Better late than never, I guess?

It's a far, far cry from an actual, official apology for their bad behaviour, but someone from Microsoft has finally actually acknowledged that their GWX campaign went too far. No duh, dude.

From Softpedia:

Microsoft has often been criticized for how aggressive it was with the free Windows 10 upgrade offer, with some users complaining that the new operating system was installed on their computers even though they refused the upgrade.

One particular moment that fueled all this criticism was when Microsoft change the behavior of the X button in the Get Windows 10 app, as clicking this button no longer canceled the upgrade, but ignored the setting and prepared the install in the background.

Chris Capossela, Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft, said in the latest edition of the Windows Weekly that this was the moment when the company indeed went too far, pointing out that the two weeks between the moment when users started complaining about the unexpected behavior and the one when a patch was released were “very painful.”

“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,” he said.

“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.”

Apparently they didn't learn how to simply say, "Sorry," but whatevs.

Considering how much bad PR Microsoft garnered with their ham-handed GWX tactics, and how much consumer trust and goodwill they pissed away in the process, the fact that they've never publicly apologized for any of their bad behaviour is plainly ridiculous. Users had to resort to 3rd-party software to block their damn upgrade, for crying out loud, and with 47% of PC users still stubbornly using Windows 7, after Microsoft spent an entire year giving Windows 10 away for free, the damage has clearly been done.

It would seem that Microsoft are finally starting to realize that they need to address the issue, though, rather than simply waiting for it all to just blow over. So, here's the question: Is this the entirety of their response to the issue? Or do they have something more active planned, by way of outreach, to win back the hearts and minds of Windows users who now have clear and substantive reasons to distrust everything they say?

UPDATE:

Lots of discussion about this on Slashdot, including one commenter who pointed out something I'd missed:

They don't have to do it again. Windows 10 is the final version of Windows.

Which is totally true, isn't it? We'll never get another GWX debacle, because there will never be a Windows 11, just "updates" to Windows 10, all of which will also be pushed to users who have almost zero say in the matter, with no sign that Microsoft intend to change anything about that setup. This half-hearted mea culpa seems even hollower, now.

UPDATE #2:

It would seem that a lot of people were waiting for this news to finally break.

A sampling of the headlines:

Twas the week before Xmas ... not a creature was stirring – except Microsoft admitting its Windows 10 upgrade pop-up went 'too far'

Microsoft finally admits that its malware-style Get Windows 10 upgrade campaign went too far

Microsoft finally reaches step 1; admission

Microsoft admits its aggressive Windows 10 push was a low point for the company

Microsoft Exec Admits Windows 10 Push Was Too Aggressive

Microsoft admits it went ‘too far’ with Windows 10 push

I get it; the fact that one of the company's executives have finally kinda admitted they did wrong is the validation that a lot of us had been waiting for, but this admission still soft-pedals the issue, and it's still coming from their marketing chief, and not Satya Nadella, himself. When Microsoft issues an official apology for their bad behaviour, or when Nadella himself makes a public statement on the issue, maybe I'll be more excited about things. As it is, though, this latest PR exercise is still months late, and well short of winning back my trust or goodwill.

UPDATE #3:

Another decent take from Gordon Kelly at Forbes:

Capossela is right. Changing the operation of the red X was Microsoft hitting rock bottom but there remain several aspects to his confession that don’t ring true:

1. Windows 10 upgrade tactics were dirty long before the red X debacle. Bombarding users with nagware-like upgrade notices was the first step. Secretly downloading Windows 10 on all Windows 7 and Windows 8 users’ PCs even if they said no to the upgrade was the second. Removing the ‘Cancel’ button from upgrade prompt windows was the third and increasingly crippling the control and longevity of Windows 7 and Windows 8 by removing granular control over updates and compatibility with new silicon were the fourth and fifth.

And that’s just scratching the surface.

2. It doesn’t take two weeks to change how a single red X operates. For a company capable of rolling out complex security patches to a billion PCs within 24 hours of a threat being discovered, this just doesn’t wash. My personal opinion is Microsoft waited to see if the initial outcry would die down and it could get away with this. They couldn’t.

3. The red X was not some innocent misstep by a random software engineer, it was a calculated move that required senior approval to implement and came at a time when Windows 10 upgrades were slowing dramatically. It also came after (as mentioned above) nagware attempts had failed, secret downloading had failed and removing the ‘Cancel’ button from upgrade notifications had failed (‘Upgrade Now’ and ‘Upgrade Tonight’ were the only written options!).

Only then was the behaviour of the red X changed (and in violation of Microsoft’s own developer guide for how the button must work) because it was the only cancellation option left.

So yes, it is nice that Microsoft has publicly admitted the pinnacle of its malware-like efforts to get Windows 10 onto users’ computers by any means necessary was a step too far. But it should be apologising for the rest of these dirty tactics as well and the claim that “for a lot of the year I think we got it right” is a laughable attempt to rewrite history.

[...]

So yes, saying (a partial) sorry now is better than nothing, but for millions this is much too little far too late…

What can I say? I agree with all of this.