
Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade - be5invis
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/230794-woman-wins-10000-judgment-against-microsoft-for-forced-windows-10-upgrade
======
Guest98123
A few days ago I was visiting family, and my Mom was online Skyping relatives
on her Windows 7 PC. She comes running into the other room and says her PC
just restarted while she was talking, and now it says something about
configuring Windows 10, even though she was always careful to opt-out of the
constant requests to upgrade.

So, we had to wait for it to install the OS, then decline the terms of
service, then wait for it to roll-back to the previous OS. I'm using Windows
10 and enjoy it, but I'm still tempted to migrate to another OS just because
of these practices.

~~~
themartorana
I have mixed feelings about this. I'm with you 100% on having the explicit
opportunity to opt out of updates like this. That said, a large swath of
Windows users are not nearly as technically literate as you and your mother
are, and automatically helping people forward (if for nothing else, security
fixes and ongoing support) is a Good Thing in my book (so long as it's free,
and it is).

There is no doubt there are cogent arguments against it. But when I think of
the operating systems a lot of botnet computers are running on, I have a hard
time not supporting automatic OS upgrades for non-power users.

~~~
givinguflac
Support it if you want, but you seriously think it's OK for the PC to restart
in the middle of a call? What if the user is doing something mission critical;
it's acceptable to just wait an hour (or more likely several) to get back to
work because "MS knows best"?? There is nothing to stop it from just doing it
all over again either. I will never use Windows again because of this
behavior.

~~~
Bartweiss
My biggest aggravation with Windows is the pattern of unapproved restarts.

Sure, there's usually a setting to disable it, and a popup to delay it, but
it's not really enough. The setting appears unreliable at best, and the popup
is useless when it pops _under_ fullscreen programs.

It really only takes one ill-timed restart to damn an OS forever, especially
when the restart is chased by lengthy (and impossible to decline) downtime
while a patch or upgrade is installed. Restarting on someone during a Skype
interview or business call is shockingly unacceptable, no matter how sensible
the average case.

~~~
WorldMaker
The interesting thing here is that Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 all improved the
Windows Update restart timing logic and made it more transparent. (There's a
section that states "A restart is planned, Windows has determined the most
likely idle time to try the restart is 3:43am" now, for instance.)

In this case it's Windows 7's Restart logic that is old/bad (and long has
been), not Windows 10, but Windows 10 of course is getting blamed for it, not
Windows 7.

It's another reason people should stop worrying and upgrade to Windows 10. ;)

~~~
Decade
In my opinion, there is never a good time to restart. That is simply an
artifact of the sad historical circumstances that led to the current state of
operating systems.

I don’t particularly enjoy waking up to all my programs are closed because
Windows decided that tonight was the night that it restarted.

It’s slightly better on MacOS, where programs using MacOS-specific APIs can
restore their state on startup, but that doesn’t include most of the third-
party applications. But MacOS doesn’t force the reboot. Yet.

~~~
fapjacks
For the record, Linux does not do this, and it is an operating system.

~~~
notalaser
On the other hand, many/most distributions have major releases every 6-12
months, and the upgrade process is a lot more hit and miss. I have Debian and
(unexpectedly enough...) Fedora services that I've managed to drag along two
and, respectively, three major releases. On the other hand, I can't remember
ever managing to get a clean upgrade on Ubuntu after 8.04 or so. My latest
attempt has been miserable, I spent half a day nursing my Ubuntu station at
work back to health.

Besides, it's a trend that I expect to see reversed soon enough, given the
direction in which Linux desktop is heading nowadays.

Edit: empirically, what has greatly simplified my life in this matter is being
old-fashioned about partitioning. I keep /home and /opt separate, so upgrading
typically consists of saving a list of packages, wiping everything but /home
and /opt, doing a fresh install and reinstalling the packages. Depending on
what I'm installing (OpenBSD on my laptop, Debian on my desktop) it takes
about five minutes of accepting defaults and waiting for progress bars to
fill, then another ten minutes until the packages installs (most of those ten
minutes is spent on LaTeX, to be honest).

~~~
fabianhjr
> many/most distributions have major releases every 6-12 months, and the
> upgrade process is a lot more hit and miss.

