The amount of churn in the computer industry is staggering and the upgrade treadmill is a huge waste of resources to many, but I suppose it's the only way for them to continue making a profit. Personally, I think Windows as an OS reached its pinnacle sometime around the XP timeframe; since then it has mostly been frustrating UI changes and feature removals, "security" features designed to lock down your PC <i>against</i> you and instead follow the commands of some corporate entity, and massive amounts of data collection. Incidentally, that timeframe coincides with the rise of file sharing, and while the Internet certainly wasn't very safe or secure back then, it was an era of relative freedom.<p>I was quite disgusted when I saw that Windows 10's start menu contains <i>adverts</i>; maybe Microsoft realised that the average user would likely install adware themselves anyway, so they wanted to get into that industry too... all the evidence certainly supports that, including the now-well-known <i>closing the upgrade window indicates consent</i> shady behaviour common amongst malware/adware. It's clear that MS is really, <i>really</i> desperate to get as much users onto Win10 as they can.<p>To adopt a phrase MS originally used against Linux, "Windows 10 is a free upgrade only if your freedom and privacy are worth nothing."
There's a sense of irony seeing this post today when just last night, as my girlfriend and I were planning a weekend trip, I asked her what OS she was using (not being familiar with anything beyond Win7), to which she responded Win8. I then asked if she planned to upgrade to Win10, noting a post I had read about MS charging for the upgrade after a certain date, to which she responded no...then a minute or two later, poof, Win10 auto-update starts...literally in the middle of a reservation transaction. She swears she never explicitly consented to the upgrade.<p>It's one thing to read about and discuss the issues with Microsoft's overt push to migrate the world to Win10. It's admittedly a completely different experience to see it happen right before your eyes. Some time ago, I half-committed to never owning another computer with a Microsoft OS beyond Win7, reasoning that you just never know if a useful tool may pop up that's only available for Windows. After last night's surprise, that commitment became unwavering.
As per the post[0], the upgrade did not crash the computer BUT it did download 6Gb of data over satellite-internet which can be quite expensive.<p>OP is having an AMA[1].<p>0.<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4mcdon/i_live_in_the_central_african_bush_we_pay_for/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4mcdon/i_live_i...</a><p>1.<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4mirin/i_am_the_accidental_it_guy_antipoaching_pilot_in/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4mirin/i_am_the_accid...</a>
The windows boxes in our office have been upgrading themselves, much to everyone's dismay:<p>The one in the meeting room decided to upgrade and then break in the middle of a client presentation I was leading. I got my Mac and continued on, but it was embarrassing.<p>My colleague's machine upgraded itself overnight, and in the process deleted a bunch of files and corrupted creative suite.<p>I know having as many people as possible on the latest version is a good thing from a platform perspective, but in reality it's such an irresponsible thing to do. It just lets people know that Microsoft are quite happy to reach in and break their stuff at any point.<p>If anything it's persuaded the last few Windows holdouts in the office to switch to the Mac or Linux in short order.
Using dark UI patterns (like dialogs without cancel button) is disrespectful to users. They bought Windows to get stable and reliable operationg system. The system that updates at night and gets drivers or software broken is nowhere near stable. Even linux (which is awful as desktop system) doesn't autoupdate.<p>It might be acceptable if Microsoft gave their product away for free: many free products (e.g. Sublime or Skype) include annoying autoupdate popups for non-paying users. But Windows is quite expensive software.<p>Microsoft's motives are just getting more paid services, getting more telemetry (for free! they do not pay for it) and maybe adding some kind of subscription in future. Recent Windows versions like 7 or 8 seem to be 'good enough' for most customers so they do not want to upgrade for free let alone buy newer versions.<p>And subscription is as bad as DRM.
I tune cars as as as a hobby. My current setup is based around windows xp due to driver supports (technically an embedded application). My plan was to upgrade to a windows 8 machine and emulate an xp install. But I'm not going to anymore. I tune while driving and it could be catastrophic to have the machine install updates. I'll continue with the air gapped xp machine. Too bad because I was looking forward to not using a machine that was a hundred years old.
Can we get this changed to the original source? Not only does the Softpedia article not add anything substantial to the original source, it's also factually inaccurate. Windows 10 wasn't installed on any of their computers, the issue was just that it racked up a huge telecom bill for caching the installer. It also didn't impede any operations or disable any computer.<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4mcdon/i_live_in_the_central_african_bush_we_pay_for/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4mcdon/i_live_i...</a>
The headline really should be reworded, even the article states the shutdown was a theoretical.<p>> <i>if</i> a forced upgrade happened and crashed our pc's while in the middle of coordinating rangers...
Our business's recent experience with forced upgrades<p>Our accounting team used Quickbooks Pro 2014 which worked on Windows 7. Then all our machines went to Windows 10, and Quickbooks no longer worked. Our accounting team basically did no work for a week while they did a combo of trying to figure out which software to migrate to (went with Quickbooks Online), recover any missing data, and make sure the data migrated successfully to the new accounting package.<p>The nice part of this forced migration is that Quickbooks online does not require Windows, so three less Windows boxes to support at our shop as we have moved the acct dept to Linux boxes.<p>The rule of unintended consequences in full effect.
Have they considered upgrading to a Linux distro?<p><a href="http://distrowatch.com/" rel="nofollow">http://distrowatch.com/</a>
In their quest to remain relevant and join the 1 Billion install club for their latest OS they're using every trick in the book to fool users into upgrading their OS just so that they can meet their timelines. What they didn't account for was the backlash and rage their malware inspired tactics would ignite. Forcing people to upgrade to Windows 10 against their wishes is despicable and disgusting.
For f*cks sake.<p>What about "Unpatched Windows PC shuts down N instances of x,y or z due to worm/virus/malware," which is a headline far more common than this completely ridiculous headline.<p>This is the technological equivalent of that one person pontificating and whining on about someone who once knew someone who died in a car crash BECAUSE they WERE wearing their seat belt.<p>Back before updates were forced, users have proven themselves too clueless to manage their own PCs. I don't care what people do as long as they are not connected to the internet. It's a shared resource.