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Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

extremetech.com

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Re: Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

#121

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

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

Re: Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

#122
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those technically illiterate users are going to have trouble with Windows 10. My stepfather is in his 70s, and I had to help him set up the weather app - and it took me about ten minutes how to figure out how to set a default location! 10 is different enough from 7 that they're going to have to learn a lot of new habits - and while that's just the nature of modern life, some people are going to suffer significantly m…

I believe there must be a way of allowing people to live forever without growing old or dying. Unfortunately, neither of our beliefs are very helpful since we cannot describe an exact method for achieving our goals.

Sure, but you can easily user-test and iterate changes to software without killing people or waiting 20 years to see if your changes are beneficial.

Re: Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

I'm sympathetic both ways on this one. I think Microsoft went "too far" but I also agree that we don't want another "XP situation" with Windows 7. Effectively having 20%+ of the market on a super old OS holding back the industry and less secure. Microsoft claim they're planning to avoid this in the future by no longer releasing named new OS's, and instead just update Windows 10 for "free" forever. Basically the same…

>but I also agree that we don't want another "XP situation" with Windows 7"

How does Apple avoid "XP situations" without shoving system updates down users' throats? New versions of iOS typically achieve >80% adoption rates.

Re: Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

#124
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those technically illiterate users are going to have trouble with Windows 10. My stepfather is in his 70s, and I had to help him set up the weather app - and it took me about ten minutes how to figure out how to set a default location! 10 is different enough from 7 that they're going to have to learn a lot of new habits - and while that's just the nature of modern life, some people are going to suffer significantly m…

Have you tried ChromeOS? My grandfather is in his mid 80's. I've been helping him with his computer(s) for years. In the last year, I switched him over to a Chromebook, after trying and failing to switch him to Windows 10 (wasn't compatible with his old computer)... and since everything he does involves websites and bookmarks anyways. It's the easiest time he's ever had using a computer. No random update notification…

I haven't, but I probably should. One problem is that they live halfway across the country, so I wouldn't be on hand to help him adjust to the new OS.

Re: Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

#125
post #21

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

What botnet? Take off your Tinfoil hat.

They report every executable you run to check against a malware database. If you're using any software that isn't licensed or have cracks, those get reported too. This occurs even if you turn off all the reporting on the initial account setup.

Re: Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

#126
post #37
post #16

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

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.

I wonder if there's a term for the more general concept - rules are put in place to help/empower the individual/less powerful only to have the system corrupted by the powerful interests already in existence.

"Regulatory capture" is also an example of this idea but I think there's a larger pattern.

Re: Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

#127
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.

Re: Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

#128
post #94

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…

By that logic, there is no such thing as an upgrade. https://xkcd.com/1172/

Which is exactly the point of the GP...?

Re: Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

#129

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.

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, unl…

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Re: Woman wins $10k judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

#130
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ This. It's not THAT there is telemetry and "phoning home," it's the fact that Microsoft flat out REFUSES to be up front about what it's sending home, how they're anonymizing it, and why these things can't be 100% disabled. If you say nothing then your users will (and should) assume the worst.

Where have they refused to be up front about any of this? As far as I'm aware, they have detailed all of those things except how exactly they anonymize the data, which I haven't seen anyone specifically ask them about.

Where does Microsoft explain what they are sending to domains like ad.doubleclick.net?
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