Microsoft playing nasty

On a Win7 machine we have been nagged about doing an update to Win10 and so far have refused it each time.

Yesterday morning (Sunday) the PC was brought out of hibernate and we were confronted with a scree which confirmed that an upgrade to Win10 had occurred.

On Friday evening, it was put into hibernate, then around 22:00 on Saturday, a hidden process must have activated and started teh upgrade - WITHOUT approval or acceptance.

Fortunately there is a capability to reverse the changes - which took a while yesterday.

It is totally unacceptable for MS to invoke an upgrade especially when a user has already said NO.

I agree, I use GWX control panel and it keeps that under control, also I have not installed any of the telemetry updates. The only problem is MS keeps moving the goal posts and if you are not careful will install more updates and the GWX needs updating.

But I should not have to install third party software to stop the the producer of a OS I use updating it to another OS I do not want to use and also to stop them spying on me.

I have to go and sort out a machine at the weekend that have been up dated to Windows 10 and something have gone wrong and it will now not boot, so this person can not use their computer for nearly a week as I can not get there until the weekend. Thankfully they got stuff backed up they back up every day, but what about if they did not back up every day and they had stuff on that computer that is important?

I have nothing against Ms putting up a nag once a month saying that windows 10 is free and if you want it then click here, but to start to download the files and then install it without people knowing is just wrong.


As you said it is easy enough to go back to Windows 7, but when you do, install GWX control panel as going back do not stop it happening again.
I suppose there is one good thing that came out of this, you can now update to Windows 10 when ever you want on that computer even after the offer have ended, Which is getting closer and the sooner it ends the better, but be prepared for MS to go nuts in the last few weeks.

KB3035583 is the update which installs GWX. Hiding this update only seems to last for a short time. Soon after it rears its ugly head again as an important update. Imoortant my ****.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

... I have to go and sort out a machine at the weekend that have been up dated to Windows 10 and something have gone wrong and it will now not boot...

This seems to be a fairly common problem which imposes inconvenience and unnecessary cost on the affected user. It's basically a form of ransomware and M$ should be brought to book over it.

In reply to a post by caffn8me:

KB3035583 is the update which installs GWX. Hiding this update only seems to last for a short time. Soon after it rears its ugly head again as an important update. Imoortant my ****.

GWX control panel takes care of that one, the ones I have hidden and do not seem to come back are

KB3068708, Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry

KB3080149 another Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry

KB3150513, which is May 2016 Compatibility Update for Windows, in MS words, This update provides updated configuration and definitions for compatibility diagnostics performed on the system. The updated definitions will improve accuracy and help enable Microsoft and its partners ensure compatibility for customers who want to install the latest Windows operating system. This update will be offered only if KB2977759, KB2952664, or KB2976978 is installed on Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1), or Windows 7 RTM.

I think that may be the one that allows Windows 10 to get onto the computer.


I have notice by looking this morning and this have happened twice now in the last couple of weeks that my update settings have been changed, to allow update automatically.

Not impressed, leave my windows 8.1 alone MS.

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

This seems to be a fairly common problem which imposes inconvenience and unnecessary cost on the affected user. It's basically a form of ransomware and M$ should be brought to book over it.

It is annoying because, I have not really got the time this weekend to muck around with it as I have a couple of video shoots to do and some editing. I may have to get the computer here and sort it out here in between times. Thankfully this person who owns the computer have also done the good thing of backing up Windows itself onto a DVD's when they first got the machine, so it will be easy to reinstall, which is probably the best thing to do.

On a relative's 8.1 PC who didn't want 10 I deleted all the GWX scheduled tasks as well as all the files in the GWX folder. MS make this pretty difficult as there are ownership restrictions to work around, but I got there in the end.

This has actually held for months, I was fully expecting another update to set it back to the usual tray icon but it never happened, and they haven't been Win10 nagged at all since.

I always check before downloading any updates so hide all the Win 10 ones. Never been asked to update as a result

Weirdly my sisters laptop is set to install automatically (its only used now and again) and never been nagged or automatically upgraded. Not sure why not but not complaining

I have Windows updates set to notify me so it doesn't install anything automatically - I killed the GWX process and renamed the folder "C:\Windows\System32\GWX" (needs re-doing after updates) - it doesn't nag me

However trying to sort out what was wrong with Windows Update took me a few hours over the weekend - MS seem very adverse to putting anything helpful in logs

I suspect if they continue with the rubbish of forcing things down your throat, come 2020 I'll likely be switching to Linux and/or Apple

This one was set to notify too and it did for months. then it just did it!

It is the principle of it that has annoyed me. I had said No, No, No, No, No, and it totally ignored that.