October 13, 2015

A public service announcement

Microsoft has taken the push for Win10 to the next level. As of today, if you run Windows Update, it will show you a frame which seems to be the beginning of the Win10 upgrade. There isn't any "No, don't do it" button, either.

To escape, look for "Show other updates" and click it. That shows you all the optional updates, with Win10 being selected. Deselect it, highlight it, and click "Don't show me this update" and it will gray-out and you'll never have to deal with it again, at least until they pull their next trick.

Are people with automatic update enabled getting the Win10 update without being asked?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at 06:34 PM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
Post contains 114 words, total size 1 kb.

1 I have Win 7 Home Premium and I always turn off automated updates.  I see no mention of the existence of Win10 on my system. 

Posted by: ForgottenBoy at October 13, 2015 08:25 PM (pnWxS)

2 Your computer may not be compatible. The rest of us have been getting nagged about it since last July.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 13, 2015 09:47 PM (+rSRq)

3 Also, this particular thing is something they did just today.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 13, 2015 10:23 PM (+rSRq)

4 I've got automatic updates, (Which I'm about to go shut off, btw.) and they didn't install it during last night's update. But when I went to the update window I saw what you described.

Posted by: Brett Bellmore at October 14, 2015 01:58 AM (L5yWw)

5 If they're really, really going to push it, though, the thing to watch for are updates to the earlier versions that break them. I had autodesk do that to me once, with some cad software they wanted to discontinue. They first issued an update that broke the software, to remove the option of keeping it in use.
So, I guess time to set a backup point, too.

Posted by: Brett Bellmore at October 14, 2015 02:01 AM (L5yWw)

6 Last nights auto-update did not shove Win10 down my throat. Both wife & daughter laptops are on 10, neither has reported any significant problems so far.  (and some longstanding wifi weirdness went away)  Decent chance I'll back up like a madman and take the plunge soon.  (after finding the total checklist of things to turn off for privacy)

Posted by: Douglas Oosting at October 14, 2015 07:03 AM (EskWq)

7 It likely depends on hardware/software configuration. I have a Surface Pro 2, and Microsoft may have decided that of course people who owned a Microsoft-branded tablet were willing to upgrade.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at October 14, 2015 08:07 AM (ZlYZd)

8 Thanks Steven. I ran that GWX Control Panel thing you mentioned a while back, and it seems to have prevented the update from even showing up on my Windows 7 computers.  I also put it on my Surface Pro 3 with Windows 8.1, so I'll check that later to see if it blocked the update too.

Thanks again.

Posted by: wahsatchmo at October 14, 2015 08:17 AM (VFkGH)

9 I don't remember any GWX control panel app, but I could be having a senior moment...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 14, 2015 11:43 AM (+rSRq)

10 I always do manual updates, and yesterday my laptop (which I do not intend to upgrade) had the Windows 10 update automatically selected when I checked for updates.  I had to deselect it, then select my Windows 7 updates.

Posted by: Siergen at October 14, 2015 01:29 PM (De/yN)

11
Huh. I thought I'd read about the GWX thingee here, but who knows? It seems to have prevented the current Microsoft stupidity for me, so I'm happy.

Posted by: wahsatchmo at October 14, 2015 02:07 PM (VFkGH)

12 I looked in my Update History, and sure enough, there was an "Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro" update listed as attempted last night. Thankfully, it also says it failed, with a complaint that I should turn off my antivirus software.
Thanks for the warning! I should never have left Windows Update set to auto install for this long.

Posted by: Tatterdemalian at October 15, 2015 06:06 PM (4njWT)

13 I just used the anti-GWX gizmo that Wahsatchmo linked to. Very convenient, and it appears it was just updated to deal with this very thing. One of the buttons says, "Disable Operating System Upgrades in Windows Update".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 15, 2015 06:16 PM (+rSRq)

14 Just installed it. Got tired of the way, even with the automatic updates disabled, they'd insert the OS update into every minor patch, and require you to uncheck it.
I swear I had to uncheck it twice, this morning alone. It's like they're flooding out tiny updates in the hope people will, just once, forget to uncheck that box.

Posted by: Brett Bellmore at October 16, 2015 02:45 AM (L5yWw)

15 According to Ars Technica (via J) Microsoft has apologized for that and says they'll change it.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 16, 2015 06:53 AM (+rSRq)

16 Thanks for the gizmo from here too. Somehow I'd managed to avoid all of it up until now, but this was just too much...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at October 16, 2015 10:00 AM (v29Tn)

17 Somehow I'm not buying their claim it was an accident.

Posted by: Brett Bellmore at October 16, 2015 12:54 PM (L5yWw)

18 The quote at Ars says "mistake", not "accident"...

-j

Posted by: J Greely at October 16, 2015 03:23 PM (dGpmn)

19 It's obvious it was deliberate. Stupid, misguided, but deliberate.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 16, 2015 03:43 PM (+rSRq)

20 It's the difference between doing something "by mistake", and deciding after you did it deliberately that doing it was a bad idea, and thus a "mistake". 
I think we're looking at the latter scenario here; More than one somebody thought trying to trick people into adopting 10 was a great idea, and they were surprised by the number of people they pissed off by doing it.

Posted by: Brett Bellmore at October 17, 2015 05:52 AM (L5yWw)

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