"Microsoft wholeheartedly wants you to upgrade to Windows 10. So much that even if you have not opted-in for Windows 10 upgrade, you will get it the other way."

http://thehackernews.com/2015/09/mic...-download.html

Interesting thing here is that Microsoft states that permission was explicitly given by users who opted in to automatic updates. So if you don't want this download, you can disable automatic updates... which Microsoft doesn't recommend because of the larger chance of unpatched machines being recruited in to botnets. So this maneuver is really quite boneheaded in more ways than one. Since another "feature" of this download is that it spreads to all your susceptible Windows machines on your network, you have a choice between Microsoft or someone else recruiting your machine into a botnet.

There is a way to tweak windowsupdate to only install security updates and also disable the GWX.exe program, which is also started when windows boots trying to get you to update.

http://www.askvg.com/how-to-remove-g...-from-taskbar/

It is more involved but if you are comfortable navigating and tweaking the registry yourself, its no problem just a hassle that you have to do this in the first place. I know there are also sites out there that offer .reg files but I don't remember where they are , and of course mess with the registry at your own risk.

--edit

I forgot there is a really useful utility called 'autoruns' (joking aside about the name), another useful way of tweaking with the registry and if you run that it will show you ALL of the registry and you can easily just delete the wxg.exe registry and it will prevent it from starting up, but it is also still recommended to use the first link and tweak the registry key:

Set AllowOSUpgrade to 0 and ReservationsAllowed to 0 as well, problem solved, GWX.exe is gone and windowsupdate will continue to update your windows normally - security patches only.

Hi...

Thank you for including the above information. Even though I'm not surprised to hear Microsoft is doing this, this kind of behavior is becoming unprecedented and a concern.

Does anyone know if the information here includes (or will include] Vista?

Regards...

I have a metered internet connection, the data overage for the unrequested download would have cost $60. Thankfully, my carrier gave me a credit for $50 when I called to report this. I still paid $10 for the *free* upgrade to Windows 10, even though I did not request it.

The sensible thing to do would have been to just put a "Get Windows 10" shortcut on everyone's desktop along with a small executable to pull the update when/if people choose to double click it. Embedding the update within the normal windows update has to be viewed as either irresponsible incompetence, or a cynical ploy to foist Win10 on users against their will, depending on how much benefit of the doubt you're prepared to give Microsoft.

My father updated to Win10 "accidentally" when all he was trying to do was apply the usual patch tuesday updates, and he wasn't best pleased about it.

The truth is that you don't have a choice. M$ will end support for Windoze 7 and 8 at some point and you will upgrade, period. This is just a temporary solution to delay the inevitable. Resistance is futile.

But still you keep running it. Why is that?

I know, you think that you must do so for some reason, but you don't. You don't.

You are not in some sort of benign equillibrium with M$, they are taking something and you are losing something at every single encounter. They have cost you and everyone else far more than $60 with this outrageous arbitrary extension of their "right" to harvest your labor without permission and without recourse on your part.

From this "exchange" M$ got $60 worth of someone else's labors, $10 from you and $50 from your ISP's employees wages - without asking, without permission and without providing anything of equivalent value in return. And they installed the tools to continue harvesting the value of your labors tomorrow, and the next day, and the next...

They dispose it as and when they want and you cannot say no. They own you, literally, to the extent that you accede to this outrage, and the next, and the next...

The only meaningful action you can take to change that is to reject their malware and "products" in any form.

Just say, "NO!" and reformat the drive today.

The software for my Fender amplifier does not work with Linux. Only Windows and Mac, and I don't own a Mac. I don't trust Apple or Microsoft, but Linux is not an option to run the Fender software.

...Not when Linux works....

I don't use Windoze on my computers, and honestly I wonder how much longer M$ can prolong their inevitable demise.

I doubt M$ will go out of business any time soon, too many installed systems. I just checked my wife's laptop and indeed that windows 10 stuff was downloaded, just under 6GB. I did turn off automatic updates, but I think the download took place before then.
The vast majority of windows users are non technical, they keep automatic updates on because that's the way the machine came and they wouldn't know how to turn it off.
I had a call from a woman who couldn't get her machine to boot. After what I thought was an overly long press of the reset button the machine powered down. When turned back on windows 10 was installing. I let it run since doing anything else would have been too risky. Windows 10 ran ok, but I wouldn't want it, just a bunch more stuff to learn. Now she claims she didn't install it, but my experience is people just hit the return key and the default is what the down-loader want it to be.
My machine is a dual boot windows 7 and Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.2. I virtually never boot the windows partition anymore.
Having a choice to update is all very well, but I find I just ok all the updates. Just had some that included python, I probably will never use it but I ok'd it anyway.

I am expecting this kind of news. But i think they should rely on their own rather then come into public with this issue.

Great shop windows. This deal lasts until the people's desire for freedom and creativity is at a low level. I have linux difficulty managing the hardware in the graphics and some conversion options. Different methods of some business systems and the comfort of a disadvantage. The windows has its own distinctive, mystical, unfair business which exists only in the field of computer science. As long as you are paying over the windows will stay in the servant.

The day MS forces Windows 10 onto my dual-boot machine is the day it becomes a Linux-only machine.