You might want to try a rolling release distro, something like Antergos (Arch
+ Tweaks)

~~~
notalaser
I used Gentoo for a very long time (2005-ish to 2009 or so) and tried Arch,
too, both back then (after I, uh, toasted a power supply compiling packages
for five days straight) and more recently, about a year ago. It's a very good
approach, but far too high-maintenance for my taste. During my (latest) short
stint with Arch, I became a walking bug tracker. Stick to Adwaita because
everything else breaks, don't do that in a KDE app because it crashes, try to
reboot my computer only to find out it's stuck in a loop because some process
can't notify some other process through D-Bus...

There's a bunch of stuff that doesn't work on Debian, either, but at least
it's the _same_ stuff for about a year or so.

Nowadays I get to write Linux software at work so I get all the bleeding-edge
stuff there, and dealing with the latest and greatest breakage is part of my
everyday job. I have no desire to do it at home, too.

Edit: plus, to put it bluntly, it's really no longer fun. When I said goodbye
to Windows, back in nineteen-ninety-something, I did it to get away from the
mind-boggling complexity and uncustomizable blackbox blurb on my hard drive.

Nowadays, it's an order of magnitude more complex; some of it is unwarranted
and much of it just isn't reliable. Windows' and OS X's isn't, either, but at
least it's nicely tucked away behind an interface that works, so you're not
exposed to the crap underneath. I spend a lot more time wrestling with my
computer than I'd like to.

I can mostly navigate through this whole maze of thisandthatkit and systemd-
everything, largely because I'm exposed to it for eight hours a day, whether I
want it or not, and have seen it being developed. But I don't think it's
sustainable, and I have a feeling I'm going to call it quits one day.

~~~
digi_owl
Best i can tell the complexity comes from a misguided idea that if just the
DEs simplify and automate common tasks, Linux on the desktop will happen.

End result is that the DE people keep pushing ever deeper in the stack,
violating long standing layering, that made it easier to reason about why
something broke, in the process.

------
overgard
This is probably a dangerous position as a software developer, but I think we
should stop calling these things _upgrades_. What's being shipped are
_changes_. Whether they're improvements or not is completely subjective.

It seems like splitting hairs, but terminology matters. It sounds harmless
when you say "Microsoft reserves the right to update your machine" but things
are clearer when you say "Microsoft reserves the right to change your machine,
on their own schedule", which is effectively the right they've conferred on
themselves.

Windows 10 (and patches) aren't upgrades, they're changes. They _might_ be
better for you, or they might be worse. Nobody should be bullied into changing
their machines at a vendor's whims.

~~~
cm2187
Yeah, it's like my bank "upgrading" me to a Gold account where I will be
charged more fees and receive more calls from my bank trying to sell me
products...

~~~
moskie
That is a crappy metaphor.

~~~
DKnoll3
Uh...how?

Windows 10 advertises Microsoft products, and 3rd party products, and is the
first step into being suckered into Microsoft's foray into a paid subscription
OS.

Sounds like a great metaphor. Let us "upgrade" you to make more money from
you.

~~~
NamTaf
Because it glosses over the fact that upgrades to OSs have defined security
benefits.

A better one would be to say that it's like your bank upgrading your card from
signature to chip + pin and issuing a new card number as a result. It's a
frustration to change all your automated billing, but they do it because it's
more secure and costs them less in fraud protection.

~~~
cm2187
Windows 10 isn't more secure. The browser runs with the same privileges than
in Windows 7. People will get malware in the same way.

What Microsoft calls "more secure" is the fact that Windows Store apps, which
are a micro-tiny-minority of apps a typical user will run on a Windows
desktop, work in a similar fashion than iOS apps, with a very limited access
to the system, and therefore much reduced risk of malware. But I do not
believe a typical user will be more protected with Windows 10 than Windows 7.
Except more code means potentially more attack surface.

------
jrs235
I visited my parents last weekend. My dad says his laptop automatically
updated to Windows 10 a month ago and since then he was unable to use the
internet (so basically the machine). He was PO'ed. He was tricked into
installing it because Microsoft changed the behavior of the upgrade prompt.
You can choose "Upgrade now" or "Not now, upgrade later". "Not now, upgrade
later" use to behave like and mean "Ask me again later" Microsoft changed it
to mean and behave like "Yes. Upgrade me, just not now... force it later". My
mother was and has been able to avoid the forced upgrade by always clicking
the "X" to close the prompt window and avoiding the dark pattern behavior.

~~~
Splendor
Same here. My mother called me in tears because she was tricked into
installing Windows 10 on her PC and she can no longer sync photos from her
camera.

~~~
the_common_man
English is not my first language, so I am curious. When you say 'in tears' are
you using some metaphor or was she actually crying?

~~~
tim333
Usually in English it's not metaphorical.

~~~
Gustomaximus
Unless it's about laughing. Then it usually is metaphorical.

------
cm2187
What I find surprising is that I see tech journalists reporting the issues, I
see people complaining about these forced upgrades and the privacy invasion in
windows 10 on forums or around me, but I do not see the press confronting
Microsoft on any of this.

Has anyone seen any interview where Nadella is pressed with questions on why
they think it's OK to treat customer this way? All the interviews I have seen
of Microsoft executives have been by docile journalists who prefer to keep
their good relationship with the company than ask tough questions.

