8 ms·

There's a sense of irony seeing this post today when just last night, as my girlfriend and I were planning a weekend trip, I asked her what OS she was using (no

There's a sense of irony seeing this post today when just last night, as my girlfriend and I were planning a weekend trip, I asked her what OS she was using (not being familiar with anything beyond Win7), to which she responded Win8. I then asked if she planned to upgrade to Win10, noting a post I had read about MS charging for the upgrade after a certain date, to which she responded no...then a minute or two later, poof, Win10 auto-update starts...literally in the middle of a reservation transaction. She swears she never explicitly consented to the upgrade. It's one thing to read about and discuss the issues with Microsoft's overt push to migrate the world to Win10. It's admittedly a completely different experience to see it happen right before your eyes. Some time ago, I half-committed to never owning another computer with a Microsoft OS beyond Win7, reasoning that you just never know if a useful tool may pop up that's only available for Windows. After last night's surprise, that commitment became unwavering.

aswanson 10y ago
I thought Nadella would bring an ending to such hamfisted, Ballmeresque/Gatesian approaches what with him supporting such open projects lately. This is sad.
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  I don't think this debacle can be blamed on Ballmer, and certainly not on Gates. In fact, I have to wonder if the reason why Ballmer was finally handed his walking papers by the board was that he was unwilling to greenlight these frog-marched upgrades to Windows 10. Somebody very powerful at Microsoft, or perhaps elsewhere, wants everybody to accept this free update way, way too badly, and it's not clear why.
  - cmurf 10y ago
    They're getting their asses handed to them by malware. They have a huge attack surface of users on various versions of Windows. Forced upgrades reduces that attack surface of older versions of Windows. That's all I can think of. In open source software where this is more transparent, computer security is hard. Backporting fixes is harder, and expensive, and has its own risks. Microsoft can't be immune to the same problem.
    - cm2187 10y ago
      I don't believe a single second that Microsoft is adopting this hard line for security considerations. They want to monetize their users. They want them to watch their in-OS ads, they want to accumulate data on people, they want them to go to bing for search, etc.
      - yuhong 10y ago
        I think the most important one here is the Windows Store.
        cm2187 10y ago
        I forgot it and completely agree, they want a cut of anything installed on the machine. And following this logic I wouldn't be surprised if they would make it increasingly difficult to install any non store app. Requiring them to be signed first, then signed by them against a fee, then simply not allowed like iOS does. Which is why not having the option to turn down upgrade after having been upgraded to windows 10 is problematic.
        yuhong 10y ago
        They did do something similar with Windows RT, but that was completely locked down with no existing Win32 app base to worry about. And yes, they do have uninstall I think with 30 days before files are deleted.
        tobias3 10y ago
        They are already doing it with drivers. Windows 10 will only load Microsoft signed drivers and Windows Server 2016 will only load WHQL signed drivers for which you have to pay a fee.
        yuhong 10y ago
        But the CA makes most of the money not Microsoft though.
  - frik 10y ago
    Bill is back, and he is a major force behind Nadella, Nadella is just a marionette. Yes, Microsoft used to be a better citizen when Ballmer was in charge.
aluhut 10y ago
As someone who held onto Win2k until it hurt, I still thought it might be a good deal back then when they offered the free upgrade from 7 to 10. I thought: I'll just wait until the last moment so I can see what kind of bugs come up. While upgrading one of my laptops to 10 to play around with it and be prepared (which was a horrible experience on it's own). Now with the moment coming closer and seeing what they do there, I'm pretty sure I'll play the win2k game one more time with my win7 and see what comes up next. Even if I'd have to pay for it.
- zxcvcxz 10y ago
  I just run win7 in a VM on Linux.
- noisem4ker 10y ago
  1. Backup your Windows 7 install 2. Upgrade to Windows 10 (this associates your machine with a permanent license) 3. Restore your backup If/when time comes to actually upgrade, you should be able to do so (or install from scratch) using the license you acquired in step 2.
Joeri 10y ago
There was a user action to install it, but it's pretty sneaky. MS changed the behavior of the upgrade question dialog that if you close it with x it will start the download and then install when ready. Your girlfriend must have clicked the x some time prior to the sudden upgrade. Even my tech-savvy coworker who didn't want to upgrade got caught out by this. Anyway, you can still roll back, and then install never10.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  Edit: After some thinking: Yes, i agree this is a dark pattern and MS needs to be held accountable to it accordingly. My only disagreement with the current direction of discourse is that people are not saying "MS manipulated me into an update", which is the truth, but "Windows updated on its own and there was nothing anyone could do", which isn't. -- They didn't change it, it was always that way. People only realized just now that it does that. Also, please do take a look at the window people X out of and then are surprised about: http://i.imgur.com/aWFX0vc.png http://i.imgur.com/aWFX0vc.png It states clearly that it is going to happen, and when it is going happen, and how to cancel it. The only way a user would be surprised about that is if they didn't read the message in the first place.
  - mavhc 10y ago
    If people could read we'd live in a completely different world, run by people elected by voters because it was in their best interests; where no one clicked a EULA, because the contents of them are insane; and no one bought the extended warranty.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - swang 10y ago
    Surely you're joking? "Click here to change your upgrade schedule" is in such tiny font of course no one will see it. If Microsoft cared about its users, that option would be way bigger than it is. Edit: They purposely put in all that information because they know people won't want to read through all that. That dialog is purposely designed to trick users because they've been taught that if they want to cancel, hit the "X" button, not find the tiny link to change the scheduling of this thing you don't understand.

aswanson 10y ago

I thought Nadella would bring an ending to such hamfisted, Ballmeresque/Gatesian approaches what with him supporting such open projects lately. This is sad.

