It’s telling that most of my stories about Windows 10, a genuinely decent operating system, have been about how crappy Microsoft has made the upgrade experience. Microsoft seems to be getting the hint, though.
For more than a year, upgrading to Windows 10 hasn’t cost anything. Rather than let people organically upgrade, the company began forcing upgrades by scheduling them through manipulative and deceptive prompts.
To whit, one of the upgrade windows would schedule an upgrade if you hit the red “X” in the corner, AKA the universal sign for “cancel”.
Just recently, a woman sued Microsoft over this and won $US10,000 ($13,627).
Microsoft’s made a few changes since my last piece, including rolling out an app called Get Windows 10 that lets you instruct Windows to shut up and stop reminding you to upgrade your operating system.
Furthermore, the company told The Verge that it’s further tweaked the upgrade prompt due to “feedback that some of our valued customers found it confusing”. This new prompt, rolling out this week, will have “clear options to upgrade now, schedule a time, or decline the free offer”.
Source: The Verge
Finally.
Your last chance to upgrade for free is July 29, after which it will cost $179.
Comments
20 responses to “Microsoft Altering Its Shady Windows 10 Forced Upgrade System”
“shady”? Seriously? I have not had any of my PC’s forced to upgrade.. In 2 cases ive had to find out why I couldnt get it to update at all! Couldnt be user error at all? Nah.. never!
When was the last time you installed Windows updates? All these changes happen during Windows updates. You may have an older version of the upgrade software.
It has been happening to many people and it is shady to suddenly upgrade someone’s computer without consent or knowledge. Especially when everything breaks post upgrade.
Not everyone’s as computer literate as you. If you didn’t have a problem, fine, but read the linked articles in the story above and tell me with a straight face that Microsoft weren’t employing intentionally deceptive practices in order to trick people into upgrading.
My father upgraded his computer without my knowledge because, hey, it’s Microsoft, they wouldn’t fuck over a customer. Now his Skype is broken and I can’t diagnose the problem remotely so he can’t video chat with me or my brother & his family overseas anymore that way. Cheers Microsoft. (Thankfully my mum’s iPad is basically parent-proof so Facetime is still an option… when they hold it so the camera is pointing the right way)
Working with trouble shooting computers for the common user at my shop I find using Win10 for them much easier & as with all things, the sooner legacy support dies for out dated programs/hardware the sooner we can move on.
A fucking men to that.
While I agree with this (I hate having to support legacy crap, especially printers/anything with drivers), there are many situations where it’s not that simple. For example, one of my clients is a steelworks, and one of the laser cutting machines interfaces with software that ONLY runs on Windows 98. The company in Japan refuses to upgrade their software to match current gen, yet we cant replace the machine because it costs 4x more than my car when it was new…
Extreme example I know, but in the case of home users, people see stuff working and dont necessarily want to or cant afford new gear just because there is a new operating system out, so they’d prefer to try and get what they have working if possible.
Dosbox or virtual machine?
Physical touchscreen attached to the machine I’m afraid…..
Dang, foiled again. Heh.
Yeah mate, dont think we didnt try everything else already haha…
Even with this fix, it’s still the worst os for games, hopefully they come to their sences and bring out dx12 for win 7, I’ve got windows 10 on one pc its nothing but trojan ware randomly sending data to the US all day slowing my games down, not letting me go to gaming/mod sites it deems as unfit sometimes even poping up with fake logins. So yeah still using win7.
Lol I doubt that has anything to do with win10 or any OS for that matter. What shady pron sites have you been visiting?
You can read right or are you just another teen that needs to have an option read, they said mod sites (unoficial addons for games) i have the same issue, that and streaming movie sites even with VPN eg.. primewire.ag has fake logins pop up.
Lol, clearly I can read, Bob firstly stated he had trojan ware sending data to the US, If I’m correct in what I think you’re trying to say from the poor grammar in you comment?
To avoid being hypocritical in future, I suggest you double check the comments and proof read your writing before hitting submit 😉
Personally I haven’t experienced any of what Bob has running Win10 since inception and doing the same things. This is more likely user error than anything.
You might want to stop downloading shady porn apps then.
I’ve been running win10 since the insider preview and had absolutely no issues whatsoever. It’s fast and smooth with no issues.
I don’t like the way some of the options have been shifted around, like the settings panel vs control panel, but it’s still pretty great.
Yeah, these things are definitely not caused by Windows 10. It’s pretty universally accepted even by detractors that Windows 10 gives better gaming performance than prior versions.
Best gaming OS yet and why would they bring dx12 to an OS that’s obsolete.
And what rig you running then, with how many games using dx12, you know what sli is? I’m betting its a $3.5k peasant rig from 5 years, with a forced win 10 update. DX12 on win7 would out do 10 its a no brainer with benefits to all multi card rigs.
Lol. Touchy touchy.
No Brainer? Please explain how so.