~~~
johansch
"These aren't real journalists, Richard. They're tech journalists.”

~~~
cm2187
Or ruminants, 90% of tech articles are barely digested press releases...

------
AdmiralAsshat
I am frankly surprised that she's the first one who's tried taking Microsoft
to court. I kind of anticipated that there would be a class action lawsuit
after Microsoft made Windows 10 a "recommended" update--meaning anyone who had
their Win 7 or 8 machines set to install recommended updated automatically
would get updated without being made aware of it.

~~~
drakonandor
No matter what they do, the users would complain. By leaving the settings on
recommended, the user said she wants free IT support from Microsoft.
Microsoft, like any other IT dept. would, made the decision to upgrade to an
OS which will work better for everyone.

Sadly, a small amount of users don't understand why they can't keep using the
same $200 Dell from 1999 forever - just like many users can't understand why
Microsoft can't and shouldn't support obsolete operating systems forever.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Not fair! She was using it fine. It suddenly failed, due to events completely
independent of it being a $200 Dell or whatever. She wasn't installing new
apps, and her old ones served her well. No, this debacle was entirely of
Microsofts' creation.

------
theandrewbailey
The idea of "let's put a popup on everyone's computer telling them they can
download the next version of Windows for free" simply reeks of malware shit.
Even worse is when they decided to force it on everyone else who doesn't
automatically click "OK" on every dialog box they see.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I kinda understand the mindset. In IT, we learn that pretty much everyone will
be clueless on how to do something unless you make it nearly impossible for
them to not. So when Microsoft's top support question was "how to I upgrade to
Windows 10", it doesn't seem out of far field for them to think "how do we
make it nearly impossible for them to fail".

There's no doubt Microsoft screwed this up for a number of reasons, including
valid and important reasons some people need to stay on Windows 7. And had
they not gotten into the whole telemetry mess, 90% of the people who didn't
want the upgrade would've gone away.

But I understood the mindset.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
Automatic, non-consensual updates would be fine, _if the laptop were designed
for it_. Case in point, my Chromebook gets updates all the time, and the
little arrow in the corner usually indicates I've got something and that I
should restart. I have never, ever had a bad update across any of my
Chromebooks. It is done in an elegant, non-intrusive way.

The problem here is that in Microsoft's push to get Windows 10 onto as many
machines as it can, they seem to have greatly underestimated the number of
computers whose age or hardware renders them partially or completely borked by
updating to Windows 10. And they seem generally unrepentant to the fact that
they've strong-armed people into downloading an update that destroys their
computer.

------
apozem
Microsoft's dishonest and manipulative tricks to force Windows 10 upgrades are
terrible for regular users or people who just aren't ready to make the jump.

I have a non-techie friend who works in a veterinary clinic who recently
texted me that the computers in her office had gone down after being forcibly
upgraded to Windows 10. No computers meant having a hell of a time looking up
records for the dogs and what medicine they were supposed to get.

Not only is this forced upgrade business unethical, it's potentially
dangerous. Some Windows systems haven't been upgraded because they're too
important to tinker with.

~~~
gnashville
I can't believe this is still how they operate. How has the company that
shipped Windows Vista not figured it out yet?

------
ben_jones
I was watching a stream of an online gaming tournament (Overwatch) with ~20k
viewers. Right before a match one of the competitors machines decided to force
a Windows 10 upgrade and they had to reschedule another two teams to play
while he waited for everything to finish. It's to the point where Windows OS
upgrades are no longer synonymous with new features or better performance,
they are 100% associated with annoying and forced upgrade notifications.

IMO it invalidates all the awesome OSS work and public outreach Microsoft has
been doing. If you gut punch me with your left hand I don't care if you're
holding out flowers with your right.

------
Filligree
I had about three GB free on my root partition.

Windows 10 was automatically installed. Well, partially. You can probably
guess what happened; if this had happened to anyone else in the family, their
computer would have been effectively bricked.

I used to spend most of my time in Linux anyway, but now I'm justifiably
scared of booting Windows.

~~~
Someone1234
Windows 10 won't attempt to install unless it has enough space to complete,
and they look for 16 GB.

So what I suspect actually occurred is that your hypervisor was set up to
misreport how much space as available to Windows, so Windows 10 tried to
install on the space it thought it had, only to hit the wall on the "real"
filesystem below.

It is unlikely this ever would have occurred to anyone else in your family,
unless they're running Windows in a hypervisor that misreports space.

~~~
cortesoft
What about if that 16GB gets used up while the install is in progress?

