Maybe the way to block it is still:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

    Subkey: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
    DWORD value: DisableOSUpgrade = 1

The MSFT decision to perform forced updates is covered, for example, by Extreme Tech, February 2:

"Look out: Microsoft shifts Windows 10 to ‘Recommended’ update, automatic download"

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/222326-look-out-microso...

I still believe they shouldn't have done that and I hope they get sued, heavily. Even if nobody dies, it's not OK. People had fully working computer and some of them wont. I have one such computer, which works on Windows 7 but doesn't on Windows 10.

This upgrade occurred to my father's Dell laptop, which became hung during the install and essentially "locked" from his standpoint. (He lives in another state and I'm not able to assist his technical needs.)

In any case, he took it to Office Max where he bought it and asked them to fix it. They did: they wiped his hard drive clean and installed Windows 10.

With none of his files.

Aggressive updating of an OS is not always a good thing, even with the best of intentions. It feels more like a desperate attempt to force some people into a world they don't want to be in so Customer Support can have a better time of it (I doubt customer support is having a better time of it right now).

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Windows badly needs a better update mechanism. This has been a huge pain point for consumers for a long time, which often results in buying new hardware instead of updating the browser, etc.

On the other hand I think this will drive people away from Windows and towards OS X and Ubuntu.

Oh right, there is no downside to this!

As the lead developer of the Slack Windows app, this move is absolutely phenomenal for me. Win7 is a huge proportion of our support tickets and causes us no end of grief.

To put what these Windows users are doing in perspective, Windows users are holding onto an OS that was released at the same time as OS X 10.6, and not only doing it, but demanding that developers support this version. If you asked any Cocoa developer to support Snow Leopard, they'd laugh you out of the room.

Here's the update:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3035583

...that explains the Windows 10 update, but on my machine it just says "Install this update to resolve issues in Windows. blah blah blah" which is the same boilerplate they all use. The update size is uniquely given as a range 722 KB - 821 KB, which is probably a low estimate for an OS installer. So, no indication of the magnitude of this. Since it isn't a security update, anyone with a properly-configured system (IMO) shouldn't be bothered by it. Unless Microsoft updates it to a "security update". Which seems possible.

The whole "auto update and restart" thing seemed like a potentially global-scale Therac-25 style bad idea when I first heard about it on Windows XP (or whenever). But it never happened--I guess not too many critical systems use Windows. Just millions of people losing millions of hours of productivity...

Prompted by Windows 10 privacy issues, I switched to Mint on my laptop recently and was pleasantly surprised. I've been constantly trying to switch to Linux but having to revert because of driver incompatibility. That has completely changed in the past 3 years.

It makes my laptop feel speedy again. Before it was really slow with Microsoft sitting on top of it. I recently slapped an SSD into it and it's even better. Turned a no starter laptop into a real machine.

It's still not an operating system that can be used by new users, but I have a lot of fun with it. It helps a lot that Steam has a Linux client now and I don't play many big name titles.

Windows 10 isn't that bad if you don't mind buying a new computer, but I think it may be the bane of people like my parents who use a computer for 10 years without upgrading. You would think that with the minimal changes to the Windows kernel that the driver support wouldn't be an issue. The invasive marketing and privacy violations aren't anything new. Just more so.

Dual booting with Fedora. I voluntarily upgraded the Win 7 partition to give it a whirl a while back. They said I would have 30 days to go back.

Less than 24 hours later ... Nope.

The only place I want Windows running on my personal hardware is in a VM. Done with them.

I use Windows Media Center on my machine so I'll be pretty irritated if it automatically upgrades - MS removed it in Windows 10.

This is probably like having your car towed: technically there’s something that says they are allowed to do it but you sure as hell don’t expect it to happen, you don’t want it to happen, it will cost you time and money and at the wrong time it could really screw you. Thanks, Microsoft!

At some point recently windows update on windows 7 decided to change settings from "tell you about updates and you choose when to download and install them" to "I'll download everything and nag you to death with countdown timer until you update"

The most infuriating thing about that being that if you turn your computer on in the morning from hibernation go make a coffee and get some breakfast, by the time you come back your computer has restarted (because apparently who cares you weren't logged in and your screen was still locked, fuck you we're forcing a restarting and you're losing any unsaved work, bad luck sucker!)

I killed the windows update service permanently it infuriated me so much.

We’ve been getting a lot of calls from home clients since last Tuesday that their computer now runs Windows 10. There are still some printer and software issues, which were the reasons why they arestill running Windows 7.

This happened to my co-worker just the other day. He develops native windows software so it was pretty annoying for him.

Wouldn't the automatic upgrade mean you didn't agree to any T&C?

uhh. Could this not set them up for a lawsuit? I mean, I assume and argument could be made that there's some liability involved in MS screws up the installation or if some program fails to continue to function. This should be fun to watch.

Is there any evidence this isn't just a bug? I admin several Win7 machines at work, and haven't seen this behavior on any of them. I didn't do anything to prevent automatic updates, or otherwise disable a path to Win10 (they all have the upgrade available).

I can see how someone could accidentally install Win10, since windows update has it automatically selected, but I have yet to see a machine just restart itself and start installing Win10. The machines I have upgraded to Win10 took many clicks to actually install - I can't imagine Microsoft would intentionally let users skip the EULA at the very least.

My gut says at least half the people have accidentally initiated this update and half are experiencing a bug -- my counter anecdata says this is NOT being pushed to all Win7 users with automatic updates enabled.

I hope that Microsoft don't survive their Windows 10 release...

GWX Control Panel http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

Solves all W10 upgrade worries.

