Windows 10 - Deeper Impressions

[NoelC]

Yeah, $10K could break the bank for Microsoft.  Think how many copies of Win 10 they'll have to sell to pay for that settlement.

I'm surprised the deal didn't come with a gag clause.

I wonder if a "What EULA?" defense would fly.

-Noel

[JorgeA]

1 hour ago, jaclaz said:

Strangely enough, some good news ;):
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/microsoft-draws-flak-for-pushing-windows-10-on-pc-users/

jaclaz
 

Nice find, jaclaz. This is the best Windows 10-related news I've seen in a long time.

You can bet your bottom dollar/euro/franc/rupee/pound/peso that Microsoft's army of lawyers would have fought this if they thought they could win. By "winning" I mean not just the case itself in a court of law, but also in the court of public opinion. They probably made a strategic decision to settle, in the hope that the news would be reported quietly and go away quickly, as compared to the months of bad publicity that an actual trial would have involved. Because no matter how they try to justify performing the updowngrade, it simply looks bad. Even if they argue the legal point that "you must have agreed to the EULA at some point, don't you read these things?", it teaches the public-- that Microsoft is not trustworthy and that they do need to read the EULAs carefully. Those of us who read this forum may know that, but up until now the broader public hasn't been awakened to it, and minimizing news of this sort helps to keep it that way.

Spread the news far and wide -- maybe it'll encourage other victims of MSFT's Win10 pushiness to follow suit (so to speak).

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

And the news is already spreading:

Woman sues Microsoft for $10,000 over “forced” Windows 10 upgrade, wins

Microsoft pays out $10,000 for forcing Windows 10 on California woman

The second post above quotes a statement from the plaintiff:
 

Quote

Microsoft needed to be held accountable for its negligence regarding the forced Windows 10 upgrade which rendered many user’s computers useless. Microsoft cannot just say read our User agreement form, we hold no responsibility, you cannot sue us and go away.

[...]

...Microsoft knew that its Windows 10 was not fit for purpose and allowed its release anyway. They used thousands of people like myself to learn how to troubleshoot the problems with no concern of consequences to the users.

[emphasis added]

Yup, that's the model the company is using now, where individual users of certain versions of the OS serve as guinea pigs for the version used by large organizations ("Enterprise," but that also includes government agencies).

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

And further:

Woman sues Microsoft over her forced Windows 10 upgrade and wins

Woman wins $10,000 judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade

Quote

...Microsoft has been dragging people into upgrading in much the same way you might grab a cat and drag it off for a bath.

It'll be interesting to see if and how Ed MicroBott, the biggest "big-name" Win10 apologist, defends this one.

--JorgeA

[Dibya]

8 hours ago, JorgeA said:

Nice find, jaclaz. This is the best Windows 10-related news I've seen in a long time.

You can bet your bottom dollar/euro/franc/rupee/pound/peso that Microsoft's army of lawyers would have fought this if they thought they could win. By "winning" I mean not just the case itself in a court of law, but also in the court of public opinion. They probably made a strategic decision to settle, in the hope that the news would be reported quietly and go away quickly, as compared to the months of bad publicity that an actual trial would have involved. Because no matter how they try to justify performing the updowngrade, it simply looks bad. Even if they argue the legal point that "you must have agreed to the EULA at some point, don't you read these things?", it teaches the public-- that Microsoft is not trustworthy and that they do need to read the EULAs carefully. Those of us who read this forum may know that, but up until now the broader public hasn't been awakened to it, and minimizing news of this sort helps to keep it that way.

Spread the news far and wide -- maybe it'll encourage other victims of MSFT's Win10 pushiness to follow suit (so to speak).

--JorgeA

This will make people go back to old os like 2k/xp/vista

[ralcool]

No it won't, The basic landscape is in place, and we are seeing a whole ecosystem evolving.

I've been watching my Androids update themselves to version 5 or other revisions, macOS is around the corner... with minor evolutionary changes. Not hype.

With this in mind be aware of the choices available and don't limit yourself. You can use more than one!

[MikeyV]

13 hours ago, JorgeA said:

Spread the news far and wide -- maybe it'll encourage other victims of MSFT's Win10 pushiness to follow suit (so to speak

read the last paragraph of your 2nd link;

Whether this tactic work remains to be seen. Following the interest that this case generated, Teri now has a class action lawsuit starting against Microsoft in both the US and Canada. It's also hard to imagine that more people won't be inspired to do much the same, so Microsoft could well find itself in court again.

