Microsoft Backpedals On Sleazy Win 10 Malware Scheme

Microsoft has been receiving a lot of flak since the Windows 10 upgrade notification started popping up on the screens of their users back in late 2015. Aside from the installation issues that users have been having when they decided to upgrade, there was also the rather sneaky way of tricking users to install the newer Operating System that took advantage of ingrained habits. Fortunately, it seems the tech giant has learned its lesson and is now shifting from its almost malware-like practice.

Lance Ulanoff at Mashable believes that Windows 10 is among the smartest OS offerings available right now. However, he also thinks that people should be able to make the choice to upgrade or to refuse without being coerced or tricked into a decision that they didn’t want to make. So when Microsoft decided to give their upgrade pop-up window a red box with an “X” in the middle that led to the installation of their newest OS, of course, it would cause controversy.

For most of modern computer use, the “X” command means closing a window without anything else happening. For all intents and purposes, pressing “X” means the user wants the window to go away and in no way is it a signal that they are giving any software permission to do anything.

This is how users have been conditioned for decades, so when they saw the “X” on the red box, they naturally assumed that it would only close the window. Instead, the action prompted the Windows 10 upgrade to start downloading and installing. This is the kind of behavior that users could expect from programmers of pornography pop-ups, not from a company like Microsoft; and yet it happened.

Fortunately, as ArsTechinca reports, the company has finally realized their folly and will be updating the pop-up window to have a clearer way to decline the upgrade offer. More than that, any user who wants to go back to Windows 8.1 or 7 will receive support from Microsoft to do so.