Microsoft Shells Out $10000 For Unwanted Windows 10 Upgrade

Microsoft has found itself in the position of paying a California woman $10,000 compensation over an unwanted Windows 10 upgrade, that left her computer unusable.

Teri Goldstein took Microsoft to court after she said her Windows 7 computer automatically started updating itself to Windows 10… without her permission.

The story, originally published in the Seattle Times, alleges that the upgrade to Windows 10 for Goldstein failed, and left her system performing poorly when it did work, and began randomly crashing, and also becoming unusable for several days.

Goldstein initially contacted Microsoft customer service to try and get some help with the issue, but filed a law suit once it became clear the tech giant would be unable to solve her computer’s issues.

The $10,000 Microsoft gave her reflected lost income from her business and also the cost of replacement hardware.

Microsoft did initially appeal the court order but quickly dropped the appeal when news outlets started picking up on the story, possibly hoping it would disappear quickly lest others follow Goldstein’s lead.

A Microsoft spokesperson stated that the company denied any wrongdoing but had dropped the appeal to avoid the expense of further litigation.

Goldstein herself told the Seattle Times that she had ‘never heard of Windows 10…Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to update.’

Microsoft themselves have come under some heavy criticism in the last year with regards to their aggressive push to get Windows 7 and 8.1 users to upgrade to Windows 10. While take-up of the free upgrade to Windows 10 has been very successful, they have been accused of using malware like style tactics in order to force people to begin the Windows 10 upgrade.

Stories about Windows 10 beginning the upgrade process all by itself are numerous across the internet.

In February, the company changed tack once again by bundling the Windows 10 upgrade in with its security updates and making it a “recommended update”, which meant it was automatically downloaded and installed active steps were taken by users to block the upgrade.