If you don’t want Windows 10, disable Automatic Updates

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes.

Microsoft is really ramping up the annoyance factor lately. The latest is that some time in 2016, Windows 7 and 8.x computers will start seeing Windows 10 as a ‘Recommended’ update in Windows Update. If you have Windows Automatic Updates enabled, your computer will be upgraded to Windows 10 on some arbitrary night in early 2016, while you’re asleep.

This is bad for several reasons. Here are a few:

  • For anyone not interested in upgrading to Windows 10, this renders Automatic Updates unusable. Yes, there are people who want to use Automatic Updates, but don’t want to upgrade to Windows 10. Lots of them. Including a lot of grandparents.
  • There have already been reports of problems with Windows 10 being installed when it wasn’t wanted. If Microsoft messes this up somehow, a lot of people are going to be mighty annoyed when they wake up to Windows 10 on their computer.
  • There are loads of reasons not to upgrade to Windows 10, including incompatible software and hardware. An unwanted Windows 10 upgrade could mean a lot of time wasted downgrading or looking for alternatives.
  • Microsoft has started talking about Windows 10 in business and education settings, saying they’ll provide workarounds for these types of problems. But it can’t be very encouraging to business IT folks to hear announcements like this.

The Verge has more.

About jrivett

Jeff Rivett has worked with and written about computers since the early 1980s. His first computer was an Apple II+, built by his father and heavily customized. Jeff's writing appeared in Computist Magazine in the 1980s, and he created and sold a game utility (Ultimaker 2, reviewed in the December 1983 Washington Apple Pi Journal) to international markets during the same period. Proceeds from writing, software sales, and contract programming gigs paid his way through university, earning him a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) degree at UWO. Jeff went on to work as a programmer, sysadmin, and manager in various industries. There's more on the About page, and on the Jeff Rivett Consulting site.

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