Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Misbehavior at Microsoft

Now I am no fan of Microsoft. They in my opinion exude an arrogance based upon an internally generated self image. Then there is Windows 10, which kind of works, and can almost be put back into an XP type OS where things are somewhat understood. I still cannot figure out how to effect the old cmd files but that is another story.

Yes, they have tried dozens of time to download w10 onto my office systems. Multiple times a day, I think I have blocked them. I have a W10 pad and it works kind of OK. It does not deal with Bluetooth well, wrong drivers, and try and get the right ones, and the WiFi is iffy at best. Again I suspect a driver problem.

Now Inquirer reports that they are actually loading W10 even if you did not ask for it. Imagine what that would do to a production machine! Bring it to a total halt. All drivers would be dead on arrival. They do NOT work on W10. It would almost in my opinion be a terrorist act. But they keep hitting my updates. The article states:

WHEN WE REVEALED last Thursday that Microsoft has started downloading Windows 10 indiscriminately to anyone who qualifies for an upgrade, whether they want one or not, we knew it was kind of a big deal. We're proud to be recognised as a credible news source and our articles are often cited and quoted. What we didn't expect was that this would be picked up first by the tech press, then the national press, then the world press in droves. To say that it struck a nerve is an understatement. It's like the keylogger story last year, but much, much, much bigger. There are several factors here. At a basic level, there's the privacy and intrusion aspect. After all, it's one thing to agree to receive updates to your operating system automatically, especially given that many of them relate to keeping the system locked down, but this isn't an update, it's a whole new operating system. Then there's the sneakiness. Microsoft offers an opt-in scheme to Windows 10. Remember all that stuff about reserving your copy? If you didn't reserve a copy and it just goes ahead and downloads it anyway, it's going directly against your wishes. And let's remember, it's going into a hidden folder that you actually have to change settings to be able to see. That says a lot.

I can see a great Class Action suit here! Where are the lawyers when you need them?

The damages could be astronomical!  For example, let us say I have a time constraint on getting out a report of legal filing. Down comes W10, now I have to reassemble all my files, none of my software will work, bad drivers or incompatible, no peripherals and the list goes on. Not to mention getting rid of all the "nice" graphics to get the presentation back some where near what you were used to. Do any of the folks at Microsoft even think? Perhaps not.

Let's wait and see what happens next.