Microsoft’s over-aggressive push with Windows 10 updates “clearly a lowlight for us”

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Published onDecember 23, 2016

published onDecember 23, 2016

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Microsoft’sWindows 10operating system achieved some significant new milestones this year. First of all, the company shipped theWindows 10 Anniversary Updatein August, bringing a lot of new features to PCs, phones, Xbox consoles and HoloLens headsets. Then at Ignite 2016 in late September, Microsoft announced thatWindows 10 was now running on 400 million devices, thoughthe growth of the operating system has clearly stalledsince Microsoft ended its free upgrade offer for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users in July.

While this limited time offer definitely helped Windows 10 become the second most used Windows version after Windows 7, the move also caused some PR nightmares for the company this year. Chris Capossela, Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft, acknowledged it while he was once again a special guest during this week’s Windows Weekly podcast (viaSlashdot).

When asked to share some of Microsoft’s low points in 2016, the exec recalled the moment when a change to the Windows 10 upgrade prompt earlier this year led to users complaining about forced updates. Microsoft eventuallydelivered a patch after two weeks, but Capossela admitted that the whole episode was “very painful” for the company. Here is his full, unedited quote below (you can watch it onTwit.tvstarting at 17’30):

We know we want people to be running Windows 10 from a security perspective, but finding the right balance where you’re not stepping over the line of being too aggressive is something we tried and for a lot of the year I think we got it right, but there was one particular moment in particular where, you know, the red X in the dialog box which typically means you cancel didn’t mean cancel. And within a couple of hours of that hitting the world, with the listening systems we have we knew that we had gone too far and then, of course, it takes some time to roll out the update that changes that behavior. And those two weeks were pretty painful and clearly a lowlight for us. We learned a lot from it obviously.

As a reminder, a Californian woman evensued Microsoft for $10,000 this year over a “forced” Windows 10 upgradethat made her PC unusable, and the Redmond giant lost the trial. Do you agree that Microsoft’s aggressive Windows 10 updates were one of the company’s most disappointing moves this year? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Radu Tyrsina

Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time).

For most of the kids of his age, the Internet was an amazing way to play and communicate with others, but he was deeply impressed by the flow of information and how easily you can find anything on the web.

Prior to founding Windows Report, this particular curiosity about digital content enabled him to grow a number of sites that helped hundreds of millions reach faster the answer they’re looking for.

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Microsoft’s over-aggressive push with Windows 10 updates “clearly a lowlight for us”