~~~
blakeyrat
I think one of the 70,000 Microsoft employees just _might_ have thought of
that possibility before pushing the update.

~~~
mickronome
One would think so, but then one would also think that nobody would ever
design a boot recovery procedure such that it has an error case where it
deletes all (several hundreds) executable files on the disk, completely hosing
the system. But Microsoft still managed to do the latter. It's likely not that
nobody thought about it, but maybe not the right person, and in big companies
that can matter a lot.

------
euroclydon
Moving from XP to Windows 7 actually sped up a single core 32bit PC I have at
home, but then the Win 10 installer filled up the hard drive, and consumed 50%
CPU for months before I finally found a nice utility to completely remote it,
and keep it gone. It was infuriating!!

~~~
raverbashing
Funny how its installer seem to not even do a basic check of disk space and
computer capabilities before start to download loads of data

If let's say, the installer takes 10GB it shouldn't start downloading anything
unless there's at least 20GB

~~~
jerf
I tried to update my wife's lil' tabletish Acer netbooky thing, because while
I don't like the pushiness I did like Windows 10. And it's been pestering us
with little popups for weeks at that point. I go to update it, and it says,
Sorry, Windows is 64-bit only.

This is when I discover the machine that I purchased only about 2 years ago
now was actually 32-bit. Didn't even know they were still making them at that
time.

IIRC it bailed out in the first phase before downloading everything, but,
still, couldn't the little popup check something as basic as bittedness?

Also IIRC it didn't stop bothering us until I went and did some registry hack
or something to make it shut up, as it was just taunting us at that point. But
I'm less confident about this aspect of my memory.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Huh? I upgraded a 32-bit version of Win10 without any problem. So they exist.
Maybe not for every platform?

~~~
lfowles
I was unable to upgrade my wife's old 32bit computer, but I think it was some
other bit of CPU capability that was the stopper.

Edit: It was NX bit support.

~~~
jerf
Heh. Whatever capability it is that would be required, this would be the
netbook that didn't have it. It's not a high quality machine.

We/she keep buying cheapos for her... we're to the point now where I would
have been better off buying a Real Machine up in the ~$400 price point
instead, which would probably have outlasted any three of the cheapos by now.
I really ought to have known better. Ah well, live and learn, learn, learn
again.

------
bluecalm
Their practices for downloading updates in Windows 10 itself are not much
better. I tried following all the instructions to disable automatic updates on
my Windows 10 pro laptop and still they got me with 20 minutes update at the
time I needed my computer urgently. Windows behaves like malware these days
and it's very sad to see.

~~~
djsumdog
Why are you disabling updates in Windows 10? I meant you're already on it.
Updates are the most valuable security defense (next to never using anti-virus
as it's a massive attack vector).

~~~
ionised
Because Windows updates break things sometimes. In fact they do so fairly
frequently.

------
josefresco
Since we're all sharing stories of family tech support - I recently had to
give my sister's Toshiba laptop an overhaul, upgraded to Windows 10. That's
it... no drama, no problems -sorry.

Didn't XP teach us all a lesson about locked in/legacy software and it's
danger to the security and stability of modern computing? Why is it okay that
my iOS and Android devices essentially _require_ an update several times a
year but not my PC OS?

~~~
khedoros
> Why is it okay that my iOS and Android devices essentially require an update
> several times a year but not my PC OS?

In my case, two points come to mind, for me. First: My phone isn't as
important as my PC. It's just a convenience. If the update ruins something, I
can always re-flash to a clean image, and the phone'll automatically re-sync
most of my stuff. Or I can grab the spare from the drawer. Or buy a cheap-o
replacement for $50 or so. Second: My PC's set up to support almost 30 years
worth of software and a couple different OSes, with some weird hardware
configurations. It's a much more complex system. Several things _will_ break
during a major upgrade.

> Didn't XP teach us all a lesson about locked in/legacy software and it's
> danger to the security and stability of modern computing?

Sure. Stick it behind a firewall and don't go questionable places online.
Reboot to Linux if you _really_ feel like you need to ;-) My Windows XP
machines work just fine, thank you very much!

~~~
josefresco
"First: My phone isn't as important as my PC"

You're the minority. I don't know a single person outside of tech, or maybe
the "office" world that would consider their PC more important than their
phone.

"Stick it behind a firewall and don't go questionable places online."

This is a joke right? My Mom's XP is used for browsing mainstream news sites,
weather etc. and her PC was thoroughly polluted despite having an active
AV/firewall etc. Infections aren't only a problem for those that use BT.

~~~
khedoros
> You're the minority.

I understand that my opinion is in the minority. Maybe I should rephrase it
that the actual instances of data on the phone aren't as important. Cloud
backup is ubiquitous, easy to use, and gratis from multiple vendors. Pictures,
Videos, texts, contacts, etc all either get backed up, or weren't stored on
the phone in the first place. With Apple phones especially, it's simple for
average users to take a backup image of the phone.

