Microsoft Resorts To Tricking Users Into Windows 10 Upgrades With Deceiving Nag Screen Prompts

While Windows 10 offers a number of good reasons to upgrade from Windows 7 or 8, there remain those who are content with either operating system and don't care to upgrade. Unfortunately, that really contrasts with Microsoft's goal of having everyone use Windows 10, and it's led to the company using annoying - and now misleading - tactics to get people to upgrade.

Leading up to the release of Windows 10, Microsoft deployed a tool to Windows 7 and 8 users that would help them upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Without delay, people found these annoying, and for good reason. There was never a way to simply say "No!" to Microsoft; instead, it just gets pushier and pushier.

Today, we're at a point where Microsoft is apparently willing to completely mislead people into upgrading, which, we'd wager, isn't going to please anyone. If you don't want to upgrade to Windows 10, though, you need to realize that if you merely click the "X" to close the upgrade offer window, you virtually consent to letting the OS install. This is a change from previous the previous behavior where clicking the "X" would send the upgrade notification packing. Now, users must follow the "Click here to change upgrade schedule or cancel scheduled upgrade" link or be faced with a new install of Windows 10.

This sounds really outlandish, but the problem has since been confirmed by other people. This was originally confirmed via a reddit thread from the PC Master Race community, where recommendations are given to download GWX Control Panel (a non-Microsoft tool) to prevent the upgrade to Windows 10.

What's unfortunate about all of this is that Microsoft is literally fighting against the grain to get Windows 10 installed on user PCs, which is really quite strange given the company can't possibly be oblivious to the fact that some people simply don't want it. If anything ends up changing that in a big way, it could be the explosion of DirectX 12 games, since that API is only available in Microsoft's latest OS. So far, the number of DX12 titles is few, so that time can still be a ways off.

If you've almost been tricked by this latest move by Microsoft, or have been, please let us know in the comments.