CamperBob2 10y ago
I don't think this debacle can be blamed on Ballmer, and certainly not on Gates. In fact, I have to wonder if the reason why Ballmer was finally handed his walking papers by the board was that he was unwilling to greenlight these frog-marched upgrades to Windows 10. Somebody very powerful at Microsoft, or perhaps elsewhere, wants everybody to accept this free update way, way too badly, and it's not clear why.
- cmurf 10y ago
  They're getting their asses handed to them by malware. They have a huge attack surface of users on various versions of Windows. Forced upgrades reduces that attack surface of older versions of Windows. That's all I can think of. In open source software where this is more transparent, computer security is hard. Backporting fixes is harder, and expensive, and has its own risks. Microsoft can't be immune to the same problem.
  - cm2187 10y ago
    I don't believe a single second that Microsoft is adopting this hard line for security considerations. They want to monetize their users. They want them to watch their in-OS ads, they want to accumulate data on people, they want them to go to bing for search, etc.
    - yuhong 10y ago
      I think the most important one here is the Windows Store.
      - cm2187 10y ago
        I forgot it and completely agree, they want a cut of anything installed on the machine. And following this logic I wouldn't be surprised if they would make it increasingly difficult to install any non store app. Requiring them to be signed first, then signed by them against a fee, then simply not allowed like iOS does. Which is why not having the option to turn down upgrade after having been upgraded to windows 10 is problematic.
        yuhong 10y ago
        They did do something similar with Windows RT, but that was completely locked down with no existing Win32 app base to worry about. And yes, they do have uninstall I think with 30 days before files are deleted.
        tobias3 10y ago
        They are already doing it with drivers. Windows 10 will only load Microsoft signed drivers and Windows Server 2016 will only load WHQL signed drivers for which you have to pay a fee.
        yuhong 10y ago
        But the CA makes most of the money not Microsoft though.
- frik 10y ago
  Bill is back, and he is a major force behind Nadella, Nadella is just a marionette. Yes, Microsoft used to be a better citizen when Ballmer was in charge.

aluhut 10y ago

As someone who held onto Win2k until it hurt, I still thought it might be a good deal back then when they offered the free upgrade from 7 to 10. I thought: I'll just wait until the last moment so I can see what kind of bugs come up. While upgrading one of my laptops to 10 to play around with it and be prepared (which was a horrible experience on it's own). Now with the moment coming closer and seeing what they do there, I'm pretty sure I'll play the win2k game one more time with my win7 and see what comes up next. Even if I'd have to pay for it.

zxcvcxz 10y ago
I just run win7 in a VM on Linux.
noisem4ker 10y ago
1. Backup your Windows 7 install 2. Upgrade to Windows 10 (this associates your machine with a permanent license) 3. Restore your backup If/when time comes to actually upgrade, you should be able to do so (or install from scratch) using the license you acquired in step 2.

Joeri 10y ago

There was a user action to install it, but it's pretty sneaky. MS changed the behavior of the upgrade question dialog that if you close it with x it will start the download and then install when ready. Your girlfriend must have clicked the x some time prior to the sudden upgrade. Even my tech-savvy coworker who didn't want to upgrade got caught out by this. Anyway, you can still roll back, and then install never10.

Mithaldu 10y ago
Edit: After some thinking: Yes, i agree this is a dark pattern and MS needs to be held accountable to it accordingly. My only disagreement with the current direction of discourse is that people are not saying "MS manipulated me into an update", which is the truth, but "Windows updated on its own and there was nothing anyone could do", which isn't. -- They didn't change it, it was always that way. People only realized just now that it does that. Also, please do take a look at the window people X out of and then are surprised about: http://i.imgur.com/aWFX0vc.png http://i.imgur.com/aWFX0vc.png It states clearly that it is going to happen, and when it is going happen, and how to cancel it. The only way a user would be surprised about that is if they didn't read the message in the first place.
- mavhc 10y ago
  If people could read we'd live in a completely different world, run by people elected by voters because it was in their best interests; where no one clicked a EULA, because the contents of them are insane; and no one bought the extended warranty.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- swang 10y ago
  Surely you're joking? "Click here to change your upgrade schedule" is in such tiny font of course no one will see it. If Microsoft cared about its users, that option would be way bigger than it is. Edit: They purposely put in all that information because they know people won't want to read through all that. That dialog is purposely designed to trick users because they've been taught that if they want to cancel, hit the "X" button, not find the tiny link to change the scheduling of this thing you don't understand.