>This is a joke right?

No, it's reflective of my personal experience. I haven't had an infection on
an XP machine since about 2005. I have no idea what the heck other people are
doing to get into so much trouble. Either I'm doing something magically right,
or I've had insane levels of luck. My netbook's on at home, booted into XP
right now because I forgot to put it to sleep before I left.

------
dmfdmf
I'm not a fan of class action law suits but if there ever was a case it should
be applied this is it.

~~~
pkaye
With a class action lawsuit, the lawyers will get millions while the rest of
us will get a coupon for a free upgrade to windows as settlement.

~~~
greenshackle
I know class action lawyers who work incredibly hard to defend the 'small
people' and don't make that much. They take David vs Goliath cases. They went
after a tobacco company, for example.

The lawsuits take a lot of work, they only get paid if they win, and they
don't always win.

I'm sure there are class action lawyers who are in it for the money, but most
lawyers who are in it for the money would go into corporate law, not class
action.

~~~
RHSeeger
While I don't doubt that there are lawyers who are very much in it for the
small guy, I can count on one hand the number of class action lawsuits I've
seen where the outcome for the small guys in question is anything more
substantial than a coupon. That's assuming you consider 0 fingers as a valid
count on one hand. (I don't doubt such cases exist, but I've never seen one).

~~~
greenshackle
Yeah I'm not saying the payouts are great. But let's say, pessimistically,
that the lawyers took 80%; if they had done it pro bono, you'd get 5 coupons
instead of 1. Better, but not by much.

A small payout could be due to greedy class action lawyers, but it could be
due to the corporate lawyers successfully arguing damages down to nearly
nothing (compared to the size of the class). The second one sounds more likely
to me.

In the cases I've heard about, the corporate team had orders of magnitude more
resources than the class action lawyers (think 3 lawyers working part time on
the case vs. the corporation having an expert prepare for _2 years_ to appear
_once_ in court. I am not making this up.)

I'm biased though, the few class action lawyers I know are good guys, it's
possible most aren't. I havn't looked at the field in general, and IANAL, so
take that with generous salt.

------
zelon88
I was using Windows 7 for a variety of machines with various distros of Ubuntu
for the rest when the Windows 10 push started happening. I fought the good
fight for as long as I could, but Windows won. I had to switch my remaining
Microsoft machines to Ubuntu and haven't looked back since. My wife's machine
is the only Windows 7 thing left in the house. Seriously, it's time to dump
Microsoft anyway. LibreOffice is top-shelf these days and Linux is only
becoming more and more popular. I predict that the trends for Microsoft
products will make an impressive downturn if they don't start showing their
professional, enterprise, and enthusiast user-base some respect very soon.

------
lumberjack
Microsoft are trying to following Apple's approach in dealing with users.

But I think there is a bit of a difference here. Apple users opted in. They
knew how Apple operates before they bought Apple products. The same cannot be
said for long time Microsoft customers.

~~~
no_flags
What do you mean by "Apple's approach"? I've never been forced to upgrade the
OS on my iPhone or Macbook pro.

~~~
Karunamon
Forced, no. Incessantly bothered, yes. iOS in specific starts popping up modal
dialogs once it sees a new update.

~~~
wlesieutre
I had a problem with this when the recent iOS 9.2 update was bricking iPad
Pros. My iPad had downloaded the update but (having seen early reports of
problems) I hadn't let it install.

So naturally, it started incessantly popping up reminders asking to install
it, and if you hit "Later" it tells you to enter your passcode _and
automatically installs it later_. There's a small bit of text below the PIN
pad that you have to tap to skip it, and it'll come back and ask you again
over and over. It is definitely Windows10-esque.

It keeps attempting to install _despite the fact that Apple had pulled the
release_ when they confirmed the bricking issue. As far as I can tell there is
no way to stop it.

~~~
reaperhulk
You can stop a previously downloaded update from actually being installed by
deleting the downloaded data in the settings, but that's definitely not easily
discoverable behavior.

~~~
wlesieutre
Hm, I'd looked through Settings for a way to cancel but couldn't find it. Now
that you mention deleting the data, I'm guessing this is under General >
Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage rather than somewhere related to
updates?

------
bitmapbrother
This is one of many more to come. Forcing people to install your new OS
without their consent is scum bag behavior. With Apple I'm given the option to
upgrade to a new version of the OS. On Windows, they want to cram it down your
throat and hope for the best. And I won't even get into all of the
psychological ploys they use to try and trick users into upgrading to Windows
10.

------
Mikeb85
I know a student whose computer restarted to upgrade to Windows 10 the day
before a paper was due. Needless to say she wasn't very impressed, and will
likely never buy a PC again.

------
Santosh83
As far as I'm concerned the worst aspect of Windows 10 are the forced updates
for "unmetered" Internet connection users. As it happens, many of us have
wired connections that we pay through the nose for, and as long as MS won't
give me an option to control the download of potentially massive updates, I'll
continue sticking to my current 8.1. If this is back-ported to 8.1, I'll wipe
my last install of Windows and go full-time Linux. MS has no business
__Forcing __me to download stuff that I end-up paying for. The same goes for
telemetry that will also presumably consume some fraction of my paid-for
bandwidth.

