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Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

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Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#21

This happened to my co-worker just the other day. He develops native windows software so it was pretty annoying for him.

Yeah, a couple of mine had it over the weekend too. One with good results, and doesn't care. The other with a couple fails in the house that had to spend time to reinstall from scratch.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#22

Strangely nobody has ever caught this on video. Just a handful of anonymous people claiming "I totally didn't hit the wrong button in the UI!!" Now, sure, I'd agree it should be harder to accidentally upgrade your PC. In particular for layman users. But I am generally skeptical that this is any more than just user error until proven otherwise. I have a Windows 7 PC I use regularly, I too get the upgrade prompts, but…

Dark patterns http://darkpatterns.org "I clicked 'update security' and it gave me Windows 10!"

Microsoft did bundle the IE banner upgrade advertiser with security updates recently, and that was uncool/unacceptable.

But I've never seen an update security button that actually INSTALLS Windows 10, and that is specifically what this complaint is about, the upgrade starting on its own.

As I said if there is a bug that causes upgrades to occur without permission then people need to provide production steps. If there isn't a bug and Microsoft is doing it on purpose then why is it only impacting so few people? And how can we exclude user error?

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#23

Strangely nobody has ever caught this on video. Just a handful of anonymous people claiming "I totally didn't hit the wrong button in the UI!!" Now, sure, I'd agree it should be harder to accidentally upgrade your PC. In particular for layman users. But I am generally skeptical that this is any more than just user error until proven otherwise. I have a Windows 7 PC I use regularly, I too get the upgrade prompts, but…

I don't know if this was changed for the external release, but when Windows 10 was rolled out internally to employees at Microsoft, a significant fraction (but not all) employees weren't notified and had their machines reboot without warning. This happened in the middle of the workday and caused a lot of employees to lose half a day, and that's in the happy case where nothing went wrong with the install.

> I flagged this article on purpose because I don't consider a random Reddit thread to be a legitimate source.

Maybe you also won't consider a random HN thread to be a legitimate source, but if you ask MS employees you're sure to find some who were either hit by this or know someone who was hit by this.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#24

This upgrade occurred to my father's Dell laptop, which became hung during the install and essentially "locked" from his standpoint. (He lives in another state and I'm not able to assist his technical needs.) In any case, he took it to Office Max where he bought it and asked them to fix it. They did: they wiped his hard drive clean and installed Windows 10. With none of his files. Aggressive updating of an OS is not…

Does your father still have the laptop? If so, ask him not to use it until you can get hold of it, and when you do I'd suggest running a Linux live distro on the machine with tools to recover deleted files, there's a decent chance you'll be able to recover many of them. I've had success with the tools included in Trinity Rescue Kit before, so I can recommend that to you. I've used it to recover a bunch of pictures th…

I agree. Depending on the size of the HDD and the amount of data lost, there's a good chance that some data can be recovered, especially small files like office documents.

That said, it's a HDD wipe followed immediately by a full Windows installation, so there's a high chance a lot of the data were overwritten already.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#25
post #14

Now with more ads, spyware, constant logging of everything you do to Microsoft, and telemetry! No thanks. I guess MS wants to cede the entire high-end market to Apple and Linux and re-position themselves as a bargain basement low-end vendor of spyware ridden junk.

The high-end market is mostly gamers, which is 95%+ Windows.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#26

Strangely nobody has ever caught this on video. Just a handful of anonymous people claiming "I totally didn't hit the wrong button in the UI!!" Now, sure, I'd agree it should be harder to accidentally upgrade your PC. In particular for layman users. But I am generally skeptical that this is any more than just user error until proven otherwise. I have a Windows 7 PC I use regularly, I too get the upgrade prompts, but…

No, it's forced. I came home from work and there was pop-up window which I thought was the usual nag screen. It said my Windows 10 download was ready.

Except this one had a count down timer at around 54 minutes left. There was also an option "I need more time...".

I X'd the box closed and went on thinking whatever.

54 minutes later, in the middle of typing an email, the system auto rebooted and "Configuring Update for Wndows 10" screen came up.

I took pictures of it with my cell which are kind of blurry because it's hard to have a steady hand during a good WTH rage.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#27
post #9

I use Windows Media Center on my machine so I'll be pretty irritated if it automatically upgrades - MS removed it in Windows 10.

This is the exact reason I have been avoiding 10. I still use the DVR capability. I know I don't have automatic update on, but still getting paranoid about it reading all the issues people are having.

I've been trying to move away from WMC - trying MediaPortal, NextPVR and Emby, so far, but the interface on all of them is sub-par. It's very frustrating - I'd gladly pay a chunk of money, but I guess I'm part of a small audience that doesn't make such development worth it.

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#29
Here's the update:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3035583

...that explains the Windows 10 update, but on my machine it just says "Install this update to resolve issues in Windows. blah blah blah" which is the same boilerplate they all use. The update size is uniquely given as a range 722 KB - 821 KB, which is probably a low estimate for an OS installer. So, no indication of the magnitude of this. Since it isn't a security update, anyone with a properly-configured system (IMO) shouldn't be bothered by it. Unless Microsoft updates it to a "security update". Which seems possible.

The whole "auto update and restart" thing seemed like a potentially global-scale Therac-25 style bad idea when I first heard about it on Windows XP (or whenever). But it never happened--I guess not too many critical systems use Windows. Just millions of people losing millions of hours of productivity...

Re: Windows 7 computers are automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade

#30
post #8
post #6

Wouldn't the automatic upgrade mean you didn't agree to any T&C?

You did agree if you set Windows Update to automatically install updates. The upgrade to Window 10 is being treated as an "update".

If they changed the T&C, that ain't gonna go well for them.

(IE it probably won't be held to be consent)

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