Microsoft Admits It “Went Too Far” with Aggressive Windows 10 Updates

[Exterminator]

Microsoft has often been criticized for how aggressive it was with the free Windows 10 upgrade offer, with some users complaining that the new operating system was installed on their computers even though they refused the upgrade.

One particular moment that fueled all this criticism was when Microsoft change the behavior of the X button in the Get Windows 10 app, as clicking this button no longer canceled the upgrade, but ignored the setting and prepared the install in the background.

Two “painful” weeks
Chris Capossela, Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft, said in the latest edition of the Windows Weekly that this was the moment when the company indeed went too far, pointing out that the two weeks between the moment when users started complaining about the unexpected behavior and the one when a patch was released were “very painful.”

“We know we want people to be running Windows 10 from a security perspective, but finding the right balance where you’re not stepping over the line of being too aggressive is something we tried and for a lot of the year I think we got it right, but there was one particular moment in particular where, you know, the red X in the dialog box which typically means you cancel didn’t mean cancel,” he said.

“And within a couple of hours of that hitting the world, with the listening systems we have we knew that we had gone too far and then, of course, it takes some time to roll out the update that changes that behavior. And those two weeks were pretty painful and clearly a lowlight for us. We learned a lot from it obviously.”

Microsoft offered Windows 10 as a free upgrade during the first year of availability to all Windows 7 and 8.1 users, and the transition was possible with an app called Get Windows 10.

This application, however, sometimes forced the upgrade on some users even though they didn’t want to install Windows 10, leading to growing criticism against Microsoft, who was blamed for trying to boost adoption of its new operating system by ignoring users’ options.

 

[509322]

This strikes a nerve with me because I was one of those people that got a forced update on one system - and it wasn't hardware compatible and smashed it. In fact, that system is now bricked as a result and the fix is BIOS chip replacement. $16 for the part, but $100+ for the labor. Of course, Microsoft refused to fix it.

And I'm one of the lucky ones that didn't suffer any significant data loss. Some small businesses were smashed because of massive data loss as a result of Windows 10 forced upgrade.

Microsoft admitting it and making it right for people are two completely different things.

If the company is really sincere, then it would offer downgrade rights for those that want it - AND make the *.isos publicly available. That's for those people that still have a viable working system.

And we all know that just ain't gonna happen.

Just my personal thoughts on the matter.

 

[DJ Panda]

I am a forgiving person and the updates didn't bother me much anyway. I helped keep some school computers from updating and it worked. Even after choosing to update I had little to no problems.

Voted: Yes

As for the second given option I can't understand. Win 10 is by far the most secure Windows OS out there. Win Defender, Firewall, Smartscreen, auto update. I really think people get too paranoid about the "data collection" it is being used to create a more stable OS and the reason why so many people complain are the one's that disabled all this stuff.

 

[Wave]

Better late than never.

 

[TipsEasy]

I'm of 2 opinions:

1. Appreciation for M$ efforts & technology.
2. Appalled at the invasion of privacy & updates that often negatively impact/break my system.

For example, I just re-installed my os - 7-64, updated, was working GREAT! I then installed the most recent important updates & my system was almost un-usable, so I rolled back, & disabled updates for now. That was a few days ago, and no less than 4 times sinc, M$ has turned updates back on, attempting to install the updates! This is completely outrageous, imo.

When I decide to get a new system, I'll certainly consider other options.

 

[Exterminator]

I think everyone realized that this would come back to haunt them.
With the free upgrade they could have just left well enough alone and come out smelling like a rose.
The tactics used,at least for me,is the most troubling.
I am not too worried about the privacy however the problems that consumers experienced when they were upgraded without their consent is almost unforgivable.
It is truly a great OS and the free upgrade was a great idea if they hadn't been so overzealous.
I voted "No but at least they admitted it".
I think a good way they could have made amends would be to bring back the free upgrade but leave the choice to the consumer.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

the last time I used windows update on w10 was about 2 weeks ago, it broke something and I was forced to restore thanks to system restore. I got several experiences like that before
so I permanently disabled windows update for me, family and friends who have the same complaint that after some updates their machines were noticeably slower and sometimes unable to work properly

windows update is not different from a malware for me

I just update my windows only when MS roll out a huge update when we can use ISO file to install like the anniversary update so the update process will be much safer and less buggy

 

[Entreri]

Forced upgrades were really annoying, nearly bricked a relatives PC.

Win10, such a Google like tool for invasion of privacy.

 

[Svoll]

I voted : No they violated consumers privacy and security

There was a case when a small business owner who sued Microsoft over unwanted upgrade to windows 10 and won, There has also been multiple reports of lawsuits against Microsoft and a pending class action suit. I feel Microsoft is just making amends and admitting it now since it has created so many buzz and publicity. In some sense its a losing fight against MS....

Many of my gaming friends has selected the option on their win7 system to not upgrade to win10 and went thru uninstalling Service Packs, patches, fixes to no avail, it still FORCE downloads in the background. Their tactics is non the less forcing you to update and thats troubling and where I find they crossed the line.

 

[frogboy]

As @Wave put it better late than never. But I am a bit biased as I was very keen to move to Windows 10 and not one regret so far.

 

[Myriad]

I have over 40 years computing experience and I'm familiar with every operating system from M$ .
There were some high points .... XP and W7 were superb , the rest much less so .

