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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

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 32 days it won't be free any more (July 29)

Thank God for that. I'll finally be able to boot my Windows partition again without worrying if it's going to nuke my Linux install.

:) I thought I was the only one who simply stopped using my Windows partitions. Just installed 16.04 Ubuntu Studio, too.

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

#242
post #193
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not "forced" to upgrade the OS on an iphone, you will just have a pop up window every day asking you if you want to upgrade now or tonight. You have a choice!

And for each, it respects your wishes. That it's annoying is besides the point, also you're not getting telemetry forcibly installed, either. It's only a dot release that contains security updates.

It certainly contains security updates, but also the opportunity to nag me a little more with apple music, icloud, apple pay, etc... But it's all for my own good!

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

#243

I am frankly surprised that she's the first one who's tried taking Microsoft to court. I kind of anticipated that there would be a class action lawsuit after Microsoft made Windows 10 a "recommended" update--meaning anyone who had their Win 7 or 8 machines set to install recommended updated automatically would get updated without being made aware of it.

No matter what they do, the users would complain. By leaving the settings on recommended, the user said she wants free IT support from Microsoft. Microsoft, like any other IT dept. would, made the decision to upgrade to an OS which will work better for everyone. Sadly, a small amount of users don't understand why they can't keep using the same $200 Dell from 1999 forever - just like many users can't understand why Mi…

I made the rounds to my relatives last year and upgraded everyone's 15+ year old PCs from "Windows" to "Lubuntu." It's like breathing fresh life into an old machine.

A huge chunk of users have no need for a new computer, or a new operating system for that matter. They want to have a web browser, e-mail and open documents. For some, that's meant switching over to using a tablet. But for others, they just want to keep using the machine they've got.

And it's not even really a Windows vs Linux thing. If Microsoft would continue to provide security updates for their old OSes or make a paired down version of their new OSes to work on a minimalist or older machine then I would have upgraded them to that instead.

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

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You have to pay to have the option to not be spied on, because only the version designed to be used for serious business supports disabling the first-party tracking, because business users are important and home users are just another revenue channel.

I now have even less moral issue with not paying to use Windows for personal use. Seriously, they should have just made it free for home users regardless of Win7 license state (I've had terrible luck with "upgraded" versions of Windows -- clean installs only for me, and yes I know about the Insider program and the exception to this...I didn't stay up on the news and I missed the "must be installed by" deadline).

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

#245
post #63

I visited my parents last weekend. My dad says his laptop automatically updated to Windows 10 a month ago and since then he was unable to use the internet (so basically the machine). He was PO'ed. He was tricked into installing it because Microsoft changed the behavior of the upgrade prompt. You can choose "Upgrade now" or "Not now, upgrade later". "Not now, upgrade later" use to behave like and mean "Ask me again la…

Same here. My mother called me in tears because she was tricked into installing Windows 10 on her PC and she can no longer sync photos from her camera.

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

#246

The idea of "let's put a popup on everyone's computer telling them they can download the next version of Windows for free" simply reeks of malware shit. Even worse is when they decided to force it on everyone else who doesn't automatically click "OK" on every dialog box they see.

I kinda understand the mindset. In IT, we learn that pretty much everyone will be clueless on how to do something unless you make it nearly impossible for them to not. So when Microsoft's top support question was "how to I upgrade to Windows 10", it doesn't seem out of far field for them to think "how do we make it nearly impossible for them to fail". There's no doubt Microsoft screwed this up for a number of reasons…

Making it near impossible to fail to install != trickery. Nearly impossible to fail installation, would be a pop-up asking yes/no. And making a short-cut on the desktop to start the same pop-up, and putting it in the start-menu. Any support calls -> Start Menu -> Windows 10 Update. Click Yes. (Yes for some this could still be a problem :/ but these kind of people need help throughout the year anyway.)

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You have to pay to have the option to not be spied on, because only the version designed to be used for serious business supports disabling the first-party tracking, because business users are important and home users are just another revenue channel. I now have even less moral issue with not paying to use Windows for personal use. Seriously, they should have just made it free for home users regardless of Win7 licens…

If it makes you feel better, my mother was on an insider build because we figured she would get Windows either free or at a discount, and she ended up having to buy retail anyway.

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

#248
time to get a certified copy of the case docs from that court house and visit the local one - sounds like it was a Small Claims, so not much hassle - at least comparing to the annoyance of those notifications and the final insult of the upgrade that still finally happened anyway.

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

#249
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that's Apple's approach. One of my MacBooks is running Yosemite and has been receiving security updates. My other Macbook is running El Capitan, and I hear Sierra is coming out soon. Those seem to be named updates. Maybe they've announced something new for Sierra? Or maybe you were referring to the free updates?

They are all still named OS X.

The next release is named macOS Sierra.

Also, all Windows releases for the indefinite future will be named Windows 10.

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

#250

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.

They should simply perform their obligations around providing fixes for the product for the duration of the advertised support period.

That they are running software on thousands or hundreds of thousands of machines that was advertised as an update but is instead advertware is a crap move on their part. It's probably not a strong legal argument, but IMO they should be paying me to use my system to run software of their choice, much in the way that I would pay to use Azure to run software of my choice on their systems.

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