Microsoft put out one of those celebratory blog posts this week saying Windows 10 is now running on something like 75 million devices, less than a month after launch. Which, fine, thats a real number and its genuinely fast for an OS rollout. I believe it. What I dont believe is that Ive earned the right to open my own laptop without a popup asking if today is finally the day Im ready to upgrade.
Im typing this on the machine I specifically have NOT upgraded yet, and the GWX icon has been sitting in my system tray since July like a houseguest who wont take the hint. Every couple days it finds a new way to ask. Sometimes its a full window that opens on its own. Sometimes its just the little icon blinking at me from the corner like its disappointed in me personally. I get that Microsoft wants the adoption numbers to look good for investors and reviewers, and 75 million in under a month is a legitimately good headline for them, but the mechanism behind that number is a program quietly scheduling itself onto peoples machines whether they clicked yes or not. Ive seen it happen to my mom's desktop. She never asked for it, never scheduled it, just came downstairs one morning to a blue screen with a progress bar on it doing its thing. She called me in a mild panic assuming shed been hacked.
To be clear I dont think Windows 10 itself is bad. From what Ive used on a friends machine its fast, Cortana is a fun party trick even if I cant imagine using it daily, and the whole "last version of Windows" framing is actually kind of appealing after years of 8 and 8.1 feeling like a UI experiment nobody asked for. Edge is rough around the edges still (no pun intended, mostly) and Im not touching it as a daily browser, but the core OS feels solid on the hardware Ive tried it on. My actual complaint has nothing to do with the software and everything to do with how its being pushed on people who havent said yes yet. Theres a difference between "hey heres a free upgrade, take it whenever" and a scheduled task quietly reserving your upgrade slot in the background.
Part of why Im holding off is boring and specific: I run a couple of older utilities for tagging and backing up photos that I know for a fact havent been tested against 10, and I do not have the patience this week to be someone's beta tester for driver issues on a five year old machine. Ill upgrade the laptop I actually travel with. This desktop can wait until October at the earliest, probably later, once ive seen a couple of driver update cycles go by and the inevitable "my printer stopped working" threads on forums die down a little.
Theres also just something a little bit funny about a company that spent the better part of a decade getting dragged for how aggressively it pushed IE toolbars and Windows Genuine Advantage nag screens turning right back around and doing a version of the same thing, just with better UX polish this time. The popup is nicer looking now. The scheduling task feels the same though.
None of this is a huge deal in the scheme of things, obviously, its a software update reminder and not a crisis. But Ive had three separate conversations this month with people outside tech who genuinely thought their computer had been compromised because of an unscheduled reboot into a blue Windows 10 setup screen, and thats a real cost even if its a small one. If youre one of the 75 million, congrats I guess, hope the upgrade went smooth. If youre in my camp still putting it off, the tray icon isnt going anywhere, so get comfortable.
Anyway. Back to pretending I dont see it.