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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

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota doesn't get to come to your house and tow your Corolla away when they think you ought to move on. You get to decide that: it's your car, and it's your choice. If Toyota feels so embarrassed by the fact that you are driving your Corolla that they want to spend some money trying to convince you to replace it, they can certainly make you a trade-in offer. But maybe you like your Corolla, or you don't feel like de…

> Toyota doesn't get to come to your house and tow your Corolla away when they think you ought to move on. You get to decide that: it's your car, and it's your choice. Depends on where you live. In Germany TÜV has to regularly check your car for complying with street regulations, and if it doesn't pass, you don't get to drive it. The only way to keep it is to keep it of the roads, and there's a nice :caranalogy: to k…

That might well be a reasonable way to regulate the use of computing machines. I am not rejecting the idea of collective responsiblity! But Microsoft cannot grant themselves such governmental powers just by wishing to have them. If such a collective decision about safety and liability were to arise, it would have to be established democratically.

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

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they offered me a 2016 Corolla in trade for a 2002 Corolla, I'd probably do it. edit: If they had a recall/replacement on the car because it was unsafe for other drivers on the road, people would probably agree as well.

Key point being, "offered." Microsoft is making an offer that most non-technical users can't refuse. That's not ethical. The ends don't justify the means.

[deleted]

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

#403

Aaaaand, here come the shills. Good job, Microsoft. Everyone who works on the Windows team should be proud. You've built something that you literally can't give away for free without force-feeding it to users, and that can be defended only by downmodding those who object.

Accusations of astroturfing and shillage are not allowed on HN without evidence. And please don't post comments complaining about downvotes (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11989084 and marked it off-topic.

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

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're giving them a lot of credit. Would anyone be surprised at this point if that was just the date where the malware evolves into ransomware? How easy it would be for MS to automatically "upgrade" people to Windows 10 but then lock them out of their system until they buy a verified key.

That's actually what happened to me - but self-inflicted because I'm fairly sure my Win 8 key was from MSDN.

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

#405

As far as I'm concerned the worst aspect of Windows 10 are the forced updates for "unmetered" Internet connection users. As it happens, many of us have wired connections that we pay through the nose for, and as long as MS won't give me an option to control the download of potentially massive updates, I'll continue sticking to my current 8.1. If this is back-ported to 8.1, I'll wipe my last install of Windows and go f…

The metered/non-metered distinction is reasonable, and the behavior that results from it defensible, but the assumption that wired (Ethernet) LAN connections are unmetered is absolutely indefensible, for a number of reasons: 1) Wired WAN connections are, in fact, quite often quota-limited (perhaps with a generous cap, but still limited). 2) A Wired LAN connection may backed by a wireless WAN connection.

There's a registry hack for setting wired to metered but I agree, it needs to be fixed. Are you able to add feedback (or +1 mine) on the Feedback Center?

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

#406
post #403

Aaaaand, here come the shills. Good job, Microsoft. Everyone who works on the Windows team should be proud. You've built something that you literally can't give away for free without force-feeding it to users, and that can be defended only by downmodding those who object.

Accusations of astroturfing and shillage are not allowed on HN without evidence. And please don't post comments complaining about downvotes ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ). We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11989084 and marked it off-topic.

Not arguing with your decision, but seriously: you don't find the moderation patterns in these threads just a little suspicious?

You'll note I didn't accuse anyone specific of shilling.

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

#407
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh...how? Windows 10 advertises Microsoft products, and 3rd party products, and is the first step into being suckered into Microsoft's foray into a paid subscription OS. Sounds like a great metaphor. Let us "upgrade" you to make more money from you.

Because it glosses over the fact that upgrades to OSs have defined security benefits. A better one would be to say that it's like your bank upgrading your card from signature to chip + pin and issuing a new card number as a result. It's a frustration to change all your automated billing, but they do it because it's more secure and costs them less in fraud protection.

Windows 10 isn't more secure. The browser runs with the same privileges than in Windows 7. People will get malware in the same way.

What Microsoft calls "more secure" is the fact that Windows Store apps, which are a micro-tiny-minority of apps a typical user will run on a Windows desktop, work in a similar fashion than iOS apps, with a very limited access to the system, and therefore much reduced risk of malware. But I do not believe a typical user will be more protected with Windows 10 than Windows 7. Except more code means potentially more attack surface.

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

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about 100% everything instead of "basically anything", without serious "if's" like "as long as drivers are compatible" ? If a machine is running, say, windows xp, and it does in a manner that satisfies the owner's need, then it should be able to keep running forever in the same manner, provided that hardware lasts and/or is replaced with adequate spares, not necessarily anything newer. It's ok if that computer be…

That's exactly how it exists. What you're describing here is reality. If you have a machine running Windows XP and you never change anything, then nothing will change. Software doesn't magically bloat over time, those changes happen with updates that add new features. If you never update things, you'll stay on the same software revision and it will run the same as the day you bought it. A company I used to work for i…

The whole issue is that some machines been force-upgraded to windows 10 despite users explicitly (or so they thought) responding multiple times that no, they do not wish to upgrade; and then failing to work correctly because of e.g. driver issues.

This is not acceptable behavior - I can understand automatic upgrades that are fully backwards compatible, e.g. a security patch; but upgrade to windows 10 isn't like that.

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

#409
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is not my first language, so I am curious. When you say 'in tears' are you using some metaphor or was she actually crying?

Usually in English it's not metaphorical.

Unless it's about laughing. Then it usually is metaphorical.

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

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I experience that constantly on any laptop I use because I pretty much never turn them off - they go to sleep mode when not used. Every now and then I find the laptop running with a clean desktop after logging in - because it decided to reboot and install updates somewhen during the night. I've been an enemy of automated updates ever since, many years ago, I went to the kitchen to boil the water for a tea, and there…

I think automated updates are fine but require user's intervention to restart. Don't restart automatically on their behalf.

They are not fine. For example, Outlook (on my work PC) tends to become non-functional when an update is pending.
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