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Matt Day wrote:With about a month left for many PC users to upgrade to Windows 10 at no charge, Microsoft is being criticized for its aggressive — some say too aggressive — campaign to get people to install the new operating system.

A few days after Microsoft released Windows 10 to the public last year, Teri Goldstein’s computer started trying to download and install the new operating system.

The update, which she says she didn’t authorize, failed. Instead, the computer she uses to run her Sausalito, Calif., travel-agency business slowed to a crawl. It would crash, she says, and be unusable for days at a time.


“I had never heard of Windows 10,” Goldstein said. “Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to update.”

How to get, or avoid, Windows 10
Microsoft is offering Windows 10 as a free update to nonbusiness users of Windows 7 and Windows 8 or 8.1 until July 29. After that, the software will cost $119.

To get it
Go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-10-upgrade and follow the prompts.

To avoid it
A Microsoft support article on the update process, at http://www.support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3095675 includes instructions on how to decline the updates and turn off Windows 10-related notifications.

Separately, a free application called Never10 is designed to run in the background and block attempts to prompt you to update to Windows 10. The program is available for download at http://www.grc.com/never10

When outreach to Microsoft’s customer support didn’t fix the issue, Goldstein took the software giant to court, seeking compensation for lost wages and the cost of a new computer.

She won. Last month, Microsoft dropped an appeal and Goldstein collected a $10,000 judgment from the company.

The company denies wrongdoing, and a spokeswoman said Microsoft halted its appeal to avoid the expense of further litigation.

Tribble wrote:Well, put it this way: I've used an MS operating system since DOS, and I'm now switching over to a Mac. I don't care if Windows 10 is superior in every way to Windows 7 and 8.1 (Or OSX for that matter) their blatant attempts to sabotage my computer and force / trick me into updating to an operating system I do not want yet and am not ready for is amongst the worst customer experience I've ever had. You would think that they would try and treat 25+ year customers with at last some level of respect, but no, they just don't give a damn. So screw them, I'm taking my money elsewhere and not buying any Microsoft-based hardware / software for the foreseeable future.

Microsoft wrote:If you click on OK or on the red “X”, you’re all set for the upgrade and there is nothing further to do.

microsoft wrote: The Close button on the title bar should have the same effect as the Cancel or Close button within the dialog box. Never give it the same effect as OK.

Microsoft last month paid a California travel agent $10,000 after she won a judgment in small claims court by successfully arguing that an unauthorized upgrade to Windows 10 crippled her work PC.

Teri Goldstein, the owner of Sausalito, Calif.-based TG Travel Group LLC, said that she had not approved the upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. After the upgrade repeatedly failed, the machine was almost unusable, frequently crashing and forcing her to restore files, not recognizing her external hard drive, and demanding that she use multi-step workarounds simply to log on each day. "It just limped along," Goldstein said in an interview.

The Seattle Times first reported on Microsoft giving up its appeal and paying Goldstein the $10,000 judgment.

Goldstein relied on her computer to run her business.

"For months I tried to work with them, but they kept blowing me off," said Goldstein, of the problems that began in August 2015. She said she made countless calls to Microsoft's technical support, visited a local Microsoft retail store, and spent hours scouring support forums, all to no avail.

Meanwhile, her business was taking a pounding. "September to December is my busiest season," Goldstein said, adding that she could not shut down her company the week or more it would take to buy a new PC and have her IT consultant set it up, provision it with the software she needed, and transfer her files. At the same time, she fielded calls from clients asking why she hadn't answered their emails, which were inaccessible because of the crippled computer. Some of those customers canceled their bookings.

In early October, she bought a new laptop because her Windows desktop was still unreliable, then tried to do business using both. In late December, the first time business slowed enough to allow it, she bought a new desktop PC to replace the crippled computer.


During the months-long span, Goldstein said she suffered $17,000 in lost business and additional expenses because of the failed upgrade to Windows 10, basing her estimate on past-years' revenue during the period and the cost of the new computers.

Microsoft's support technicians were never able to restore her PC to its former operational state, and Goldstein's account of dealings with the Redmond, Wash. company's customer service department was Kafka-esque.

According to the notes Goldstein had kept on her dilemma, which she shared with Computerworld, one customer service representative -- whose name, email and phone number she had been given by a Microsoft retail store in San Francisco -- was "continually rude, unwilling to assist me," and eventually told her "Do not ever contact me again."

By mid-January, Goldstein had had enough. "That was when they offered me $150 to go away," she said today. "I used that as proof of guilt. They knew what was happening."

From there, Goldstein went to Marin County's small claims court, filing a claim for the maximum of $10,000.