~~~
dragonwriter
The metered/non-metered distinction is reasonable, and the behavior that
results from it defensible, but the assumption that wired (Ethernet) LAN
connections are unmetered is absolutely indefensible, for a number of reasons:

1) Wired WAN connections are, in fact, quite often quota-limited (perhaps with
a generous cap, but still limited).

2) A Wired LAN connection may backed by a wireless WAN connection.

~~~
voltagex_
There's a registry hack for setting wired to metered but I agree, it needs to
be fixed. Are you able to add feedback (or +1 mine) on the Feedback Center?

------
wnevets
Think of all of the wasted effort and money because microsoft didn't force
people off of IE6 quick enough.

~~~
spriggan3
> Think of all of the wasted effort and money because microsoft didn't force
> people off of IE6 quick enough.

You can't tell the difference between upgrading a single app and and an entire
OS ?

~~~
wnevets
When it comes to IE is there much difference?IE versions are tied directly to
OS versions.

------
devy
Shouldn't this case be a class-action suit? How come there isn't one already?

------
sirsuki
Windows forced upgrade can be avoided with Never10:
[https://www.grc.com/never10.htm](https://www.grc.com/never10.htm) Easily
Control Automatic and Unwanted Windows 7 & 8.1 Upgrading to Windows 10

~~~
gnoway
I think you can also just uninstall KB3035583 and then 'hide' it from windows
update.

~~~
ChoGGi

      rem Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7
      wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664 /quiet /norestart
      rem Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows
      wusa /uninstall /kb:2990214 /quiet /norestart
      rem Update to Windows 7 SP1 for performance improvements
      wusa /uninstall /kb:3021917 /quiet /norestart
      rem Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
      wusa /uninstall /kb:3022345 /quiet /norestart
      rem Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1
      wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583 /quiet /norestart
      rem Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to a later version of Windows
      wusa /uninstall /kb:3044374 /quiet /norestart
      rem Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
      wusa /uninstall /kb:3068708 /quiet /norestart
      rem Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
      wusa /uninstall /kb:3075249 /quiet /norestart
      rem Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
      wusa /uninstall /kb:3080149 /quiet /norestart
      rem Updated capabilities to upgrade Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
      wusa /uninstall /kb:3123862 /quiet /norestart
      rem Updated Internet Explorer 11 capabilities to upgrade Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
      wusa /uninstall /kb:3146449 /quiet /norestart

------
boundring
Am I the only one who leaves the Windows Update service entry disabled under
the "services" settings?

Seriously, it's that simple. I check once a week, tops.

~~~
chrisfosterelli
I wouldn't say disabling all security updates is a good solution.

~~~
boundring
Read a little more carefully: I update when I _want_ my laptop tied up with an
inconvenient process. Scheduled, not _never at all_.

~~~
chrisfosterelli
Ah, yes sorry. I've heard this advice given often for the "Windows 10
problem", but given to users who definitely would never bother/know to update
manually.

------
hyperpallium
Reminds me of how Microsoft launched Xbox One - kinect, always on, no game
resale. Which resulted in greater PS4 sales.

------
rwallace
A strong brand costs so much to build, is such a valuable asset, I can't think
of any commercial motive that would come close to making up for trashing the
brands of the company and product like this.

So I'm going to conjecture a non-commercial motive: maybe the US government
has asked Microsoft to do this to assist with surveillance. No proof, of
course, but it's the only scenario I can think of in which this would make
sense. The truth will probably come out someday; I'll be interested in seeing
whether I was right.

------
0xmohit
This is a gem:

    
    
      A spokesperson for the company told the Seattle Times that it denied any wrongdoing and had dropped the appeal to avoid the additional expense of further litigation.
    

Good that in this case [0], Microsoft didn't sue to kid's parents aside from
suing him.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft)

------
more_corn
Pick the world you want to live in and go build it. Opt-in: free but chaotic
and insecure. Opt-out: more uniform, but imperfect and still messy. Forced
updates: it works but in the same way tyranny does.

