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Microsoft forcing Windows 10 upgrade data to PCs without permission
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MacNN Staff
Join Date: Jul 2012
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Microsoft is forcing users of earlier versions of Windows to download Windows 10, whether they elect to upgrade to the newer operating system or not. The company has confirmed Windows 7 and Windows 8 installations are automatically downloading files for the upgrade to Windows 10, with users facing a loss of between 3.5GB and 6GB of storage and a slower connection while they download, even if the user does not want to make the upgrade at all.
According to The Inquirer, users with automatic Windows Updates relying on Patch Tuesday releases to secure their systems are most likely to experience the problem, with update KB3035583 seemingly being the cause. Readers of the report have also complained that their system is downloading the files even if they did not elect to "reserve" and preload their Windows 10 installation before its launch.
One claimed to know of two instances where users exceeded their data cap for August, caused in part by this unwanted download. "Not only does it download, it tries to install every time the computer is booted," writes the user. The download can also be an issue with users of computers with very low storage capacities, such as notebooks released in the last year with as little as 32GB of flash storage. With space at a premium, having a hidden folder containing up to 6GB of potentially unwanted files may upset some users.
Microsoft confirmed the download, telling the report "For individuals who have chosen to receive automatic updates through Windows Update, we help upgradable devices get ready for Windows 10 by downloading the files they'll need if they decide to upgrade. When the upgrade is ready, the customer will be prompted to install Windows 10 on the device.
The Windows 10 upgrade campaign has been fairly aggressive so far, with 14 million installations claimed within the first 24 hours of its availability, and approximately 75 million installations in total within the first month. Despite the extra download, Microsoft's tactic may help it increase its install base faster by promising a quick upgrade to those daunted by a 6GB download, by having already downloaded it beforehand.
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Last edited by NewsPoster; Sep 11, 2015 at 11:19 AM.
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I remember people claiming that Microsoft finally had a good tablet in the Dell Venue Pro 11, lol. It was terrible as a tablet, and as a laptop it was slightly better, just slow, small storage and small screen.
Anyway, I bought the thing, so I do have one Windows device. Not only do you download the upgrade data once, but you REPEATEDLY download it, as my system had some kind of error, and one day, I checked the logs to see that it had been repeatedly, day after day, downloading and then (after some failure) 'cleaning up' the installation.
The machine must have downloaded the upgrade two dozen times. Of course the error was never going to fix itself, so I went through the usual - booting into 'safe mode' to delete a folder. Using regedit to change some registry settings. Downloading an alternate install. Configuring a boot USB drive - whoops wrong filesystem, wipe that, configuring the USB drive a second time (using rufus, which is not even a MS tool)....finally Windows 10 installs and then starts repeatedly blue screening. Whoops the SDcard driver isn't ready, now boot to the BIOS, disable SDCard for now - and low and behold - I now have a Windows 10 system.
And the system used to randomly freeze every 3 minutes for about 1 minute, and Windows 10 didn't fix it, but I was determined to make the machine usable again - maybe the 'inspiration' was this typical MS upgrade......and lo and behold on the internet, a fix was posted for that, turned out to be the intel rapid storage driver...disabled that, and the freezes finally stopped. OH thank goodness those freezes were inspiring real rage.....
Windows 10 is better, but all over the place, are legacy mouse based interfaces that don't work well with touch...but they continue to progress. The Dell machine is low storage, small screen and slow - and cost me $1000 because I insisted on at least having an i3 and 128GB, along with the keyboard accessory.
So long story short...MS is still not matching the apple experience, but ultimately Windows 10 is better than Windows 8.
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and this is different from Apple forced upgrades in 10.10 and beyond how??
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Forum Regular
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Location: Collinsville, IL, USA
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"and this is different from Apple forced upgrades in 10.10 and beyond how?"
Because 10.10 updates are NOT forced. You are in ignorant error.
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Senior User
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great, now I need to turn off the auto updates for my Win7 box (used only for occasional purposes, and less and less as time goes by).
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Mac Elite
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lkrupp is correct. There is no "forced upgrade" to Yosemite or any other OS X (or iOS, for that matter) Apple OS, except by virtue of buying a new machine.
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Charles Martin
MacNN Editor
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'except by virtue of buying a new machine'...
...indeed, and Applecare won't cover anything earlier than what a computer ships with, so refurbs are not even an option if one depends on a workflow & desires a supported replacement...
So of course technically a new mac is not forced, but I would ask if the policies are in the least impractical & costly (training, bugs, etc) and perhaps even barbaric, as far as user experience goes...
If Apple wants to gain business market share (as is claimed) I would ask if this policy may in fact be the biggest hurdle for adoption?
Is not knowing what may work anywhere from 3 weeks (this year's 'upgrade') to at most a year out for new hardware & support a way to run a business, make payroll or customer deliverables...?
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Managing Editor
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This isn't the same, anyhow. This is you have a computer, compatible with an older OS. This is Microsoft saying "here, have 6GB you didn't want to store, just in case you want the update." This is a problem for virtualization users, as well as a bandwidth drain on multiple-computer installations.
The "new computer mandates a new OS" thing isn't unique to Apple's hardware. In a month or two, there'll be PCs that will require Win 10, because there simply aren't drivers for the new processor and video chipset for 8.1.
I get your point, though.
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What? MS is such a POS for doing a sneaky thing like this.
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Senior User
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Ironic since I've been desperately trying to get my Boot Camp based Win 8.1 to download and install Win 10 for over a week now. 
While it still seems to somewhat be 'lipstick on a pig' I do like Win 10 better than 8 or 8.1 so far. (I did have it previously installed, until I launched Parallels which destroyed it.... I had to start over.)
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