I got wise to their snooping before the W10 disgrace and I shut down ALL telemetry on my main system before the roll-out.
I kept up with Updates , but only those classed as " Security updates " and then when GWX started I disabled everything .
So I have one of my W7 machines unpatched now for over a year and it has never run better .
Is the system vulnerable ? ... Absolutely NOT , IMO.
They were never paying any attention to the quality of those updates anyway ( check the " Bork Tuesday" thread over at Wilders )

My work requires that I am familiar with all modern operating systems so I need to have W10 ( in a VM , for reference purposes ).
M$ have shown total disregard for my privacy , and my right to choose how I use my equipment .
I have returned the compliment with my attitude to their license system.

They have lost a customer ..... for life !!

Fortunately , the move to Linux was fairly easy for me , thanks to a strong Unix background .

 

[jamescv7]

The problem for Microsoft is that it influences advertising, so all of aggressive efforts is clearly shown.

Although the advertising contains fact information about Windows 10 contains strong security modules, but upgrade process is a problematic issue that should entitled in slow pace manner.

So what is the result? The market shares of Windows 10 is totally dumped, honestly you need to determine the view and taste of customers satisfaction.

 

[Deleted member 2913]

As @Wave put it better late than never. But I am a bit biased as I was very keen to move to Windows 10 and not one regret so far.

Same here i.e I upgraded & did clean install the very first day & release of stable Win 10 & no regret here.
Yet, only had 1 update prob i.e update kinda stucked at some percentages, guess was server prob, And no major prob here yet.

 

[Wave]

Same here i.e I upgraded & did clean install the very first day & release of stable Win 10 & no regret here.
Yet, only had 1 update prob i.e update kinda stucked at some percentages, guess was server prob, And no major prob here yet.

I haven't really experienced many problems with Windows 10 myself, however I chose to perform the upgrade at my own will, but what is unfair is how some people declined the upgrade but still got fed it like they are a baby strapped into a chair being fed by their parents.

 

[SKG2016]

I installed Win 10 Pro on my VM and the windows update takes up most of the resource I allocated to it so I just well disabled the service manually, that was top notch annoying.

 

[RejZoR]

You know what's really sad, that company with millions spent on R&D and user experience realizes this after harassing their own users for over a year. What the hell were they thinking? It's like they employed an army of baboons instead of experienced people. And I have to be explaining this, a nobody with no audience that would actually bring this stuff to people at MS.

Sure, users infinitely postponing critical security updates was a problem. People entirely disabling Windows Update were another problem. And then they go and alienate users to a point where they yet again disable Windows Update just so it stops annoying them with constant forced updates. Slow clap Microsoft, you've achieved the exact opposite of improving security...

What i also don't understand is how they redesigned updater from ground up and never bothered to include contextual updating with separated categories/classes:

- Critical system updates (Always forced)
- Normal non-critical updates (Can be optional unless certain KB update is elevated to critical due to security flaws/exploits)
- Drivers (Can be optional unless certain driver is elevated to critical due to security flaws/exploits)

Instead they just tossed ALL of the above under critical category. It's like none of these idiots at Microsoft developing Windows 10 ever used any older Windows version and knowing how monumentally you can ##### up a system with drivers that don't work. Or even worse, game or apps don't work well with the forced driver and you CAN'T go to an old one because Windows keeps overriding it with its stupid ##### from Windows Update. Been there, seen exactly that with my AMD APU laptop. Managed to clean drivers, install old version and all of a sudden, 15 minutes later screen mysteriously flashes during browsing. I check the display driver and it was again at the latest broken version. WHY!?

Windows Update with my 3 categories method would be absolutely perfect, a blend of new forced security updating with user choice for non critical updates like we had in Windows 7 where you could tick what to install and what not to. But no. It infuriates me so much!

 

[Paul123]

It is truly a great OS and the free upgrade was a great idea if they hadn't been so overzealous.
I voted "No but at least they admitted it".
I think a good way they could have made amends would be to bring back the free upgrade but leave the choice to the consumer.

I love Windows 10, its incredibly stable and seems a lot faster than windows 7 was on my laptop. That said I know a lot of people that just wanted to stay on Windows 7, I think though a lot was due to Windows 8 being so terrible - I tried to like it, but struggled with its complete lack of intuitiveness and reverted back to windows 7. I think this put people off even trying windows 10, which is a shame. There were other things though, windows 10 comes with Cortana switched on, and web searching in the start menu search, both of these I switched off, but a lot of people I talked to who upgraded to win 10 then went back to win 7, complained about windows 10 being slow, and I can't help feeling it was because of this. Without both these options on my windows 10 went from sluggish to turbo charged.

I think now windows 10 has been around a while now, a lot of those people who were put off initially would upgrade

 

[Paul123]

You know what's really sad, that company with millions spent on R&D and user experience.

Yeah but this is the same company, which has a dedicated Human Computer Interface group, and yet came out with the mess that was Windows 8. I still have to work with Windows server 2012 which is based on that O/S.

 

[Wave]

I love Windows 10, its incredibly stable and seems a lot faster than windows 7 was on my laptop

It's fast and I like Windows 10 (using it now), however in terms of performance and stability, theoretically Windows 7 should be the winner since it wasn't unstable and had less functionality (therefore less things need to be patched and less exploitable features).

 

[DardiM]

Admitting something once / after that every others people have already noticed it ...
=> has not the same impact on me ...