MS is getting pretty draconian with the Windows 10 shtick. I'm not sure why there's such a push, just let people buy a Windows 10 computer when the Windows 7 machines fail.

Fighting MS on this is a losing battle, all the workarounds are going to be a non-stop, futile exercise. Unless I have a specific needs for Windows, if this makes anyone uncomfortable to read (like myself)- I think this is the ideal time to jump on Mac, Linux Mint, Ubuntu Mate or Antergos.

Calm down and relax! Microsoft knows better than you what is good for you ;-)

Honestly, I ditched Windows since XP completely in favor of Linux, and it turned out to be a very good decision.

MS' extremely unfriendly behavior to its customers is indication of desparation. WinPhone failed against iOS and Android, and PC purchases are shrinking continually. This means MS is shrinking continually, and they know it very well.

What do you think about this script on Voat? : https://voat.co/v/technology/comments/853510

I'm really curious to know your opinion Hacker News. Is this a good way to live with Windows 7 now? It seems to be open-source, easy to apply, it disables telemetry and Windows 10 crap.

Any better alternatives?

I am thankful that a random Windows update broke some of our software a few weeks ago. It prompted me to disable all updates and allow only essential updates. Small business so I'm it for IT. Never heard of kbwhateveritis required to avoid the MS invasion. Thanks for breaking our system weeks ago MS!

Meet the new Microsoft, same as the old Microsoft.

Seriously though, I hope they receive some major backlash for their behaviour over the last few months. It's incredibly aggressive and anti-consumer.

Upgrading to Windows 10 from 7 requires a single button click after opening the upgrade reminder in the task bar.

Dismissing the upgrade reminder is impossible and requires a registry edit:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

Microsoft is a disgusting company, and I hope they are fully aware how much social capital this has eroded.

Today I woke up to this message on my Windows 8.1: http://i.imgur.com/4jvC8Q0.png

They are not asking if I want to upgrade anymore, they are asking when I want to upgrade :/

What a coincidence - 4 days ago I disabled auto updates on Windows 7 because it would force me to restart all the time. I'm glad I did that. Forcing Win7 to Win10 Upgrade? Disgusting practice by Windows, will switch to Unix-based systems asap.

Now with more ads, spyware, constant logging of everything you do to Microsoft, and telemetry!

No thanks. I guess MS wants to cede the entire high-end market to Apple and Linux and re-position themselves as a bargain basement low-end vendor of spyware ridden junk.

My logic: Time for another tool that goes deep in to the autorun.dll's and deletes the update prompt..... Oh wait...

Funny, I've been trying to get my Windows 7 laptop to take the upgrade, but it strangely won't.

I wonder if there are pages on reddit commenting a comment page from HN...

Re-posting my comment from the other thread which didn't get as much attention:

I spent about 3 hours this week doing tech support for my mom over the phone because of Windows 10's aggressive upgrading behaviour.

I told her to keep her the best way to keep safe security wise is to make sure the os/browser is up to date, and because Windows 10 keeps asking to upgrade, she went ahead and did so. After upgrading to Windows 10, all network access (wired and wifi) stopped working completely. The worst part of this is that if you can't get internet, you can't even download new drivers to try and debug the problem. We tried a few things, and eventually just did a system restore back to Windows 8, but unfortunately, the system restore didn't work completely and there was more mucking around to try and get the computer into a bootable state. Then, last night, she said the heard the fan making a lot of noise, and looked down to see that Windows had gone ahead and started installing Windows 10 again. Fortunately, wired network access works now, but wifi is still broken. Hopefully Windows will push an update that fixes the wifi access soon.

Also, there seems to be a number of people here commenting very strongly in favour of Microsoft, which I find very surprising. Perhaps people from MS trying to do damage control? Some people have doubted that Windows is doing this automatically, but during the above debacle, my mother actually spent time to make sure that 'Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them' was selected. She even sent me a screenshot asking if this would prevent Windows 10 from installing. A few hours later she had Windows 10 again.

If you ever asked yourself how does one feel when assimilated by the Borg... now you know.

Good, Windows 7 is a security problem (or will be, soon).

Strangely nobody has ever caught this on video. Just a handful of anonymous people claiming "I totally didn't hit the wrong button in the UI!!"

Now, sure, I'd agree it should be harder to accidentally upgrade your PC. In particular for layman users. But I am generally skeptical that this is any more than just user error until proven otherwise.

I have a Windows 7 PC I use regularly, I too get the upgrade prompts, but it hasn't upgraded itself just as one counterpoint.

Someone needs to catch this on video.

PS - I flagged this article on purpose because I don't consider a random Reddit thread to be a legitimate source.

This isn't news, and was announced _months_ in advance. Microsoft announced back in October that they'd upgrade Windows 10 to a "Recommended update" in February.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/windows-10-upgrade-1.32965...

You can check in Windows Update whether or not to automatically apply Recommended updates the same way you apply Important updates. By default, it is checked. (By default, most users really _should_ upgrade to Windows 10.)

But, as with all Microsoft things, people will flip out like this wasn't announced and they were totally blindsided because everything Microsoft does is totally evil.

Sorry, why is this a big deal? We've completely accepted auto updates for browsers (chrme & firefox) - years ago. Obviously better, compatibility improves and security issues are easier to push out and fix. To me the browser is as important as the OS, I spend the vast majority of my time in it.

Why should MSFT not do this? It's a free update. They're not charging for it. On many aspects, it's a lot better than Windows 7/8. Maybe not to everyone's taste, but Windows 7 is nearly 7 years old now. From what I can see it performs better on older hardware than W7.

We accept that Android fragmentation is terrible and Google should be doing more to fix it. Yet it seems the complete opposite reaction when MSFT tries to fix their desktop fragmentation.