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Microsoft was brought to court by a California woman whose work PC was upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 without her consent last summer. The woman, who owns a travel agency in Sausalito, California, said that the upgrade rendered her work PC unusable which had a bad impact on her small business.
The court ordered Microsoft to pay the business owner $10,000 in compensation, which the company did after dropping the appeal. The company said in a recent interview that it took the decision to not appeal to fend off a lengthy and costly lawsuit.
However, the woman’s problems started in August 2015 long before Microsoft became more intrusive with the upgrade. At that time, the new OS version was installed only on the PCs of users that agreed to the installation.
As of recently, there are countless reports that the company pushes Windows 10 on users’ throats and installs the new piece of software on their devices behind their backs.
In September, any user who had the Automatic Updates on in Windows 7 or 8 ended up with a 6 GB kit of Windows 10 on their computers without even knowing it. Many users’ were irked by the practice since it burned their data plans.
A month later, Windows users complained that they were notified to upgrade to the latest OS version and they had no option to dismiss the notification. They were left with only two options: either start upgrade or postpone it. Microsoft replied to the complaints by saying that users facing that problem had already agreed to the installation.
In December, on the other hand, Microsoft strategies to force users into upgrading their operating systems became “malware-like,” as some cyber security experts put it. Users reported seeing an installation window as large as their computer screen with no clear option of dismissing the upgrade but a tiny “x” button on the top right.
Fast forward five months later, after users got used to clicking the “x” to fend off the installation, Microsoft’s quietly changed the button’s functionality. So, anyone who clicked on the “x” button rescheduled the installation for a later date.
Users were able to cancel the installation but if they left the computer unattended the device was upgraded automatically to Windows 10. Many upset users with Microsoft’s tactics decided to disable their automated updates for good, thus exposing themselves to a plethora of security risks.
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