I'm ok with security updates being on by default (and truly important ones
being more forceful), but the harder you push the more freedom you take away.
Do you want to live in a world where someone takes your choice away because
they think they know better?

------
yugai
I haven't found anyone using Windows X that thinks it's better than Windows
XP. Windows 10 is better than Windows 8 but still worse than XP. My father-in-
law was pleased that his Windows 8 was replaced by 10 automatically because he
hated it and was about to return his laptop.

~~~
tim333
I prefered 7 to XP. XP used to screw up and need to be restored from a disk
image fairly often, 7 not so much.

------
SN76477
Im glad this judgement was passed.

It also makes me sad.

Microsoft was in the best possible position before Windows10

They could have been the peoples OS. They could have said, 'we listened and
this is Win10' Win10 is almost great, forced updates, sketchy snooping and
forced accounts sort of ruined it.

------
waylandsmithers
Good. I'm sure everyone here has a story about someone we know whose windows
machine was upgraded. Say what you want about these kinds of court cases, but
real emotional distress has been inflicted on so many people by MS by doing
this.

------
revanx_
I tried Windows 10, spent 18 hours tweaking and fine tuning until I went too
far with disabling the hidden telemetry services (yes W10 has hidden services
that you will never see in the MMC but run with an automatic trigger). Went
afk which was apparently the trigger condition, two hours later I find my
laptop completely locked and unresponsive burning the cpu in some infinite
loop.

Have to give them credit tho, the telemetry that cannot be disabled does not
bypass the software firewall in case you're blocking the ports, at least not
from what I have learned in the span of two days.

------
amluto
This doesn't just affect upgrades from earlier versions of Windows to Windows
10. I've seen Windows 10 computers spontaneously become unusable for hours,
saying "All your files are exactly where you left them." Real helpful.

I haven't personally used Windows in years, but I remember a completely
unproductive day at work when we installed a Visual Studio upgrade that look
approximately 24 hours to install (might have been 18, or maybe 36 -- I
forget) with no option to cancel. At least that was a bug that Microsoft later
admitted to and fixed.

------
mark_l_watson
If I called the shots at Microsoft I would handle things differently: run a
series of advertisements warning people that after a certain date, no security
updates would be available for old versions of Windows. I would then make it
easy and free to update any computer, but I would not force automatic updates.
I would explain to the public that for online security that everyone had to
always be on the latest version.

This may sound harsh, but I think it would be for the most benefit for most
people.

------
627467
I was sitting on an exam where we were allowed (although not mandatory) to use
a computer to research and write the exam and halfway through reading the exam
sheets I noticed my colleague's computer restarts and enters the windows 10
installation mode. It finished half way through our exam time. His computer
was useless to him for the exam.

This is shameful Microsoft.

------
randiantech
I dont see mandatory updates as a bad thing per se. I think ideally it would
be a way to allow users that wants to use older versions to pay a fee to do
that (Basically to cover the maintenance service due to keep patching legacy
versions). I think its understandable that MS dont want to keep investing in
phased out software.

~~~
criddell
> I think its understandable that MS dont want to keep investing in phased out
> software.

I think the problem is that they are phasing out software to replace it with
something that few people are asking for. I like Windows 10. I also liked
Windows 8.1, 7, Vista, XP, and 2000. I've been using them to do basically the
exact same thing for the past 15 years -- run software and manage files. I
think any one of them could have been the operating system that Microsoft
declares "this is the last one!".

------
ck2
GWX Control Panel
[http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/](http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/)

Disables virtually all possibilities of auto-upgrades.

~~~
DKnoll3
So does using an OS that respects the user's right to choose, and doesn't rely
on trickery to change users to a more commercially friendly platform.

------
edoceo
I might be the only person who wants Windows 10 but can't get the install to
work. I'm going to the MS Redmond campus on Wed to see if anyone there can
figure it out.

------
urbanKeywi
BTW, personally I don't like any kind of updates. But I couldn't help updating
them, cause always there were irritating alerts.

------
knodi
Finally!! This was so stupid of them. imagine all those people who had a
failed upgrade and PC couldn't get to the desktop anymore.

------
trhway
time to get a certified copy of the case docs from that court house and visit
the local one - sounds like it was a Small Claims, so not much hassle - at
least comparing to the annoyance of those notifications and the final insult
of the upgrade that still finally happened anyway.

------
sev
I wonder if Google can/will be held to the same scrutiny for automatically
upgrading Chrome?

------
Fej
Is anyone surprised by this?

Just wait until the class action hits.

------
gldev
If they promise to remove the botnet entirely i'd be in.

~~~
benbristow
What botnet? Take off your Tinfoil hat.

~~~
Spivak
Calling it a botnet is meant to highlight that it's MS who is ultimately in
control and a machine running W10 obeys them before the user.

If we're going for accuracy, it should probably be called spyware.

