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How Microsoft Lost In Court Over Windows 10 Upgrades (digitaltrends.com)
In June a California woman successfully sued Microsoft for $10,000 over forced Windows 10 upgrades, and she's now written a 58-page ebook about her battle (which she's selling for $9.99). But an anonymous Slashdot reader shares another inspiring story about a Texas IT worker and Linux geek who got Microsoft to pay him $650 for all the time that he lost.
"Worley built a Windows 7 machine for his grandfather, who has Alzheimer's Disease, [customized] to look like Windows XP, an operating system his grandfather still remembered well..." writes Digital Trends. "But thanks to Microsoft's persistent Windows 10 upgrade program, Worley's grandfather unknowingly initiated the Win 10 upgrade by clicking the 'X' to close an upgrade window." After Worley filed a legal "Notice of Dispute," Microsoft quickly agreed to his demand for $650, which he donated to a non-profit focusing on Alzheimer's patients.
But according to the article, that's just the beginning, since Worley now "hopes people impacted by the forced Windows 10 upgrade will write a complaint to Microsoft demanding a settlement for their wasted time and money in repairing the device," and on his web page suggests that if people don't need the money, they should give it to charities fighting Alzheimer's. "If Microsoft isn't going to wake up and realize that lobbing intentionally-tricky updates at people who don't need and can't use them actively damages not only the lives of the Alzheimer's sufferer, but those of their whole family, then let's cure the disease on Microsoft's dime so their tactics and those of companies that will follow their reckless example aren't as damaging."
Worley suggests each Notice of Dispute should demand at least $50 per hour from Microsoft, adding "If recent history holds steady they might just write you a check!"
But according to the article, that's just the beginning, since Worley now "hopes people impacted by the forced Windows 10 upgrade will write a complaint to Microsoft demanding a settlement for their wasted time and money in repairing the device," and on his web page suggests that if people don't need the money, they should give it to charities fighting Alzheimer's. "If Microsoft isn't going to wake up and realize that lobbing intentionally-tricky updates at people who don't need and can't use them actively damages not only the lives of the Alzheimer's sufferer, but those of their whole family, then let's cure the disease on Microsoft's dime so their tactics and those of companies that will follow their reckless example aren't as damaging."
Worley suggests each Notice of Dispute should demand at least $50 per hour from Microsoft, adding "If recent history holds steady they might just write you a check!"
I just found out my sister-in-law bought a new laptop because the old one was "broken". Why? Because the formerly functional old laptop ran Windows 7 and whatever Windows 10 did to it broke the drivers and it won't boot, despite her trying to prevent Windows from doing the update for months. She took it to a local computer store and they said they would fix it for $100. At that point she decided to buy a new one. Months later I found out what happened :-(
It's easy to blame the user, but there must be thousands of people out there who have machines that were effectively turned into non-functional doorstops from their perspective because of Microsoft's forced upgrade policy. Granted, these machines are fixable, but that's still a repair beyond many user's ability, and it would cost them money to have someone else do it for them. They're in this spot because of the underhanded tricks that Microsoft used (like the "install anyway" close button on the upgrade window).
I'll reinstall the OS for her and maybe she can recover some money by reselling the old laptop, but really there should be a class action lawsuit against Microsoft for what they've done. Instead they've probably reaped many unnecessary sales of new machines. It's appalling.
A FreeBSD-user since early 90-ies, I can only chuckle at the problems in the Microsoft world...
Heeey I was tricked into typing
freebsd-update upgrade -r 11.0-RELEASE
And guess what? instead of updating my X-windows it changed my FreeBSD version!!!
Now all my drivers, erm, just work and my UI looks just the same!
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
It's the other way around - personal time is worth more than work time (not less).
If our personal time were worth less to us, we'd be working then, wouldn't we?
Everybody's price goes up as they run out of time. Supply and demand.
Are you proud of the work you've done here, making life suck for Alzheimers' patients and countless other customers who lack the capacity, the autonomy, or the technical background needed to circumvent your bosses' intentions?
If you work for Microsoft, then the world is a worse place because you went to work today. Re-evaluate your career options.
Remember, you're engineers. As a group you are capable, experienced professionals in a strong labor market. You have those options, unlike a lot of other people.
And as engineers, you also have ethical obligations, even if they're unwritten ones. Honor those obligations by working somewhere else besides Microsoft.