Opt-Out Becomes The New Opt-In
The end result is a dramatic change of focus. While users will still be able to cancel the Windows 10 installation process, it means proactive effort will now be required to stop the upgrade as opposed to proactive agreement to start it.
Given Windows 10’s status will remain as a Recommended Update, however, it means even those who proactively stop it are likely to find the install process initiating every time new Recommended updates appear. The irritation value of this alone is likely to see many concede.
As such the title of Myerson’s post ‘Making it Easier to Upgrade to Windows 10’ is something of a double edged sword because it could equally be titled: ‘Making it Harder Not to Upgrade to Windows 10’.
Myerson does have a bone to throw users though: computers which upgrade to Windows 10 will get a 31 day window in which to downgrade. He didn’t say whether, once downgraded, the nagging to upgrade would then be stopped.
Myerson also said Microsoft will introduce a “one-click” opportunity to upgrade pirated copies of Windows 7 and Windows 8 to Windows 10. Pirates will still have to pay to use Windows 10, but their upgrade process will not be blocked for starting from a pirated copy of Windows 7 or Windows 8. Microsoft will trial this scheme in the US and “If this turns into a path for most customers to get Genuine, we will expand the experiment”.
So what does all this mean?
For Most, Resistance Is Now Futile
While tech savvy users will find workarounds and hacks, quite frankly avoiding the upgrade process is going to become far too much effort for the average consumer.
Is Windows 10 worth upgrading? From the perspective of most mainstream consumers, I’d say yes. It’s slicker than Windows 7 and more intuitive than Windows 8. But it is also incredibly invasive and controlling, taking an iron grip on what it installs to your PC and tracking everything you do – something options let you minimise, but not stop entirely.
As such my personal objection to Microsoft’s behaviour is not that Windows 10 doesn’t represent a potentially valuable upgrade, it is that the company has forgotten the fundamental right of customers to choose. And dressing ‘choice’ up as ‘you can just keep saying No’ is a facade everyone should see through…