Microsoft is very close to being thrown in another controversial dispute in China, as computer users in the country are accusing the company of using its dominant market position to force them to upgrade to Windows 10.
A report by Reuters and citing Chinese news agency Xinhua reveals that no less than 1.2 million complaints have been posted on local website Weibo regarding Microsoft’s aggressive push for Windows 10.
Furthermore, local legal advisers have been quoted as saying that Microsoft violated “users’ right to know and choose” and that could help them “eventually profit from the unwanted upgrades.” There are chances that the company might be hit with a lawsuit in this regard, although, at this point, there’s no confirmation that legal action is considered by any user forced to install Windows 10.
The forced Windows 10 upgrade saga
China is not alone in this dispute against Microsoft, as computer users around the world have all criticized the company for turning to a very aggressive strategy to install Windows 10 on their computers.
The software giant has always claimed that, despite the criticism, users were always in full control of their upgrades, and even if Windows 10 was installed on their PCs, they could return to their previous OS with an option built into the new Windows.
China, however, has been somewhat picky about everything Microsoft lately, and such a serious issue like a forced upgrade could cause bigger problems for the company.
Back in 2014, when Redmond officially pulled the plug on Windows XP support, China requested the company to continue offering patches on their systems because their licenses were purchased less than 12 months before the end of the support. Microsoft refused to do so, so China instead slapped the company with a ban of Windows 8 on government computers, but also with antitrust investigations, raids of its local offices, and other accusations that emerged all of a sudden.
Microsoft is treating China with extra care right now, so it remains to be seen how the company managed this whole new upgrade saga with a country that’s not willing to tolerate such an aggressive push for any kind of application.
I hated going from XP to Vista to Windows 7, I can’t imagine how bad 10 is but I think I got their scam figured out. Disable the updates from the get go, I did that with 7. The damage to the systems seems to be coming from the updates. I’m no Tech Guru, it just seems to be the pattern that the updates are designed to fail leading to another update and another and oh well just buy the next version. Then it starts all over again.