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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

#231

Post by vetinari »

GrumpyYoungMan wrote: post #104
SixSigma wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be upset if Windows 10 hadn't turned into a telemetry botnet for Microsoft. Edit: I see in other posts accusations of paranoia. But how can I not be paranoid when I cannot determine what is being transmitted.

I take it that you don't use a smartphone, either, since you have no way of knowing what is transmitted either, either by the primary OS or the secondary radio OS. http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_syste... Or macOS (nee OS X), since Apple gathers telemetry as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11907060 Moreover, security researchers looking to make a name for themselves are crawling all…

> I take it that you don't use a smartphone, either, since you have no way of knowing what is transmitted either, either by the primary OS or the secondary radio OS.

You know, two wrongs do not make one right.

> Or macOS (nee OS X), since Apple gathers telemetry as well.

In OSX, sending telemetry and crash reports is voluntary. It is being asked in the OOB wizard and is easily available in the Settings application.

In consumer SKUs of Windows 10, that's not the case, sending telemetry is mandatory.

> Paranoid or not, telemetry is already everywhere without you knowing what's being sent and it's here to stay.

Too early to say. It may also break Microsoft's neck.

> Singling out Windows is ridiculous.

Biggest target. They have a great opportunity to lead by example - in the positive way.

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

#232

Post by snerbles »

mikeash wrote: post #229
snerbles wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was either not fully thought out, or Microsoft's analysis figured that it would cost less to do it this way. Anecdote: When I worked dispatch, the local Network Operations Center pushed out an update that forcibly rebooted all of our Windows workstations...including the machine that ran inbound emergency calls. The admins at the NOC didn't think that anyone would dial 911 at three in the morning. No malfeasance, b…

That's terrifying. Why are inbound calls dependent on a Windows machine at all?

DoD contractors.

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

#233

Post by snuxoll »

creshal wrote: post #145
snuxoll wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it was perfect, but I would be surprised if it didn't block more potential issues than it missed.

Is a 51% success rate really good enough to justify unleashing the OS upgrade right now ? Why not make the upgrade opt-in, continue improving the migration wizard over the next years, and start the upgrade campaign in two or three years when it becomes both stable and more pressing to migrate people over?

It would be less of an issue if more vendors submitted drivers to Windows Update. As much as I am "happy" with my cheap TP-Link 802.11ac NIC (I use a lot of TP-Link gear in my house, my TG1600-24TS switch is great for the price too) I literally cannot reinstall Windows without having the driver disk at hand or plugging in my powerline network adapter to download the drivers from their website. A lot of these issues could be mitigated by this alone, as the first thing that the Windows installer does (if you are upgrading from a running system) is check windows update for updates to the installer and compatible device drivers.

I agree that maybe they shouldn't be so persistent on trying to get people to upgrade this early, especially if you have a NIC that isn't supported out of the box or has a driver that isn't on Windows Update (because I know the first thing I do when unboxing new hardware is throw the damned CD away, the only thing I use the DVD drive in my PC for is ripping movies).

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

#234

Post by abakker »

eropple wrote: post #216
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an excuse. Microsoft can and has been pushing updates to 7 to enable the constant upgrade nagging. They've even been continually pushing new updates that get more and more naggy. There is nothing preventing them from including an update that makes 7's restart logic less sadistic, but they've chosen not to do that.

Can you explain to me why Microsoft should expend time and effort to encourage behavior (staying on Windows 7) that increases their costs and increases fragility in their ecosystem? I'm not sympathetic to the dark patterns they use to push people to upgrade, but I'm 100% onboard with not pushing improvements to an older operating system.

What about a computer that runs a specific piece of software (say, Mach3 for CNC control) that doesn't have a win10 alternative. It only runs in windows 7 32 bit. There is no good alternative. I would prefer to make the determination that the machine will NEVER update. I just need it to remain the same until mach 3 updates or an alternative comes along.

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

#236

Post by freehunter »

Shorel wrote: post #149
Someone1234 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They could keep patching XP to avoid the security issues. This is more about taking control away from users than anything else.

And I could keep fixing my 92 Toyota Corolla to keep it on the road, but at some point it becomes more effective to just move on. There are some things inherent in older software that go beyond a simple patch, design decisions that may have made sense at the time but don't today. The only real way to go about that is how Apple does it, releasing a huge service pack that makes pretty major changes to the OS. And at that point, it's hardly any different than the changes Microsoft makes in different versions of Windows, except for the GUI.

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

#237

Post by freehunter »

noxToken wrote: post #225
freehunter wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the "We will install updates at 3:30am". I'd really like to see you try. My laptop will be in my bag in the hotel room at 3:30am. Hilton will be really happy with you burning the building down when you remotely switch on my Thinkpad with no ventilation.

I have never had a Windows laptop boot up for scheduled updates. In that event, it always waitied for the next manual boot.

Yeah, I haven't either, that's why I said "I'd love to see you try". You'd think the system would be smart enough to realize that it's literally never been awake at 3:30am.

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

#238

Post by nmc »

greenshackle wrote: post #215
vitd wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He refuses MacOs because of the stupid touchpad. Huh? You can hook a mouse up to any Mac. Also, in what way are Mac touchpads different from Windows touchpads?

Scrolling direction? Though I'm sure you can change that in the parameters somewhere.

Of course you can. You can also, I think, reverse trackpad scrolling on Windows.

However, I dislike the fact that on MacOs they call the setting "natural scrolling" and that they enable it by default for any trackpad you hook up.

Moreover, since the "Magic Mouse" is basically a mouse with a trackpad for a scrolling wheeel, they also enable reverse scrolling by default for any mouse.

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

#239

Post by cm2187 »

johansch wrote: post #174
cm2187 wrote: post #100

What I find surprising is that I see tech journalists reporting the issues, I see people complaining about these forced upgrades and the privacy invasion in windows 10 on forums or around me, but I do not see the press confronting Microsoft on any of this. Has anyone seen any interview where Nadella is pressed with questions on why they think it's OK to treat customer this way? All the interviews I have seen of Micro…

"These aren't real journalists, Richard. They're tech journalists.”

Or ruminants, 90% of tech articles are barely digested press releases...

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

#240

Post by criddell »

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…

It does a compatibility check, then upgrades anyway. I rely on a VNC client that Microsoft decided won't work in W10. Microsoft helpfully uninstalled the VNC client.

After W10 started, it did tell me what it had done. I was able to just reinstall the exact same client it removed and it works fine.

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