Warning: Windows 10 May Auto-Install On Your PC

Honestly, I have never seen a case of Windows 10 automatically installing itself that wasn't user error. Have any of you? I hate the fact that I am one of the millions that upgraded to Windows 10 just to stop the nagging, but I don't buy the whole "Windows 10 magically auto-installed itself on my PC" thing.

That 15-minute warning/opt-out prompt usually steals focus from whatever you’re doing, by the way, but every once in a while it might be not be able to minimise a game, you might click away by mistake or a bunch of other things which mean you simply don’t see it. And then bam, a sudden restart and Windows 10 starts installing. I.e. while Microsoft might argue everyone gets fair warning and the chance to decline the upgrade, the reality is that this can go wrong.

Although there have been random installs that have occurred, it is not an across the board issue. However, I have yet to hear about that 15 minute warning occurring and only once instance or a sudden restart on these forums. Oh, and in before Microsoft the evil.

PEBCAK

I'd sooooooo like to know what the $#%-% I did on one of my Win 7 rigs, but not only did the Win 10 nagging stop, it is now no longer eligible for the Win 10 upgrade.

I didn't believe it at first either this week and last, but I had several of my customers explain to me (from idiots to legit IT people) on what they saw and clicked. I can confirm that Microsoft is getting more and more pushy and forcing this update on people. I do the hardware and network field support for my geographical area, but we are a software company (Point Of Sale). Our software isn't yet working on Win10, but will be in about two weeks. The problem is up till now its been a nag, and customers select no, close it etc.

Now I have had at least a dozen reports on Win7 pro boxes either having Win10 one morning when they came in, or it is now saying "Install NOW or choose a time to install", with no option to simply not install.

The way around it is either a few registry edits, or declining the EULA when it comes up, or going into recovery and selecting the "Roll Back To Windows 7" option. I think it's wildly inappropriate to just make an OS upgrade a "important" update that installs itself, especially on the Pro version of Windows. In short, YES, they are forcing upgrades to Windows 10 via marking the upgrade via Windows Update as mandatory.

To the average schmoo, the Windows 10 install looks unstoppable. That probably adds to the confusion.
I explain this to my customers and recommend GWX Control Panel. For more windows bashing see Woody on Windows
get GWX here Ultimate Outsider - Software Downloads

Yakk said:

I'd sooooooo like to know what the $#%-% I did on one of my Win 7 rigs, but not only did the Win 10 nagging stop, it is now no longer eligible for the Win 10 upgrade.

Click to expand...

One of GWX Control Panel options is "Click to delete Windows 10 Programs...", it is irreversible if you pick it. To install W10 after that you would need to use Microsoft's Windows 10 Media Creation Tool to download and install Windows 10.
Yakk, maybe somewhere along the way something like that happened.

I've had 3 cases where the Win 10 install did take place overnight and people came in with a newly installed OS.

More BS. Users have been fucking up and blaming the computer since PCs came into existence. The Win 10 install update is the same as its been for a couple months, a Recommended Update that can be unselected or reverted once the getting started process opens.

The users here ran updates with recommended updates and Windows 10 selected, plain and simple. Since its Windows 10 they know they can claim whatever idiotic shit they want to about it and dipshits like Gordon Kelly will report it as news a-la "some guy in the Czech Republic says..."

I have mentioned this in other threads. Just uninstall the update that contains the Win 10 Upgrade Icon and nagware. I believe it was update KB3035583. I just went into the control panel, selected uninstall updates, selected that update number, uninstalled, then went into Windows Updates and hid KB3035583 so that Win Updates would ignore it and not try to install it again.
This has worked for me on both Win 7 and Win 8 machines. I have done this on 7 systems and not one has prompted Win 10 again.

I get the fear of accidentally running the upgrade that people have. For me, most of my systems are critical computers at my business. They have software that does not currently work on Win 10. That fact, plus my techs and employees would not be able to use their computers while this upgrade process would be occurring would severely impact the productivity of my business.

Unless one wants to assume the Win 10 install prompts are 100% reliable, then it is a given that many folks have had Win 10 installed without the proper authorization. Even if the prompts are 99.99% reliable, that probably yields thousands of unauthorized installs. Not to mention that folks have had years of training to click OK on the "Do you want to install X" box. So when the Win 10 warning pops up, they click OK like well trained monkeys, and are surprised the next morning at the discovery they are now running Win 10.

Microsoft Windows 10 upgrades are even more evil than me , i force updates with restarts almost daily to all users in our company, i have ocd for low system uptime for workstations. *evil grin*


p.s

i was at a conference today and a MS guy stated that MS has set an objective to have 1 billion windows 10 devices (including Xbox one,phone etc.) by 2018.