~~~
Nullabillity
Spyware would be accurate if it was just the telemetry, botnet is correct
since Windows Update essentially acts as a C&C system.

------
davidf18
Although I can't speak for Windows 10, in general it is best to upgrade to the
newest MS OS because although older versions of Windows get security upgrades,
the newest version generally has newer security features that the older
versions do not have, some of it taking advantage of newer Intel hardware.

I currently run Mac with Windows 10 in Parallels VM.

------
justinlardinois
> Her $10,000 figure reflected estimated lost compensation as well as the cost
> of a new system.

The article doesn't go into what she does for a living, so I'll leave the
compensation part alone.

But why did she need to buy a new computer? Did Windows 10 flash her BIOS? Or
is it just the standard "oh my computer is slow, better just buy a new one"?

------
tacos
Meanwhile, Microsoft wins $10,000,000,000 profit by forcing users to upgrade
to Windows 10.

------
CamperBob2
Aaaaand, here come the shills.

Good job, Microsoft. Everyone who works on the Windows team should be proud.
You've built something that you literally can't give away for free without
force-feeding it to users, and that can be defended only by downmodding those
who object.

~~~
dang
Accusations of astroturfing and shillage are not allowed on HN without
evidence. And please don't post comments complaining about downvotes
([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)).

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11989084](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11989084)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
CamperBob2
Not arguing with your decision, but seriously: you don't find the moderation
patterns in these threads just a _little_ suspicious?

You'll note I didn't accuse anyone specific of shilling.

~~~
dang
I'm grateful that you didn't accuse anyone specific (that would be worse), but
it still degrades the discussion to make this charge without evidence.

> _you don 't find the moderation patterns in these threads just a little
> suspicious?_

I don't know exactly what moderation patterns you mean, but for the most part
what we see is pretty easily explained. Take a look at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11844253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11844253).

We're dead serious when we do find evidence:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20banned%20astroturfer...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20banned%20astroturfer&sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

------
HoopleHead
Stopped reading at "Reached out..."

<vomit>

------
jokoon
Devil's advocate: windows 10 is awesome as an OS, hardware support is very
good.

~~~
xyience
So is <insert other modern OS>. That doesn't mean it should be auto-installed.

------
vblord
Ugh... I missed my opportunity. I upgraded the OS on my iPhone 3G and the
thing ran soooo slow after that. It was so slow that it was almost impossible
to use it. I should have sued Apple!!!

~~~
chipperyman573
Why would you sue Apple for that? They didn't force you to upgrade and you
could have researched any negative effects before you upgraded.

~~~
tdkl
That's BS. Advertising how awesome $vendor is with updating their own hardware
but failing to note that it runs like crap, that user should do the research
and isn't possible to revert, while nagging you with update notifications
should result in a class action suit as well.

------
JoeAltmaier
There are many helpful things about Windows 10 - security, update,
performance. Then there's the new screwed-up interface. If they'd staged these
two, or offered them separately, there'd be less resistance.

~~~
dgritsko
What do you mean by "screwed-up interface"? After using 10 (upgraded from 7)
for the last few months, I can only say that the interface is better. Any
changes that I've noticed have been improvements, so I'm genuinely curious as
to what you're referring to.

~~~
ak217
In my experience, Windows 10 is a poor upgrade from Windows 7 on laptops and
desktops. The interface is a buggy, half-hearted attempt to roll back the
trainwreck that is Windows 8 to something resembling 7, except 7 still works
better since it doesn't have to deal with all the Metro (tablet/touch
interface) bits.

For now I'm keeping Windows 7 with manual updates - while loathing the fact
that I have to use Windows at all - and I suspect there are a lot of people
like me.

~~~
dagw
_except 7 still works better since it doesn 't have to deal with all the Metro
(tablet/touch interface) bits._

Honestly, What metro bits? If been using Windows 10 on my desktop since
release and there are no metro bits that show up in my day to day use my
computer. The only bits that where there in Windows 10 where the tiles in
start menu, but they where easy to remove. Personally I consider Windows 10 a
clear improvement over Windows 7 in just about every aspect.

~~~
noisem4ker
The new shiny, touchy, metro-y Settings app, for one. Half the settings have
moved there, while the rest of the stuff (generally the more advanced, non
mobile-related kind) still lies in the "legacy" Control Panel.

One of the most embarrassing aberrations of trying to convert a powerful,
productivity-oriented PC operating system into a mobile devices firmware.

------
amalag
A friend accepted the Windows 10 update but then his Asus laptop had some
failed windows update and went into a reboot loop. Completely unable to boot.
This was 6 months after Windows 10 was released.

