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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

#201

Post by vetinari »

intopieces wrote: post #139
pdx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really interesting story. Let me tell you another one. Both my wife's and my son's computers updated automatically, with no button presses on their parts, even after them pressing "do not update" on all the nag screens for the past several months.

On the pop-ups that appear on my Windows 7 machine, there is no button they says "Do Not Update"; both buttons (Update now, update later) lead the system to download and install Windows 10. That both of your users report explicitly clicking a button that references update makes me suspicious that they in fact just clicked the wrong button. Sneaky of Microsoft, but I'm having trouble buying these tales of the OS going…

Even dismissing the windows is considered "yes, upgrade". That way beyond sneaky, that's just black pattern.

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

#202

Post by khedoros »

josefresco wrote: post #79

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…

> 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!

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

#203

Post by andylei »

overgard wrote: post #86

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…

but when chrome does it, its awesome

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

#204

Post by amyjess »

overgard wrote: post #86

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…

I'm reminded of an article by David Pogue, who used to write the back page column in MacWorld back in the '90s. One issue, he introduced a lexicon of terms he invented that he felt the computer industry should adopt.

One of them was "corrupgrade", which was defined as something billed as an upgrade but was actually worse than the old version. It's still the only one of those terms I remember, just because it's so useful.

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

#205

Post by doodpants »

snuxoll wrote: post #67
creshal wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Windows 7 is supposed to keep getting security updates until 2020. Computer illiterate users are the last group you should upgrade to a new system in an automated manner, because they are the most helpless if drivers/applications break from it.

This is why the Windows 10 installer does a compatibility check before performing the upgrade. My friend was trying to upgrade to Windows 10 last week but it kept denying him saying his "display is not compatible". I logged into his machine and saw he had an old GoToMyPC monitor driver installed that was causing him grief, uninstalled it and away the upgrade went. It's not perfect by any means, and "compatibility" ch…

But this only supports creshal's point about computer illiterate users. If you hadn't been there to help, would your friend have been able to resolve this on his own?

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

#206

Post by 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.

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

#207

Post by FussyZeus »

794CD01 wrote: post #177
FussyZeus wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way to turn it off. It says it's turned off, and it's still sending shit to Redmond. That's unacceptable and deceptive. I do not use software that lies to me, period, paragraph.

You can turn it off via group policy if you have windows enterprise. If you just want to complain that the cheaper version doesn't have the feature you want, and you don't want to pay the higher price for the version that does have it, that's your right, but I don't have much sympathy for that.

I have to pay to not be spied on? And you think that's acceptable?

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

#208

Post by Bjartr »

curried_haskell wrote: post #196
themartorana wrote: post #42

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…

As a web dev I'm definitely in favor of keeping people updated. However, MS should never never never fucking never interrupt somebody to force an upgrade.

Doesn't that end up with tons of machines fragmented across security patch levels?

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

#209

Post by 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.
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