In March, her claim was heard. Goldstein came prepared with documentation, including years of her firm's revenue to show the losses caused by the lack of a working PC. Microsoft, on the other hand, sent someone from the local retail store, not an attorney.


"This very honest kid came in, and said they had pulled him out of the store at 4:30 to go to court," said Goldstein. "They didn't even prepare for it."

Basing her claim on a section in the California Uniform Commercial Code, and arguing that the forced upgrade was non-consensual and resulted in lost wages, Goldstein was awarded the $10,000 judgment. Microsoft originally said it would appeal, but then ditched the idea and paid her the $10,000 last month.

"The company dropped its appeal to avoid the expense of further litigation," a Microsoft spokesman said in an email reply to questions today.

Goldstein's story likely resonates with many of the Windows users who, over the last 11 months, have objected to a variety of Microsoft tactics designed to convince, cajole or even trick customers running Windows 7 and 8.1 into upgrading to Windows 10.

Microsoft's upgrade strategy, which began months before the July 29, 2015, launch of the new operating system, became increasingly aggressive. After first asking customers to "reserve" a copy of the upgrade, it moved on to downloading the upgrade bits in the background to those users' machines. In October 2015, Microsoft announced it would automatically push the Windows 10 upgrade to all eligible PCs, then initiate the upgrade process. That practice began in February.

More recently, the firm started pre-scheduling the upgrade, a change that dramatically increased the number of complaints, and triggered a petition asking the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to investigate the unprecedented gambit.

Users were especially irate about a change Microsoft made in March when it began to interpret a click on the red "X" in the upper right of an impending upgrade notice as approving the upgrade, contradicting decades of user experience (UX), as well as Microsoft's own design rules. Customers called it a trick to get them to approve the upgrade to Windows 10 when they intended to reject it.

Goldstein had advice for others in similar straits.

"Corporations need to be held accountable," she said. "My business was destroyed by a company pushing its products. You have to take the bull by the horns because as long as Microsoft can get away with this, they will."

Goldstein encouraged others who have suffered loss of money or time because of Microsoft's Windows 10 upgrade strategy to contact her. "My position is that anyone who wants to talk to me about their rights, should call me. Or email me."

Goldstein's phone number and email address can be found on one of her websites, Travels with Teri.

TheFeniX wrote:It's really about fucking time someone sued their shit for all this. And it needs to happen more, a lot more. I use W10 at home. In fact, "gamers" are the largest group I've read about adopting it due to their general tech competence and the performance benefits of the OS. That and gaming doesn't have the same issues with backwards compatibility productivity software has. If you're playing any kind of modern game, it's almost certainly going to run better on 10.

TheFeniX wrote:But MS kind of lost their shit when people didn't equate "free" with "super awesome." Sorry, I don't give a damn how good W10 might be: I don't have the luxury of upgrading all my work PCs to it when we HAVE to use older programs due to government agencies and even some client required ones. And I'm not keeping one old W7 machine in the back or running a VM for that garbage when W10 offers me no extra productivity.

Me2005 wrote:This is an interesting point, I hadn't realized gamers would be the ones to update. I suppose they don't care what os they're on as long as it runs all their games though - if the market shifts they'll shift right along with it.

Yeah, I think they missed the fact that upgrading $4,000-10,000 in productivity software (Not an exaggeration: that is how much the programs I use cost, especially while in transition away from Autodesk) just for a $120 OS will never pan out. Never mind the switching costs and intangibles, getting everyone up to speed on the new OS, making sure all the peripherals and printers and stuff work. So far my anti-W10 walls seem to be holding.

Me2005 wrote:

TheFeniX wrote:It's really about fucking time someone sued their shit for all this. And it needs to happen more, a lot more. I use W10 at home. In fact, "gamers" are the largest group I've read about adopting it due to their general tech competence and the performance benefits of the OS. That and gaming doesn't have the same issues with backwards compatibility productivity software has. If you're playing any kind of modern game, it's almost certainly going to run better on 10.

This is an interesting point, I hadn't realized gamers would be the ones to update. I suppose they don't care what os they're on as long as it runs all their games though - if the market shifts they'll shift right along with it.

TheFeniX wrote:But MS kind of lost their shit when people didn't equate "free" with "super awesome." Sorry, I don't give a damn how good W10 might be: I don't have the luxury of upgrading all my work PCs to it when we HAVE to use older programs due to government agencies and even some client required ones. And I'm not keeping one old W7 machine in the back or running a VM for that garbage when W10 offers me no extra productivity.

Yeah, I think they missed the fact that upgrading $4,000-10,000 in productivity software (Not an exaggeration: that is how much the programs I use cost, especially while in transition away from Autodesk) just for a $120 OS will never pan out. Never mind the switching costs and intangibles, getting everyone up to speed on the new OS, making sure all the peripherals and printers and stuff work. So far my anti-W10 walls seem to be holding.