Well it hasn't happened to me accidentally because I have never installed any of the nagware, but I can see how it can. I have reminder programs that run that force itself into the foreground, and if the MS upgrade dialog is the same as those, as I type here like this replying to something on this forum the space bar is equal to the enter key so the dialog picks that action. I am guessing a similar thing is happening. It's not so much that it auto installs but MS sets the default action to install now, so if the user is typing something it immediately gets focus as they type and if space bar or enter gets pressed, the win 10 upgrade default action is initiated.

If it is supposedly auto-installing, then I feel sorry for those people. If it really were the case that someone clicked the wrong prompts, then it is too easy to start the install process. For something as a major overhaul, it should have several screens you have to go through to confirm your upgrade options. There is NO WAY I will be installing win10 on my PCs.

I haven't gone through the process, but could it be that it only takes a couple clicks to start the upgrade? Like if a pop-up to start the upgrade comes to the foreground while you are doing massive keyboard keys and mouse clicks (gaming?), that you could accidentally click through the prompts without knowing?

Back in the modem days, my uncle had his mouse set to move to the default click when there was a pop-up (usually forced it over the "OK" button), and he had it set to double-click for each single click. He got some virus on his computer that would pop a window up at random. It took me a while to figure it out, but through no fault of his own, it would come up right as he was going to click on something, and click the "OK" button then the "Confirm" button to auto-dial a 900 number on the modem hidden in the background. He only knew because his phone bill skyrocketed...

Yakk said:

I'd sooooooo like to know what the $#%-% I did on one of my Win 7 rigs, but not only did the Win 10 nagging stop, it is now no longer eligible for the Win 10 upgrade.

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Some of the windows 7 machines I deal with are old enough that Windows 10 refuses to install on them. If I recall correctly, they lack execute disable on the cpu.

What's incredible, though, is how Win10 has breathed new life into a bunch of the machines in the school district I work in. We have these older Lenovos (I think they're E545, but I don't have one in front of me) that have been running like garbage. Put Win10 on them and they're like brand new machines, significantly faster than if we do a fresh Win7 install.

All the teachers and staff (including us in IT) have Asus TP300L laptop/tablet combos (these were purchased during a transition between the previous outsourced IT regime and our new team and not what we would have gotten). They were Win8.1 out of the box and ran like shit which is not a surprise because 8/8.1 was a huge steaming turd. Win10 has made them usable.

I'm not buying it either. I've allowed my HTPC on win 7 to install all updates from Microsoft, and all I have is the little nagware thing on the bottom right of the taskbar sitting there waiting for me to click on the "do it1 Install Win10 NAOW" button.

It hasn't kicked anything off automatically, there was one popup way back when with the first KB install, and I've never seen it again. People either reserved their copies or clicked "go for it" at one point.

That all said, I still don't trust Microsoft these days - so I have a full image I can restore just in case win10 goes off on it's own, or I click something stupid. MS has sunk a bit low, but I'm pretty sure they haven't sunk as low to automatically upgrade. They've just made it really easy for you to click the "do it" button.

Well, if the popup steals focus, just as you hit enter, and "upgrade to Windows 10" is the default action, and there is no "Are you sure" confirmation, I could see how this might happen.

I am not buying the auto install, but I have noticed their nag screens changed, now they have a "pick a time to install" option

Those who are claiming autoistall, may have accidently selected the install later that during the day and left their computer on.

GilmourD said:

All the teachers and staff (including us in IT) have Asus TP300L laptop/tablet combos (these were purchased during a transition between the previous outsourced IT regime and our new team and not what we would have gotten). They were Win8.1 out of the box and ran like shit which is not a surprise because 8/8.1 was a huge steaming turd. Win10 has made them usable.

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I don't have anything to back this up but my own personal observation. When 10 launched initially it didn't seem to run as well on lower end Atom devices as 8.1. Since then and all of the updates, 10 seems to have gotten a bit zippier overall and a bit better than 8.1 on that same hardware. Nothing night and day like you're describing but noticeably better.

cocheese256 said:

I have mentioned this in other threads. Just uninstall the update that contains the Win 10 Upgrade Icon and nagware. I believe it was update KB3035583. I just went into the control panel, selected uninstall updates, selected that update number, uninstalled, then went into Windows Updates and hid KB3035583 so that Win Updates would ignore it and not try to install it again.
This has worked for me on both Win 7 and Win 8 machines. I have done this on 7 systems and not one has prompted Win 10 again.

I get the fear of accidentally running the upgrade that people have. For me, most of my systems are critical computers at my business. They have software that does not currently work on Win 10. That fact, plus my techs and employees would not be able to use their computers while this upgrade process would be occurring would severely impact the productivity of my business.

Click to expand...

Actually, that's part of the issue. I've un-installed that exact update, and microsoft just re-installs it, or renames it, and again it pops back up. So yea, it is an issue. And the more you ignore it, the more it bothers you, and now it shows, that you can't say no, it doesn't give you an option to say no, its now or later. You can still close the pop-up window, which is what I do, but now there is no saying no to the popup.

