather complain then seek out help to fix a problem. Some also do not do homework to check if their device even worked with Windows10. All major PC makers provided lists that said which PC's were compatible with Windows 10. Microsoft did some shady stuff getting users to upgrade, but bricking their PC's I am sure was not on their list.

First, these are not people mucking it up, these are from the Microsoft prompt to upgrade. Not only that, but the Windows 10 upgrade prompt does a pre-upgrade evaluation of your system to ENSURE your system is compatible. From there it's literally a single step of clicking the "Upgrade" button. That's it. As soon as you do that, the upgrade process goes a little something like this:

1.) Windows 10 files download to a temporary location
2.) Any Windows updates that need to be installed prior to upgrade gets installed.
3.) Pre-upgrade preparation (moving your personal files (files located in your Library folders) and OS files to a temporary location)
4.) Windows 10 files start to un-package and the upgrade sequences start
5.) 5-10 minutes of windows 10 installation
6.) Post-upgrade clean up and data migration via temporary location made during step 3
7.) upgrade complete

Now if the upgrade fails, it reverts the upgrade via the OS files it set aside during step 3.

Not to beat a dead horse, but as I've informed others of, the upgrade process doesn't always complete successfully, I know this first-hand as an ex employee of a vendor used by MS for supporting Surface tablets, and I did that for a total of 4 years until recently.

You have two opportunities for failure: a) the initial upgrade to windows 10 appears successful but in reality it failed somewhere during the post-upgrade process, and thus the roll back doesn't happen, ultimately causing BSOD's; or b) the roll back also fails to revert files and the OS to pre-upgrade form.

This leaves you with the sole requirement of re-installing the Original OS that came with the system, as re-installing windows 10 on top of the clusterfuck that already exists isn't possible, isn't recommended(mostly for OEM PC's), or may cause other unexpected issues(missing drivers).

If you were one of the unlucky who did not solicit for the upgrade but your system made you do it anyways, this puts you in a really tough position, because all of your programs and files(unless otherwise backed up, which in my experience, is maybe 25% of people back up their files at all or regularly) are gone if you can't pull your HDD, and now you're having to deal with the daunting task of doing a nuke & pave followed by an entire rebuild of your system back to where it was. This can take a few hours up to a few days depending on how much you lost.

If you run a business from your computer and you fail to back up your data(which I will admit is totally the end-user's responsibility and if they don't, then they learn a hard lesson), then you're in for a real treat.

Bricking may be an excessive term, but to some that's how it's interpreted. The device is literally useless without some extraordinary process being necessary for it to function again. Not everyone has the patience of Job, and will likely call it a loss, and inevitably replace the computer, tossing the old one in the garbage. I know this, because I've been told this by pissed off customers.

Morals

[phorm]

"Your business got extra work and revenue t"

Because some of us have morals, and frankly most of the people I know who've had this issue - often older folks etc - could ill-afford a professional to fix it. I've had similar issues with a certain local ISP who just *loves* to blame issues with their mailserver etc on the customers' PC. At $100/h after tax (not my rate, but the company I subcontracted through at the time) it's pretty crappy to come in and check out somebody's PC only to have to tell them that it's their ISP's problem and they're a bunch of lying dirtbags (oh, and you can't cancel on them for another year because: contract).

Re:Morals

[Anonymous Coward]

because: contract

I'd cross-bill the ISP for the $100 tech support bill and when they don't pay it cancel the link for nonpayment.

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all

Without consent?

[cyborg666]

Did it really upgrade without consent, or did the users just accept the upgrade without knowing what they did?

Re:Without consent?

[david_thornley]

Did the other person really agree to the contract, or were they tricked into doing something that implies assent?

Anyone even know what "Bricked" means anymore?

[doccus]

I did read the submission carefully, but nowhere did it say the PC could no longer be wiped clean and reinstalled, implying that the hardware was fine. Or was "bricked" just used in the title as clickbait?
Sorry to be pedantic, but we're all supposed to be geeks here on /. and yet NOBODY pointed out the inaccurate use of the word.

Updates brick your pc - windows10

[Anonymous Coward]

My computer won't update after trying many times. It's bogus!!!

People did -not- ok the upgrade

[cwsumner]

Microsoft might have popped up a window with a question, but that means nothing. And here is why:

Windows has a long-known bug, where if a new popup window opens it "steals" focus from whatever window you were working in. All of your typing is suddenly redirected to the popup window. This can happen before the popup is even visible, because the painting to the screen is a separate lowlevel thread in the OS.

So the user's keypresses go into the popup, and one of them is taken as the default button hotkey. Enter key will do it, in some windows Spacebar will do it. What do you want to bet that Microsoft set it to trigger on any key that was hit! 8-P

The popup question might have "eaten" a character, without the user even knowing that the popup had happend. They wonder what happened to the keypress, retype the word and continue totally unaware... Until later, when their computer is locked up (downloading) or gets "bricked". 8-{