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Microsoft China Windows

Massive Backlash Building Over Windows 10 Upgrades (fortune.com) 501

Some Windows users are now disabling critical updates on their systems rather than face the prospect of mistakenly upgrading to Windows 10. An anonymous reader writes: "By pushing it on users in such a heavy-handed way, Microsoft is encouraging users who have very valid reasons to stick with Windows 7/8 to perform actions that leave their machines open to attack," writes PC World's senior editor. He adds that "Over the past week, I've received more contact from readers about this issue than I have about everything else I've written over the rest of my career combined."

Now even China's official news agency is reporting that users are angry about stealthy Windows 10 upgrades, saying over 1.2 million complaints appeared on one microblogging site. It quotes a legal advisor with the Internet Society of China, who says Microsoft "has abused its dominant market position and broken the market order for fair play," saying that lawsuits would be justified over Microsoft's action. "Yang Shuo, a worker at a Beijing-based public relations company, told Xinhua that the sudden update interrupted his drafting of a business plan and led to a meeting cancellation for a deal worth 3 million yuan ($457,735). 'Just because I didn't see the pop-up reminder does not mean I agreed.'"

In a possibly-unrelated development, the Chinese military plans to send nuclear submarines into the Pacific Ocean.
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Massive Backlash Building Over Windows 10 Upgrades

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  • by gavron ( 1300111 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @03:36PM (#52206675)

    Yes, I am writing a business plan too ,

    Dammit, I just lost $457,000!!!

    *Goes to join the MPAA and BSA to help them explain how their lost profits are calculated*

    E

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If the deal was cancelled because of it (it only says the meeting was, could have been rescheduled) it's probably because they couldn't believe that the guy's IT was so terrible he couldn't just move to a different computer and carry on working.

    • Because it wasn't the fact that he was putting it together last minute and didn't save frequently (which MS Word and Excel do for you anyway).

      Ah, human nature. It's never their fault for screwing up.

      MS has become the entity to point for all failures related to computer. Getting old and redundant!

  • If Microsoft doesn't even look at the micro blogging site, what good does complaining on it do?

    Oh, and HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate /v "DisableOSUpgrade" /t REG_DWORD /d 0x1

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29, 2016 @03:41PM (#52206701)

    EU should act over forced upgrades via deception

    Just like they did with IE bundling, and now Google bundling.

    EU should take Microsoft to the cleaners for forcing W10 underhand

    • by hambone142 ( 2551854 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @03:51PM (#52206767)

      I'd like to see a nasty class action lawsuit against Microsoft in this issue. Not that I like lawyers but this is a very damaging and deceptive action on Microsoft's behalf.

      • I'd like to see a nasty class action lawsuit against Microsoft in this issue.

        And I'd like to join it.

      • by danomac ( 1032160 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @05:14PM (#52207299)

        A few days ago I fixed a business computer. It kept nagging and finally installed Windows 10.

        The result?

        1. The upgrade finally killed the (very old) hard drive in the PC. Errors everywhere, had to be replaced.
        2. The old office suite no longer worked.
        3. The antivirus messed up.
        4. Somehow during the process the email screwed up and they lost some of it (not repairable.)
        5. The custom order entry system he used no longer ran.

        So a new hard drive was installed and Win7 put back on. Everything was reinstalled, and I put in the GPO policies and registry tweaks that stop W10 for now... until Microsoft decides to change it again.

        When I told them they'd have to probably spend $700+ replacing their old software (and still risk the order entry system not working) they were very mad at Microsoft. This was their only functioning workstation and so its lost definitely affected business operations. The computer store was backlogged over a week (!) fixing issues like this one so they called me.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The broken HDD is very common. Many drives, as they age, effectively become 'read only'- where the heads reliably retrieve files, but new write operations damage the surface of the aged platters.

          MS just doesn't give a damn. The upgrade triggers a vast number of write operations, and as sector failures occur, Microsoft's dreadful HDD 'fix' program kick in trashing the enture drive. No yes, dribblers and creps will tediously claim this is the 'fault' of the owner for not replacing the drive when it got to thi

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They should force Microsoft to include an OS choice screen, like the browser choice one. A selection of alternate operating systems, including Ubuntu, Tails and ChromeOS. There would need to be some kind of mechanism in there for processing refunds for the unused Windows licence too.

    • by fafalone ( 633739 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @09:06PM (#52208373)
      That alone isn't enough. They needed to be fined enough that they get the message. There's no way their legal department didn't inform the higher ups that this kind of abuse would leave them open to liability, but the past has proved to them any resulting fines are a minor fraction of the money they made doing it. The only way to actually discourage this kind of behavior is to make the fine so severe that their shareholders take notice. I'm thinking a whole quarters profit should get that message across, which Google tells me was $5bn in Q1 2015.
  • by phizi0n ( 1237812 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @03:41PM (#52206703)

    Slashdot editors have been trained to cross-promote in every story rather than actually contributing their own thoughts.

