What to do when you hate Windows 10

I'm seeing more and more stories like this one lately, from PC World:

I usually start this column with “so and so needed something done to their PC,” but if I were to include the names of all the people who have written me about how unhappy they are with their Windows 10 “upgrade” the file would be so large the server that hosts this page would need a new hard drive. I’ve been inundated with unhappy Windows 10 users for the past two months, and my heart goes out to these folks. A lot of them were upgraded unsuspectingly, and Microsoft deserves a ton of scorn for its malware-like Windows 10 upgrade tactics. That said, now that you have Windows 10 on your PC and you’re not happy, here’s what you can do about it.

Their list of things you can do pretty short: 1) keep it but make changes, 2) nuke it and install a different OS, and 3) restore from factory OS partition (for PCs from Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.). #4 on their list is literally something you can't do:

4. Isn’t there an easier way to go back to my old OS?

Not anymore, there isn’t. There was a period during the “free upgrade” era when Microsoft allowed people to try Windows 10 for 31 days and go back if they were unhappy, but that window has closed. So for now you’re stuck with it.

Profoundly unhelpful. It took only two comments for one of their readers to chime in with some (potentially) more useful advice:

max999
"Microsoft deserves a ton of scorn for its malware-like Windows 10 upgrade tactics"

You left out:
5. Look into joining the huge lawsuit coming against Microsoft for these forced upgrades to Windows 10.

This isn't an outlier, of course. The headlines have been slowly but surely filling up with variations on this theme for a while now.

Like this one from CNBC:

Microsoft's Windows 10 has caused us 'nothing but trouble' say users

Or this one, from The Reg:

Windows 10 backlash: Which? demands compo for forced upgrades

All the while, of course, the Anniversary Update continues to generate its own steady drip of bad headlines, like this story from Thurrott:

New usage data published by AdDuplex suggests that the deployment of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update has almost doubled in the past month. But overall, usage is still pretty low, with only about one-third of all Windows 10 users updated to the latest version.

You may recall that just 16.2 percent of Windows 10-based PCs were running Windows 10 version 1607—that is, Windows 10 with the Anniversary Update—as of August 24. One month later, that number has jumped to 34.5 percent, AdDuplex says. So it’s just about doubled in 30 days.

But 34.5 percent is roughly one-third of all Windows 10 PCs in the world. If we assume, again, about 400 million units, that means that roughly 116 million PCs are running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

By comparison, Windows 10 version 1511 is still dominant, with about 60 percent usage share. That’s down from the 77.2 percent figure from one month ago. Meanwhile, only 5.1 percent of Windows 10 PCs are still using the original, “RTM” (or 1507) version, down from 6.1 percent a month ago.

Considering that Windows 10 Home controls your update schedule, this basically means that Microsoft is on track to roll their August update out to all Windows 10 users by the end of November... which is ridiculous, considering that "you'll always be running the latest version of the OS" is literally Redmond's entire sales pitch for why they should control your PC's updates, rather than you controlling your PC's updates.

Commenters on the Thurrot story were equally quick to chime in:

ghostrider • 21 hours ago

"Running the AU" and "Running the AU without any problems" are two different things, which pretty much sums up every Windows 10 update.

A Which? magazine report in the UK has slammed MS for lots of issues relating to Win10 upgrades - broken installs, devices not working, lost settings/emails/web favourites etc. Many had rolled back, some had to pay for professional repairs. MS support was singled out for being particularly poor. MS don't really care though - Win10 steamrollers on with little regard for collateral damage.

Good to see the Which? report making the rounds... unless you're Microsoft, of course, in which case the last thing you'd want to see is Which?'s report making the rounds, in the same way that you probably didn't want to see the EFF's report making the rounds in August, or CNIL's scathing list of charges back in July.

It's hard to believe that Microsoft are still oblivious to, or don't care about, the PR nightmare that's been building around Windows 10 for months now. Windows 8 had similar PR issues, and ended up being an abject failure as a result; Windows 10, however, couldn't afford to fail, which is why Microsoft was so anxious to see it adopted, to the point of essentially forcing it on users who didn't want it, tricking users into installing the new OS after they'd repeatedly said no. The fact that they're done this at a time when the OS clearly still has a lot of problems, that they forced a new OS onto users whose machines clearly aren't actually able to run it properly, or stay up-to-date with the latest features and changes, is only making Redmond's situation worse.

Did I mention today, how glad I am to have avoided "upgrading" to this mess? 

Microsoft have until October to answer CNIL's charges, in order to avoid having CNIL appoint an investigator who would recommend sanctions against the company, so we should start seeing next month just what Redmond thinks the fix for their GWX and AU woes might look like. It's especially tricky to do that when there are multiple class-action lawsuits in the works against you at the same time, since anything they do to appease CNIL will likely be presented at trial as an admission of wrongdoing by the opposing sides' lawyers; having both the EFF and Which? weigh in with their own versions of "j'accuse!" will also not help Microsoft's cause. 

Honestly, I'd be more sympathetic about Microsoft's legal and regulatory woes if they hadn't done this to themselves, and earned every bit of the trouble that's coming their way. As things are, though, I can't wait to see what happens next. And you know I'll be watching to see what happens next.

Stay tuned...