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Comment by e40 | Hacker News Reader

"Fastest Windows adoption ever"

Yeah, I know a bunch of people that had the 10 upgrade forced upon them. Making it a default "Windows Update" is certainly one way to get your adoption stats up!

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It's more likely that they accidentally opted in, various stories about this sort of thing have been debunked to accidental opt-ins.

And various stories have been proven. Including my friend who just wanted to use their computer, remembered to always click 'No' when it asked, and lost operation of her Wi-Fi card when she returned from a bath and her Windows had silently upgraded to Windows 10. I verified the behaviour after rolling it back, denying its request to update, and then letting the computer sit still for less than an hour.

I used to doubt too, whether it happened on its own or whether people made mistakes. Even back then, I believed if so many people can be made to make the same mistake, then it's more like they've been duped than that they all just happened to make the same mistake. Now, when I saw it happenning right in front of me, I was furious.

So it's a somewhat lighter dark pattern.

Enlighten me: Someone clicked in typical "just ok everything"-mode on "update to Windows 10" and ... surprise ... it updated to Windows 10. Dark pattern? I don't see it.

People like latest and greatest things, so they see a pop-up "Hey, Windows 10 is here! Click here to upgrade!". And the person is like "SWEET! GIVE IT TO ME!". After 1 hour of upgrading, user is back in Windows 10, "Damnit, some of my shit ain't working! Goddamn automatic upgrade!"

Repeatedly throwing a question at users and being surprised that they eventually slip up and install it is probably a dark pattern.

It's standard operating procedure to cherry-pick a number that looks good.

https://news.microsoft.com/2007/03/26/windows-vista-debuts-w...

> Initial sales figures from Microsoft show its new operating system Windows Vista made a splash in its debut. In the first month of Windows Vista’s general availability, sales exceeded 20 million licenses, more than doubling the initial pace of sales for its predecessor, Windows XP.

https://news.microsoft.com/2013/01/21/net-applications-windo...

https://news.microsoft.com/2012/12/04/windows-8-touch-pc-dem...

It's fun to see how they spin things like an Iraqi defense minister. No matter what's happening, it's the best X ever! (X=december, absolute sales, relative sales, adoption rate, market share change...)

Mine got updated through a specific application and never heard of Windows 10 update through Windows Update, let alone a forced one. The only forced thing was that the update application came to tray automatically and stayed there until I opt-in.

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