[Tripredacus]

8 hours ago, Dibya said:

This will make people go back to old os like 2k/xp/vista

Wanting to go back and actually doing it is two different things.

[greenhillmaniac]

15 minutes ago, Tripredacus said:

Wanting to go back and actually doing it is two different things.

Tell me about it! I love Windows Vista, and I would love to go back to it, but there are no drivers, and program support is very weak....

It really is a matter of heart vs brain.

[JorgeA]

6 hours ago, MikeyV said:

read the last paragraph of your 2nd link;

Whether this tactic work remains to be seen. Following the interest that this case generated, Teri now has a class action lawsuit starting against Microsoft in both the US and Canada. It's also hard to imagine that more people won't be inspired to do much the same, so Microsoft could well find itself in court again.

Huh, I missed that middle sentence. Cool. The key will be whether others join her in the suit.

One thing that may help in that respect is that the news has started to seep into the general-interest media. According to Woody Leonhard's blog, the story has now been reported in the UK Guardian newspaper and the BBC.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

2 hours ago, greenhillmaniac said:

Tell me about it! I love Windows Vista, and I would love to go back to it, but there are no drivers, and program support is very weak....

It really is a matter of heart vs brain.

To date, I've had trouble with only one single application on Vista -- a second-line security program. Also, a few months ago I was considering changing my first-line protection to Emsisoft Security, but then they dropped support for Vista for reasons that still mystify me.

I can't install any IE newer than 9 of course, but then I've changed over to Pale Moon (thanks, @dencorso!) and things are going great.

No compatibility issues with any other programs I use on Vista. So far, anyway. Fingers crossed! 

--JorgeA

[greenhillmaniac]

1 hour ago, JorgeA said:

To date, I've had trouble with only one single application on Vista -- a second-line security program. Also, a few months ago I was considering changing my first-line protection to Emsisoft Security, but then they dropped support for Vista for reasons that still mystify me.

I can't install any IE newer than 9 of course, but then I've changed over to Pale Moon (thanks, @dencorso!) and things are going great.

No compatibility issues with any other programs I use on Vista. So far, anyway. Fingers crossed! 

--JorgeA

It all depends on the uses one needs from the OS. If you only write documents or make spreadsheets and surf the web, I think XP would do a great job, even today (or even Windows 2000, but that requires a bit of extra tinkering). On the other hand, if you do more heavy tasks, like gaming (me) or video editing, 7 is the bare minimum OS...

Also, speaking of app compatibility, AMD does not make drivers for Vista... So, yeah!

[JorgeA]

Gregg Keizer of Computerworld provides the most details about the court case that Microsoft surrendered:

Quote

"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.

If it was the "Microsoft Answers" forum that she visited, I'm not surprised that she got no useful solutions.
 

Quote

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.

[...]

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."

Long quotations up there, but actually the whole article is well worth reading.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

4 minutes ago, greenhillmaniac said:

It all depends on the uses one needs from the OS. If you only write documents or make spreadsheets and surf the web, I think XP would do a great job, even today (or even Windows 2000, but that requires a bit of extra tinkering). On the other hand, if you do more heavy tasks, like gaming (me) or video editing, 7 is the bare minimum OS...

Also, speaking of app compatibility, AMD does not make drivers for Vista... So, yeah!

I do some fairly heavy-duty document processing with Acrobat and Word, but yeah, there's been no problem doing that on Vista.

Didn't know about AMD no longer making Vista drivers. I happened to choose Nvidia cards (for no other reason than that they were cheap  ) for my Vista machines, and those are working and updating just fine. OTOH the Nvidia updater is no longer working on XP, although IIRC you can still update the graphics driver the old-fashioned (manual) way.

Without a doubt, the trend will be for increasing problems using Vista as the computing world continues to evolve. I'll hang on to it for as long as it's practical. And probably even for some time after that.

--JorgeA

[NoelC]

I think AMD must be struggling to pay its engineers, and thus looking to cut costs in any way they can.

They're dropping features with each new release of Crimson, which is the driver suite that followed their Catalyst drivers.  Calling them out on it only results in the support drones telling you to do something different, even when that something doesn't address the functionality they eliminated.

-Noel