This is a particularly shitty meme, can we just stop with it?
>IMSHNO installs without user consent (closing a "upgrade now?" window counts as "no" anywhere, including MSFT UX Guidelines, hello there hypocrisy)
This is how windows updates have always worked, no?
>breaks existing applications (not every box is just Firefox+LibreOffice: specialized apps and drivers do not work well in WinX)
>while the downgrade ("better to worse" is never an upgrade) runs, you can't use your device ("preparing for blahblah, wait.")
These do not malware make.
>erases (or at best hides) user data ("yeah well we just put it all in this completely different folder without notice, it's not like you need your documents, right?")
Try to decide which. Erasing and hiding are two completely different things. And again, this does not make it malware as I doubt they're intentionally deleting anyones files.
>is very difficult to revert
Significantly easier than any previous windows version. If you don't want it, why would you install it? You can just decline the install when the installer starts.
>phones home (again, MS claims there is user consent. So do all the malware writers; I don't think so.)
Yes and so did every windows version before it. Significant parts of the new telemetry have also been backported. Oh, and malware writers certainly don't claim that.
>Each and every of these are traits commonly associated with malware; thank God for GWX Control Panel.
No.