I had 3 customers call me last week explaining how they started their computer up and were greeted by a screen about Windows 10, and that if they decline it was going to "install their previous operating system". At first I thought it was some kind of scam (what previous OS, if they didn't install 10?) but I got them to send me a screenshot and it was a legit windows screen. They claimed (of course they would) that they had done nothing to start the install process. My guess is that if you click a certain combination of buttons on those Win 10 popups, which may or may not be ambiguously labeled, then your system will eventually reboot and pre-install 10. Still, it has to be a dumb user thing because I've got plenty of Windows 7 machines with the popups and I have yet to see it happen on its own.

wgm3446 said:

I've had 3 cases where the Win 10 install did take place overnight and people came in with a newly installed OS.

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This happened on my POS system at my cigar shop. Luckily Quickbooks POS still worked.

Not that I support it, but this is the kind of shit that people use as an argument in favor of piracy...

That said, my Win7 have never so much as given me a pop up to install Win10, I've seen it when I went to the microsoft site but from a client side OS? Never. Maybe because I don't use Internet Explorer and have never updated it?

DocSavage said:

Some of the windows 7 machines I deal with are old enough that Windows 10 refuses to install on them. If I recall correctly, they lack execute disable on the cpu.

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Hmm, this is on an A4 CPU, and I have other A4 machines which all still have that nagging. The machine in question did have the nagging at first. I just don't know what happened to make it go away, permanently it seems. I'm not complaining about it, I'd do the same to other machines if I could figure out what did happen. Haven't read anything like that yet though.

cocheese256 said:

I get the fear of accidentally running the upgrade that people have. For me, most of my systems are critical computers at my business. They have software that does not currently work on Win 10. That fact, plus my techs and employees would not be able to use their computers while this upgrade process would be occurring would severely impact the productivity of my business.

Click to expand...

You used to not have to worry if you where running an active directory domain, but now Microsoft has decided that business users on a domain should also be tricked into installing Windows 10. This doesn't apply if you are running the enterprise version on Windows, as it doesn't qualify for the free upgrade to 10.

We have business critical applications in use that don't work in Windows 10, and it's to easy to accidently click on the wrong button to start the upgrade to 10.

Luckily there is a group policy that will stop people from accidently upgrading.
It's annoying since they still see the upgrade icon, but if they click on it, a windows is displayed telling them that the administrator has blocked upgrades to this PC.

sfsuphysics said:

That said, my Win7 have never so much as given me a pop up to install Win10, I've seen it when I went to the microsoft site but from a client side OS? Never. Maybe because I don't use Internet Explorer and have never updated it?

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If you don't run windows updates, you will not see the "upgrade to Windows 10" icon or prompts.
I turned off updates on my HTPC. Since Windows 10 doesn't support media center, I don't want to take a chance that a family member will accidently click on the Windows 10 upgrade prompt.

I've had a few brought in by customers that have supposedly 'just installed magically'. Basically no one will admit to pressing the Yes and agree buttons and making the wrong install choice. Kids!

To be honest though MS has been a total annoying dick about the whole upgrade. It's put me off Windows 10 just by association. I was planning on upgrading my workstation to 10 a couple of months ago but to be honest I just don't want it now.

Yakk said:

I'd sooooooo like to know what the $#%-% I did on one of my Win 7 rigs, but not only did the Win 10 nagging stop, it is now no longer eligible for the Win 10 upgrade.

Click to expand...

Count your blessings

when it was first announced would be coming free, was few months later when could do so by signing up for it, I did.
When it finally came out and they allowed folks to install etc, I chose not to, all said and done now that I chose not to proceed right, wrong
every reboot, I had to manually STOP the DL in background process.
I did not know I had to stop it, because stupid me, I thought when I told it NOT TO INSTALL BECAUSE I DID NOT WANT IT YET it would not.
I can say this with 100% truth, the ONLY reason I know that it was happening, is because my ISP sent me notice that unusual network usage was being monitored for the last few days
I checked my data usage and yes, I do not know how many times it "pre-downloaded" and for whatever reason MSFT in infinite or lack of wisdom decided that every update versionor whatever seemed to want to start the damn pre-load again.
ok, finally pissed enough I dig through things to prevent it from doing so, the ONLY way for me was to hide the update, as well as going through registery to find all the GWX crap, I had triple the files to edit for some reason, I only signed up once.