TheFeniX wrote:

Me2005 wrote:This is an interesting point, I hadn't realized gamers would be the ones to update. I suppose they don't care what os they're on as long as it runs all their games though - if the market shifts they'll shift right along with it.

Gamers generally don't care about the OS at all. They'll remove it completely to free up resources, though that hasn't been an issue for almost 20 years now. The only real issues that will hold them back is driver support (like W2kPro having no OpenGL support and ATI refusing to release an OpenGL driver) and cost, since $100 towards an OS is $100 not going to other hardware. Since W10 "out-of-the-box" actually had pretty good driver support (at least I know NVidia was on the ball.... as much as they can be lately) and was "free:" it's a pretty good reason to upgrade. Probably helps also that W10 runs better/faster than W7/W8 on equivalent hardware.

Lost Soal wrote:Gamers are I believe quite concerned about W10 actually due to Microsofts insistance on pushing W10 games as, essentially, apps which can't be modded. Admittedly the only PC gamer I really follow is Total Biscuit but he recently rolled back to W7 due to software problems

TheFeniX wrote: For their "App Store" in general: I use a Windows phone currently, just for shits and grins because I do nothing on my phone but e-mail, calls, texts, porn... I mean, Internet Browsing. And I just wanted to try it out.

TheFeniX wrote:

Lost Soal wrote:Gamers are I believe quite concerned about W10 actually due to Microsofts insistance on pushing W10 games as, essentially, apps which can't be modded. Admittedly the only PC gamer I really follow is Total Biscuit but he recently rolled back to W7 due to software problems

The W10 games system was DOA and Microsoft really doesn't have any say in the matter: the game publishers do. I don't even have cross-plat play on my phone and my OS, across the same XBLive account. "Aw man, I can totally stream games from my ShitBox to my I7 with 10x the hardware? Kickin' Rad."

Playstation is a valid console alternative and GoG, Steam, and Origin would never let Microsoft dictate what they can and can't do on their system because "fuck you" really. Microsoft essentially abandoned PC gaming for years only trying their truly shitty GFWL system which tanked hard. Microsoft has been trying to fuck gamers hard for years but they don't have anything to fuck us with. Valve had Counter-Strike and EA has the trash heaps they make you download Origin for. Besides, modding a game or not is more up to the developer than the OS anyway. You really think any of those guys (or the gaming community itself) are going to ever use GFWL 2.0 at gunpoint when their current system is making them billions in digital sales and they control the DRM and profit-breakdown?

At that point, the publishers would be suing Microsoft (likely together) for their bullshit.

Zaune wrote:It's not just modding: There's been talk of games sold through the Microsoft Store being locked into some sort of exclusivity arrangement, potentially meaning no option to buy from competing retailers like Steam or GOG. And then there's the doomsday scenario of MS deciding that Home Basic and Home Premium users are no longer allowed to install apps without using the Store. Non-Enterprise users already lost the ability to control Store access through Group Policy.

Elheru Aran wrote:I dunno about Windows Phone but I suspect that's probably true of 90% of smartphone owners over age 20-- minimal gaming, mostly just communications in general. And photos.

The only really new thing about OP's story is that MS is turning off the free update to W10 soon. Which I can't wait for. I got Never10 so that helped, but I'd really rather not have to worry about it...

Lost Soal wrote:ATM I'm primarilly talking about MS published games; Sea of Thieves, Quantom Break, Gears of War, Halo (Wars), Re-Core etc. With modding its not just about changing game elements or whatever your also talking about the ability of modders to out right fix broken games which the publisher was just too lazy to fix, i.e. Durante fixing Tales of Symphonia in 14 minutes.

Tribble wrote:

By mid-January, Goldstein had had enough. "That was when they offered me $150 to go away," she said today. "I used that as proof of guilt. They knew what was happening."

From there, Goldstein went to Marin County's small claims court, filing a claim for the maximum of $10,000.

In March, her claim was heard. Goldstein came prepared with documentation, including years of her firm's revenue to show the losses caused by the lack of a working PC. Microsoft, on the other hand, sent someone from the local retail store, not an attorney.

"This very honest kid came in, and said they had pulled him out of the store at 4:30 to go to court," said Goldstein. "They didn't even prepare for it."

Apparently they couldn't even be bothered to send an attorney to the court case, they just sent some poor kid last minute from the nearest store. They really don't give a shit about their customers, even when they are being sued by them!

Simon_Jester wrote:Debateable. Paying this one case may be cost-effective, but if they wind up having to defend themselves against, say, a hundred thousand similar cases...