Man, Seeking New Copy of Windows 7 After Forced Windows 10 Upgrade, Sues Microsoft (bleepingcomputer.com)

Catalin Cimpanu, writing for BleepingComputer: An Albuquerque man has sued Microsoft and its CEO -- Satya Nadella -- seeking a fresh copy of Windows 7 or $600 million in damages. According to a civil complaint filed last week on February 14, Frank K. Dickman Jr. of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is suing Microsoft because of a botched forced Windows 10 upgrade. "I own a ASUS 54L laptop computer which has an OEM license for Windows Version 7," Dickman's claim reads. "The computer was upgraded to Windows Version 10 and became non-functional immediately. The upgrade deleted the cached, or backup, version of Windows 7." Dickman says that the laptop's original OEM vendor is "untrustworthy," hence, he cannot obtain a legitimate copy of Windows 7 to downgrade his laptop.

Comments

$600 million

[fred6666]

about 0 chances of winning

Re:$600 million

[alvinrod]

I think the $600 million is so Microsoft just rolls over and gives him a Windows 7 key. As easy as this would be to defend in court, I have a feeling that the lawyers would love nothing more than to drag it out long enough to bill at least a reasonable fraction of that $600 million for their own efforts.

Re:$600 million

[Calydor]

I may be wrong, but I think once you(r computer on its own) upgrade to Win10, your Win7 key is listed on Microsoft's activation servers as no longer valid. Thus you might install Win7, but you can't activate it.

Re:$600 million

[Anonymous Coward]

Independent computer stores often have windows disks that will install any retail or OEM version of windows 7, to match the key you have (or found on a junk PC). I've been photographing the key stickers on machines that IT scraps for quite a while.

Sorry, sir

[Anonymous Coward]

We're fresh out of Windows 7 due to high demand, but we still have lots of copies of Vista hanging around. Would you like one? Two? A baker's dozen?

Buddy? Pal?

Re:Those numbers are all the same up there

[PhrostyMcByte]

I'd love to know how he came up with either of those numbers as being somehow reasonable.

An RIAA lawyer commented to say the math checks out.

Re:Multiple issues here that you see all the time

[apoc.famine]

Why in the world should have to do all of those things to ensure continuous access to something I legally purchased? If I need more than a license key, there is something majorly wrong with that product.

Re:Guy seems...

[Anonymous Coward]

And the forced Win 10 upgrade is not a dick move?

Re:Those numbers are all the same up there

[nctritech]

The other thing is that some niche software is very expensive and very tightly controlled, requiring the company to remote into the machine to acquire and install it. It may not be a simple matter of backing up, restoring a system image, and installing the software again, and even if it was it's not likely that a normal user can do all of that themselves. If an unwanted forced Win10 installation had a serious process defect that killed a really important laptop in a crucial period leading up to a multi-million-dollar contract, for example, it's not at all unusual to demand damages of this size. People sometimes forget that computers can be used for actual work and that work can have dollar amounts attached that they'll never see in their entire lives.

Re:He wanted to lose. Now he doesn't like losing?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Well, you joke, but we haven't bought a new Windows machine since 7 was no longer available, and we're now using non-Windows platforms for our new machines instead of going anywhere near Windows 10. So for us, it literally is the year of Linux on the desktop. Turns out that for development work it's probably better anyway, and for all the online stuff a browser or email client on Linux is kinda like a browser or email client on Windows.