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Microsoft does u-turn on tricky Windows 10 upgrade popup

by Mark Tyson on 25 May 2016, 14:31

Tags: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Windows 10, Windows Phone

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qac26c

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Windows 10 upgrade shenanigans

Microsoft has recently been rather devious with the behaviour of its Windows 10 upgrade popup, according to reports. However today it has taken a u-turn and the upgrade popup dialogue will present an additional opportunity for users to cancel the upgrade, if they mistakenly attempt to dismiss it by clicking on the upper right 'X' close gadget.

Microsoft's keenness for users to upgrade Windows 7 and Windows 8.X PCs for free to its latest Windows 10 OS has manifested itself before and been reported upon several times before. Earlier this week it emerged that Microsoft's infamous Windows 10 upgrade popup had been taking people's dismissal via clicking the traditional close button as confirmation of their willingness to go ahead with the upgrade… The BBC called this a "nasty trick". It certainly isn't the traditional use of the Windows close gadget. Indeed people previously had to exit the upgrade offer exactly this way, as there wasn't another way to dismiss it.

With the tricky behaviour public and reported on site like the BBC, Microsoft seems to have had a change of heart. Today Microsoft said that due to the customer feedback it had received it will add another notification after users try and get rid of the dialogue by pressing the close gadget, providing "an additional opportunity for cancelling the upgrade". The extra dialogue "confirms the time of the scheduled upgrade and provides the customer an additional opportunity for cancelling or rescheduling the upgrade," explained a Microsoft spokesperson.

Microsoft smartphone business retreat

Here's more bad news for those hoping for Microsoft to mount a come-back campaign with regard to its smartphone business. The FT reports that Microsoft plans to 'streamline' its smartphone business by shedding 1,850 jobs, mostly in Finland, and thus incur an impairment and restructuring charge of $950m (with $200m for redundancy payments alone).

As you might guess, many of those Finish jobs are held by ex-Nokia folk, many from the design and manufacturing teams you might need if you planned to recover from the business' death spiral.

It is thought that Microsoft's mobile plans will now focus on enterprises, and individuals, who value device security, manageability and Continuum productivity features hihgly. Terry Myerson, executive vice-president of Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group, said that Microsoft will continue to "develop great new devices," and that the move was "scaling back, but we're not out".



HEXUS Forums :: 42 Comments

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Crap like this is exactly why Windows hasn't been my favourite OS in a long time. Having the ‘X’ and ‘OK’ effectively confirm you agree to this is terrible UI and sneaky as hell.

Changing your operating system to one with a different UI and UX should NEVER be allowed to be an automatic “Do nothing and we'll do it while you sleep” change.

Some people in MS are doing the right thing. Being more open, supporting more platforms etc… and then someone at the core of the organisation okays a dirty move like this.
So in other words their not changing anything other than presenting the same devious malware'esc popup a second time before starting the upgrade, I'm looking forward to installing Mint 18 in the next few months as it seems their phone business isn't the only thing in a death spiral.
Corky34
So in other words their not changing anything other than presenting the same devious malware'esc popup a second time before starting the upgrade, I'm looking forward to installing Mint 18 in the next few months as it seems their phone business isn't the only thing in a death spiral.

So what's stopping you from installing Mint now?
To be fair, closing a notification window it that way has never had reliable results. It's not like anyone who actually read the message would be in any doubt about whether or not their computer was scheduled to install the upgrade. Most people who'd really care wouldn't be set to automatically install recommended updates anyway (I've certainly never let a Windows 7 install automatically install recommended updates), and anyone who just automatically closes any notification window without reading it … well, I won't say they deserve everything they get, but refusing to interact with software is tantamount to giving it permission to do what it wants (the line “Click here to change upgrade schedule or cancel…” is pretty clear).

Of course, whether the Windows 10 upgrade should be rolled out over Windows Update is another question entirely, but calling this a “nasty trick” is a bit harsh - the upgrade has been scheduled in accordance with the users update preferences, and they've been notified that it's been scheduled along with a link to follow that is clearly marked as being for changing or cancelling the upgrade. What exactly are people expecting the close button to do? Offer a different schedule? Cancel something that's already been scheduled according to the users update preferences? I'd say that's further from the “traditional use of the Windows close gadget” than closing the notification and leaving all other settings as they are…
Might want to be careful who you finger for the quote:
BBC News
Brad Chacos, senior editor at the PC World website, described it as a “nasty trick”.
My Windows 8 desktop seems to have given up on pushing this upgrade on me at least. I did install it as a clean install on the other half's old win 7 AiO PC, pretty nippy with an SSD but wasn't happy about the amount and difficulty of uninstalling the bundled junkware.

ps I wonder if Windows ‘signature edition’ PCs also get 3rd party apps installed by default like Candy Crush?