  • by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @03:42PM (#52206705) Journal

    The subs will sit off the coast of Washington, ready to fire at the next automatic update.... That's if they're not running Windows onboard.

  • by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @03:50PM (#52206753)

    Win 10 will dominate the Windows market, the world will move on, and Microsoft will consider defending and possibly losing a massive class action suit as merely a cost of business.

    What really needs to change across the board is the sizes of penalties in both civil and criminal suits against big companies. When the typical award is between 50 and 500 times what it is today, large corporations will tread more lightly. Until then, law suits, fines, etc. are just a business expense that the C-levels have already predicted and the bean counters have factored into their projections.

    • by ADRA ( 37398 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @04:09PM (#52206871)

      "Win 10 will dominate the Windows market"

      The real question is how much will be left with such a large market of people who generally and acutely hate your product? Every miss-step MS does (and this is certainly a big one) costs MS marketshare, and given the enemic PC landscape, that's the last thing MS needs. This will just usher people toward alternatives faster.

      Ask yourself this: If given the option would you jump into bed with Redhat or Oracle. I'd choose Redhat because Oracle's got a history of being slimy money grubbing assholes. Repuation matters, and there's little these days compelling the common man from chosing them over any of their numerous competitors.

      • I think it will take time given the situation today and the need for a change in senior management, but if Microsoft doesn't come out with a better alternative before Windows 7 support runs out at the start of 2020, it is surely gifting a huge commercial opportunity to anyone who wants to make a play for their OS markets. I don't know who that would be or what form it would take, but I can immediately think of several vaguely plausible variations, and nearly four years is a long time in IT.

    • by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @04:15PM (#52206899)

      Win 10 will dominate the Windows market, the world will move on, and Microsoft will consider defending and possibly losing a massive class action suit as merely a cost of business.

      Presumably that is their strategy. I'm not sure it's looking so good for them so far, though. We're already most of the way through the one year period for an update to Windows 10, they have been literally giving it away and actively trying to trick people into migrating, and Windows 7 still has a much larger market share. Meanwhile, Microsoft's reputation and credibility are in tatters, probably more so with the geek and professional community than anyone else.

      • by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @05:40PM (#52207435)

        ... Meanwhile, Microsoft's reputation and credibility are in tatters, probably more so with the geek and professional community than anyone else.

        True. But Windows is losing share on the server side really fast, so they've probably already given that one up. Might that be why they're going all Linux-y - to pave the way for officially throwing their own server OS versions under the bus in favour of MS-branded Linux? As for the rest of the enterprise, can you see IT departments migrating their entire user base to something other than Windows? In most organizations the pain and expense of that would cause heads to roll, so anybody who wants to keep their job and/or have a good reference probably won't take the 'dump Microsoft' idea beyond the bitch and moan stage. Besides, they probably see the writing on the wall - with Cloud services pervasive and growing more so, we're likely gonna end up back at the old thin client model anyway - only this time, it will stick and become ubiquitous. Then nobody will care much about the desktop OS.

        IMHO that's why we haven't seen 'the year of the Linux desktop'. Not because Linux isn't good enough, and not because Windows isn't bad enough, but because such a large-scale change is too risky for the people who would have to promote and implement it, and in a few years it's not going to matter anyway. Maybe that's where Linux will finally have a chance - as a kickass scalable, reliable thin client OS that natively does things the same way as all those servers out there.

  • by richy freeway ( 623503 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @03:50PM (#52206757)

    Create a blank .reg file and put this in it

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx]
    "DisableGwx"=dword:00000001

    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
    "DisableOSUpgrade"=dword:00000001

    Then run it, alternative manually add those keys to the registry yourself.

    Yes, I know this isn't exactly user friendly and NO it shouldn't be necessary but it works all the time, every time.

    It's even documented on the Microsoft website, go on have a look : https://support.microsoft.com/... [microsoft.com]

    Why this is STILL not common knowledge I don't know. All you get from everyone is bitching how "Microsoft shouldn't be doing this" and "how dare they have the gall to do this". If EVERYONE on Slashdot put some effort in to spreading the word about this pretty simple fix, then a LOT of people would not end up with Windows 10 when they don't want it.

    Hey maybe Slashdot could run a quick piece on it? Perhaps spread the word to some mainstream press with a link to a reg file hosted by someone trustworthy.

    Alternatively let's all just keep rehashing the same fucking discussions about how "update KBwhatever" keeps coming back when hiding that has never been they way to fix this problem.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      adds a workaround. I did a couple of different registry tricks, but I still ended up with 10 on my 7 desktop this week without my permission.

    • Why not just turn off recommended updates like the latest generation of notification from MS suggests? Critical security updates will still get applied.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Isao ( 153092 )
      Or download and run Never10 [grc.com] from Steve Gibson. Makes the approved registry changes for you, and removes any pre-downloaded installation files you may have.
  • If only... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @03:52PM (#52206771) Journal
    ...this had been opt-in instead of try-repeatedly-to-opt-out, Microsoft might been able to gain lots of positive press for offering a newer, allegedly safer, somewhat spying OS for free.