Anyways, as far as throwing blame on the user, hey you are ok to have that opinion, me, let me know something can be or is ready to install ok, have some kind of pop-up or icon that persist and say win10 available click to DL or something, fine.
Having to deal with a program auto DL and in some folks cases auto install was just a massive easily avoided oversight on MSFT case, as THEY do NOT pay for bandwidth, but sure as hell took it upon themselves to ensure THEY would suffer
the least in regards to the potential hundreds of millions of DL that happen as above by default initially at least(dont know now) set to I forget what they called it, data sharing? I thought it was a neat idea, but what they initially described and what turned into
completely different. As most poeple were not aware that it would do this, as many are expeting X GB to DL for their new program, not to find out it is double or whatever.

They made a crap ton of stupid easy avoided things if they actually thought about what they were doing, and I dont know, listen to customer base?
As far as the, if you never go to windows update, lol, I did not notice it until it made a permanent icon taskbar, and like I said until I turned it off and manually went through registery, my system set to "notify me" it would notify, as well as DL 4gb or so "pre-loading"
Hey as long as they do not have to deal with bad forced drivers, paying data overage etc, they do not care.

Anyways, my point is, for anyone to have that opinion that "it is user fault" is just a fool. Yes it will happen, but millions that have complained again and again from the same general issues, to be "wrong" that is an impossible stretch.
I refuse to use(tried on new SSD when first got it, did not at all like the set-ups, massive wonky "start" menu, etc and so forth.

I think biggest issue is, with ANYONE. Folks say, oh you can turn that off, hey I know a thing or 2 about computers, but what about those in mission critical situations where a bad forced driver e.g can make everything grind to halt
let alone the hundred of millions out there that know very little about their computer system, how are they to know stuff being DL in background if not forced to install.

IMO they have a duty to properly inform their customers especially when their product may very well cause another to stop working or to work in undesired ways, and certainly have a duty to mumm "care and control"
this is something that has failed epic hard since win8 and has only gotten worse.

Word wall It works for you cool, there are millions it did not and in some cases killed things

Haven't had that issue. I was an early adopter... but I did have 2 major updates that wiped a lot of personal files. Mostly Firefox bookmarks and all my apps from the start menu and replaced it with some other crap that I never downloaded. This only happened on one machine out of 3 i have oddly... very irritating.

It's added hassle. If a customer asks me to upgrade their machine to 10 I now do a full disk clone before the upgrade just in case. A couple of times it's messed stuff up so bad I've just swapped the HDDs round.

I have experienced the automatic windows 10 installation on my Windows 7 Pro workstation. The upgrade is downloaded automatically via windows update and attempts to install without any prompt explicitly asking. I manually chose to ignore the update and have since switched from automatic update to automatic download/manual install. No hasty prompt clicks or PEBCAK(ian?) practices.

I believe people aren't reading what they are clicking. People are clicking the upgrade later thinking it will let them choose when instead of clicking the smaller cancel the upgrade that is almost hidden as if it wasn't an option... You're best choice if you don't want it happening is to remove the GWX components. There are some nice GWX removal tools out there.

I haven't seen this ever happen, but I do believe that Microsoft would silently install Windows 10 if they thought they could get away with it. Microsoft is getting more and more pushy about this and this is the logical last step. I wonder if they could get away with it? Heck, maybe they started the rumor to see how people react to it. Then they can decide if they can get away with it or not.

I have been putting off upgrading but last week I got up and my cat was sleeping on my keyboard and Windows 10 was installed except for the final setup. Either my cat successfully installed it or it auto installed.

I would not have believed it either. I mean, how can you accidentally install a new OS? It sounds like bullshit to me.... right up till it happened to me last week.

Either it is automatic, or they are trying to rely accidental misclicks and enter presses by stealing focus. I have no idea about a timer on the window because I never saw saw it.

(didnt read article, it is blocked for me right now)

xX326Xx said:

I believe people aren't reading what they are clicking. People are clicking the upgrade later thinking it will let them choose when instead of clicking the smaller cancel the upgrade that is almost hidden as if it wasn't an option... You're best choice if you don't want it happening is to remove the GWX components. There are some nice GWX removal tools out there.

Click to expand...

Consumers shouldn't have to resort to a hack to opt out of upgrading. There should be a simple "No thanks" button next to the Upgrade button. Until such time as there's a No Thanks button, all the zealots can pound sand with the semantics dancing and doublespeak and victim blaming.

Trojan gotcha tactics aren't creating positive word of mouth, and now wasn't the time for MS to be polarizing if they wanted a successful consumer product.

ManofGod said:

Although there have been random installs that have occurred, it is not an across the board issue. However, I have yet to hear about that 15 minute warning occurring and only once instance or a sudden restart on these forums. Oh, and in before Microsoft the evil.

Click to expand...

I can confirm Windows 10 has installed itself automatically without permission.

It did on my iRacing machine. I still don't know wtf lead up to it.

Everyone saying its user error is correct. But when my girlfriends 91 y/o grandpa does it... He just clicked accept because that's what he does. Fuck. You. Microshaft. Used to be a believer, now I'm becoming a hater.