from the you-can-upgrade-my-PCs-for-$10K...each dept.
Two Soylentils wrote in with news of a modern-day battle of David vs Goliath — a user who had had enough with an automated upgrade to Windows 10, took Microsoft to court, and won.
Woman Wins Lawsuit Over Unwanted Windows 10 Installation
A California woman has won $10,000 in compensation from Microsoft after Windows 10 automatically tried and failed to install on her Windows 7 computer.
The automatic install of Windows 10 failed, leaving her with a unstable and often unresponsive computer used to run her travel agency from an office in Sausalito, California.
Teri Goldstein reportedly said: "I had never heard of Windows 10. Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to update."
After attempting to fix the problem with Microsoft's support, Goldstein sued the company for a new computer and loss of earnings, winning $10,000. Microsoft dropped its appeal to avoid further legal expenses, leaving Microsoft footing the bill.
[...] In March, users started complaining that Windows 10 automatically started to install on their computers without their permission, leading some to hilarious interruptions to weather forecasts and pro-gaming sessions alike.
The forceful rollout has angered users, but has also boosted Windows 10 numbers, crossing 270 million users by the end of March 2016, running on 17.43% of the worlds' computers - second only to Windows 7 - according to data from Netmarketshare.
Whether the lawsuit and $10,000 judgment will spawn further suits over failed or forced Windows 10 installs remains to be seen. Goldstein has shown it's possible, which could open the floodgates.
Windows $10k has a certain ring to it.
[Continues...]
Californian Awarded $10,000 in Lawsuit Over Forced Windows 10 Upgrade
Do you know anyone who has lost money as a result of the Win10 upgrade? Travel Agent Teri Goldstein was out $17,000 in lost wages as a result of being unable to access her documents after a wedged upgrade bricked her PC:
Customer wins $10K judgment from Microsoft over unauthorized Windows 10 upgrade
Teri Goldstein, the owner of Sausalito, Calif.-based TG Travel Group LLC, said that she had not approved the upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. After the upgrade repeatedly failed, the machine was almost unusable, frequently crashing and forcing her to restore files, not recognizing her external hard drive, and demanding that she use multi-step workarounds simply to log on each day. "It just limped along," Goldstein said in an interview.
[...] Meanwhile, her business was taking a pounding. "September to December is my busiest season," Goldstein said, adding that she could not shut down her company the week or more it would take to buy a new PC and have her IT consultant set it up, provision it with the software she needed, and transfer her files. At the same time, she fielded calls from clients asking why she hadn't answered their emails, which were inaccessible because of the crippled computer. Some of those customers canceled their bookings.
[...] According to the notes Goldstein had kept on her dilemma, which she shared with Computerworld, one customer service representative -- whose name, email and phone number she had been given by a Microsoft retail store in San Francisco -- was "continually rude, unwilling to assist me," and eventually told her "Do not ever contact me again."
By mid-January, Goldstein had had enough. "That was when they offered me $150 to go away," she said today. "I used that as proof of guilt. They knew what was happening."
[...] In March, her claim was heard. Goldstein came prepared with documentation, including years of her firm's revenue to show the losses caused by the lack of a working PC. Microsoft, on the other hand, sent someone from the local retail store, not an attorney.
"This very honest kid came in, and said they had pulled him out of the store at 4:30 to go to court," said Goldstein. "They didn't even prepare for it."
(California does not permit attorneys in Small Claims Court.)
Related Stories
Too little, too late, IMO, but MS has backed down on a lot of the shady upgrade ambush tactics designed to shove Windows 10 down users' throats. I found this while skimming the tech section at Google news this morning, leading to PC World's article, excerpted here:
The company plans to update the Windows 10 upgrade notification window that Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users see on their PCs, as first reported by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley late Monday.
The new interface will feature three buttons with clear options, including Upgrade now, Choose time (in other words, schedule the upgrade time), or Decline free offer. Microsoft also plans to restore proper behavior to the "x" in the upper right hand corner. Instead of being treated as consent for an upgrade, clicking the "x" will simply dismiss the window, as it should be.
On top of that, Microsoft says it will provide free tech support for anyone who needs help upgrading, or rolling back from Windows 10 to their previous operating system.
I guess the loss of the lawsuit (Upset with Automated Windows 10 Upgrade, Californian Takes Microsoft to Court... and Wins) tipped the scales, when user backlash was not enough, maybe?
Maybe just a salve, now that most of the damage is done, and why not? The 'free upgrade' was set to expire on 29 July, 2016 anyhow.
El Reg reports
Jesse Worley said he'd received a cheque for $650 from Microsoft--seen by The Register--which he told us he'd received after threatening the giant with court action over an unwanted Windows 10 upgrade.
Tech consultant Worley sought payment from the vendor for the 10 hours it took to rebuild his grandfather's custom-build PC, re-installing Windows 7 to resemble Windows XP, in order to banish Windows 10.
[...] "Had Microsoft not gone out of their way to be deceptive, my grandfather pretty clearly wouldn't have been updated to Windows 10", he said.
"They interrupted the basic functions of their own software--the X button--in an attempt to fool people into updating, so any affirmative consent he or anyone else may have given for the update can't be considered valid during that period."
[...] Worley had built the PC 10 years ago when his grandfather was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The build was designed to resemble Windows XP, which his relative had used while at work and was therefore familiar with.