    As is, with it being rammed down people's downlinks with little or no regards for the users wishes or data-caps, the angry backlash should been predicted and expected.
  • by pezpunk ( 205653 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @03:52PM (#52206775) Homepage

    Microsoft is assaulting its user base with features and upgrades that they don't want.

    hounding, harassing, misleading, and tricking users into doing things they don't want to do is a great way to lose even more market share and foster an even more toxic reputation that Microsoft is unscrupulous and an increasing unnecessary nuisance.

    it is hilarious to me that there are actually people here who will defend MS and even blame users for their OS being upgraded against their intentions.

    when you have to watch your own system like a hawk and protect it from multiple vectors of attack ... from the company that MADE that OS ... man, it is time to re-evaluate whether it's worth the hassle at all. amazingly, Microsoft has managed to plant that seed of thought not in rabble-rousing Linux faithful, but average joes and janes who have no desire to become security experts and update ninjas just to keep their machine from changing its operating system on them. good job MS, alienating one of your most faithful demographics.

  • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @03:55PM (#52206791) Homepage

    I am installing GRC's never10 at an alarming rate. I have had to make at least $1600 in the last week alone charging $25.00 for the 10 minutes it takes to install it on their personal computers..

    Thank you once again Microsoft for making the IT guys job more relevant than ever, at this rate I'll be able to afford a vacation home by fall.

  • Lucky me (Score:5, Informative)

    by l0n3s0m3phr34k ( 2613107 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @04:14PM (#52206895)
    All my 7 installs are Enterprise, which are "not eligible" for this "free upgrade" lol.
  • . Updategate: Microsoft reinstalls piss-U-off-qwik Windows 10 virus, again [theinquirer.net]

    .
    Microsoft missed the 'no means no' portion of sex-ed class...

  • I would probably buy win10 on my next new computer without giving it a second thought but I'm very resistant to upgrading my win 8.1 system.

    On top of that, Microsoft's behavior is giving me a strong push towards linux for my main permanent box.

  • by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @04:34PM (#52206999) Homepage
    Wow! Many of the comments above have somewhat justified or accepted Microsoft's abuse.

    1) Can we have a court case to force Microsoft to sell everyone the Enterprise version of Windows 10?

    2) On Windows 7 and 8, turn off automatic updates and use Autopatcher. Unfortunately, Autopatcher [autopatcher.net] has not begun supporting Windows 10. We need independent control over Windows operating system updates. How can we achieve that?

    3) Don't let Windows connect to the internet. Use 2 separate networks. There would need to be some way for the separate networks to communicate. Internet access could be done using separate computers running Linux.

    Microsoft has a long, long history of releasing defective code and fixing it later. After fixing 2,722 vulnerabilities and other defects, Microsoft declared Microsoft Windows XP "end of life" [futurepower.net]. After fixing almost 3,000 defects, Microsoft declared Windows XP was too vulnerable to use.

    We still have 17 computers running Windows XP with a software firewall. We've had no problems. Everyone is a limited rights user.

    4) We need international support for a Windows-compatible operating system, like ReactOS [reactos.org].

    5) Maybe the U.S. government now only helps the rich gets richer. The European government could bring a huge court case against Microsoft.
  • Argue away, but the fact is Slashdot warned me in time. I thought I had put Win X to bed a long time ago, but up it pops again. I killed it again, thanks to Slashdot. Don't know how long it will stay dead, but at least it is for now.

  • by bigal123 ( 709270 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @04:54PM (#52207143)

    My parents were just hit with the Windows10 upgrade. I had not bothered to block it on their computer. They are older and now more confused than ever about what happened without their permissions. Many of their saved passwords were cleared out to sites. They struggle to use Windows as it is and Microsoft does not make it easy on a normal day. I truly think that a massive class action suit against Microsoft would easily win hands down.

    The first law firm to step up and push it right could make some money. End users may not get a whole lot out of it, but it might make MS shut up and listen.

    An no I normally don't like these types of law suits and don't like most lawyers, but this clearly shows need.

    My folks were already on the verge of going to a Mac. this may push them over the edge.

  • by Weirsbaski ( 585954 ) on Sunday May 29, 2016 @09:03PM (#52208367)
    They need to bring this to court, so a judge can solve this the right way-

    "Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, this court is considering fining MSoft $100Billion. But I'll totally give you an out- my laptop is running an app that sets the actual fine. If you can figure out how to get the app to NOT fine you, then we'll go with that. Otherwise you're assumed to have agreed with this dollar amount, and waived your rights to appeal. You have five minutes, and... GO!"
  • The free upgrade period for Windows 10 ends in July. What happens after that? Microsoft is pushing it so hard that it's really hard to see them putting a price tag to it.

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