When Microsoft released Windows 10 last July, they indicated it would be a free update for the next year. Adoption hasn’t been exactly what Microsoft expected, and recently the company moved the Windows 10 upgrade from suggested to recommended updates, meaning anyone who was doing regular updates on their computers (as they should be) would be prompted to upgrade to Windows 10. For those who have their Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 set to install all recommended updates, Windows 10 will now install as part of those updates — and it turns out that some users are reporting that their computers are automatically updating to Windows 10 without any user input.
Various reddit threads, including this one, are full of user accounts of Windows 10 installing while they’ve been away from their computers, and a few have even indicated that their systems updated to Microsoft’s new OS while they’ve been in the middle of working.
“Yep this happened to me this morning. Working and all of a sudden Windows closed all my programs, logged me out and started the upgrade. I quickly shut down my computer and was able to stop it but my son wasn’t so lucky. Same thing happened to him today.” writes geekygirlhere.
Another user who presumably works as a tech, 8165128200, indicates they’ve been receiving many calls over the past week from clients:
We’ve been getting calls trickling in all week from doctor’s offices, dental practices, B&Bs, and roofing companies — among others — that have been hit by this and it’s a f**king mess.
In some cases the upgrade went OK and the user is just really confused. In others Windows 10 is asking for a login password the user set years ago and hasn’t used since, that was fun. In still another it’s screwed up access to their shared folders.
Normally Windows asks you if you want to install updates, and it’s possible some users are just missing the prompt as bnned reports:
Yep, went afk and saw this message box that said something like “Your update is ready! Restartng and installing in 13 minutes”. If I made myself a meal or watched tv, I would have had windows 10. Oh, and the best part is how they hid the “Decline” button in the more info button.
And it’s not only reddit where users are complaining, Twitter is rife with complaints as well.
OH LOOK WINDOWS 10 STARTED UPDATING MY PC WITHOUT ME ASKING AND I LEAVE FOR GDC IN 15 HOURS pic.twitter.com/PS192VD37O
— Celsius Game Studios (@celsiusgs) March 11, 2016
A Microsoft spokesperson told The Guardian that users can choose not to install the the Windows 10 upgrade and the OS will not install without their permission:
“We shared in late October on the Windows Blog, we are committed to making it easy for our Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 customers to upgrade to Windows 10. As stated in that post, we have updated the upgrade experience to make it easier for customers to schedule a time for their upgrade to take place. Customers continue to be fully in control of their devices, and can choose to not install the Windows 10 upgrade or remove the upgrade from Windows Update by changing the Windows Update settings.”
Whether users have set to install recommended updates, unwittingly clicked the accept or OK prompt, or had previously reserved their upgrade, the fact remains there are many unhappy users who are claiming Windows 10 is installing itself on their computers. I personally have seen two accounts of Windows 10 seemingly updating by itself, and one while a user was in the middle of working on his machine. I dismissed this as a case of those users unwittingly accepting the update, but perhaps that wasn’t the case after all.
Have you experienced an issue where Windows 10 has installed itself on your desktop or laptop? Let us know in the comments below, or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/15/windows-10-automatically-installs-without-permission-complain-users” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: The Guardian[/button]
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