[...] Worley was seeking $650 for the 10 hours he'd had to spend rebuilding the PC. He had tried a rollback but that failed, and he was forced to rebuild the installation with a boot drive, as the system lacked a CD.
[...] Worley has now encouraged other customers to take action through the small claims system if they, too, got Windows 10 without wanting it.
Previous: Upset with Automated Windows 10 Upgrade, Californian Takes Microsoft to Court... and Wins
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @11:37AM
Not too long ago, I got a call from my grandmother saying she couldn't print, use email, or run her finance software. It was a forced Windows 10 upgrade, along with no longer supported Windows 8.1 print drivers (Lexmark didn't have any Windows 10 drivers for her fairly new printer), a no longer functional MS Outlook, and some OS imposed blocking of the finance software. MS was pushing the use of "MS Mail" or whatever they call it, which wanted agreement to some disturbing terms of privacy violation.
I was tired of playing games with Microsoft, so I bought her a Mac. No lawsuit was involved. Her email, printer, and finance program work perfectly now. So far the biggest problem she's had is the time someone pressed a button on the monitor and we had to press it again to get the display mode changed back.
Microsoft failed so hard on this one that it makes it painfully obvious that even long term Windows users are no longer given a viable operating system.
(Score: 4, Informative) by theluggage on Tuesday June 28 2016, @01:20PM
I was tired of playing games with Microsoft, so I bought her a Mac. No lawsuit was involved. Her email, printer, and finance program work perfectly now.
Congrats, but do tell her to resist the invitations to upgrade to macos Sierra that will be popping up in a few months time. The Mac is by no mean immune to third parties (or even Apple) dropping, or being slow to, support devices: I've stuck on 10.9 for a while because of several bits of unsupported hardware and software (albeit slightly more obscure than your grandmother probably uses) and have had a perfectly good printer reduced from a decent proprietary driver to a poor generic driver in the past.
To be fair, macOS Software Update doesn't resort to Win10-level dirty tricks to force an upgrade, but the minute a new OS version comes out it will still stick a big friendly "Get the latest and greatest macOS" button (and a big picture from the California tourist board) at the top of the list of security patches to tempt the unwary.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:43PM
It sounds like the hardware on which M$'s mess had been installed was perfectly fine.
A $0 OS could have been installed on that hardware without any additional expenditure.
If M$'s junk hadn't been a pile of broken bits, you could even set it up as dual-boot.
Years back, the other site had a story (following M$'s Mojave Experiment) where some guys had demo'd a Linux/KDE system and the folks they showed it to thought it was just a fancy version of Windoze.
More recently, we had a story here about a gal whose OS failed and she reinstalled an OS on her box via the company network.
She noticed that the replacement OS (Linux) looked a bit different from the old OS (Windoze) yet she was able to do all of her tasks.
her finance software
I'm guessing you didn't check to see if that is WINE-compatible|has a Linux port.
I'm also guessing that had to be repurchased|replaced for the Mac.
...and a Linux package manager is the bee's knees:
tens of thousands of gratis and libre apps just a few clicks away.
Using that, it's likely that the 2 of you would have found software that does her tasks as well as before--perhaps even better.
Lexmark didn't have any Windows 10 drivers for her fairly new printer
I'll admit that I have avoided Lexmark like the plague (and I don't buy bleeding-edge stuff), but I have never had the slightest problem getting hardware to work under Linux.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @12:59PM
http://goodbye-microsoft.com/ [goodbye-microsoft.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:57PM
Gah! systemd!
Eh, like it or hate it at least systemd is open source.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday June 28 2016, @05:27PM
Let me know when it will run Solidworks, Mastercam, and Vericut.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @07:55PM
There is at least 1 developer of whom I am aware whose app has become the most-used of its kind because he always assures that his stuff is WINE-compatible and has been for over a decade. [google.com]
ISTM you have allowed yourself to become the prisoner of inferior developers and inferior businessmen.
...and, of course, the prisoner of the OS vendor you are required to use because of that.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @11:01PM
Let me know when it will run Solidworks, Mastercam, and Vericut.
No, we will not. You cannot expect all of SoylentNews to be enablers of your enslavement to your Dark Master. Come back from the Dark Side. Linux comes with cookies!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Tuesday June 28 2016, @01:10PM
Regardless if they succeed or fail, I hope more people do take Microsoft to court over this. What Microsoft did/is doing with Windows 10 is simply wrong and they deserve everything they get from this.
Of course the government is not in general going to protect Microsoft customers from this. If anyone even still remembers, after that huge lawsuit about Microsoft abusing their monopoly position with Internet Explorer they just got off with a slap on the wrist.
But at least I think it is clear to even less computer savvy users now that Microsoft Windows is no longer a stable platform on which one can build long term business solutions. Microsoft wanted a rapid release OS like those that get thrown away and updated with the latest toy cell phone or iToy, and now they will reap the results of that stupid decision.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @04:44PM
Or can we get away with installing software that breaks stuff with just some EULA or whatever else Microsoft has been doing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @01:11PM
Normally I hate class actions, but in this case, I think it would be valid.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by rcamera on Tuesday June 28 2016, @01:48PM
sure, but be aware that the settlement will grant each participant in the suit a discount voucher for a windows 10 upgrade. the lawyers, of course, will be paid in actual USD.
/* no comment */
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @01:38PM
time to start teaching people how to puter on different OSs early on to break the cycle of abuse.