Reminder that Microsoft installed adware on Windows 7/8 machines to encourage users to upgrade to Windows 10. Even if you hid the update from Windows Update, they un-hid it and reinstalled at least once that I know of.
Don't reward this behavior by buying Windows 10. Or at least delay the purchase as long as possible.
Upgrade notification is now adware? are you serious? You don't even have to pay for the upgrade and you'll have a lot to gain from it and for us developers, it's a good thing aswell since it might reduce the number of old IEs/plateforms we have to support. I expected more from an HN user..
You also have to hide the update to prevent WU from reinstalling it for you, but actually not even that will permanently disable it.
This is because Microsoft will release "updates" to that package, with the totally unintended side effect of unhiding and reinstalling the update. So even if you uninstall it, and hide the update from WU, it will still find a way onto your system.
So yeah, like I said and despite the downvotes, it's fucking adware. Bordering on malware.
I consider it adware because there is no way to get the notification to go away. No obvious way, anyhow, and rather than search around for the "correct" way of doing it, I uninstalled the update and hid it in WU.
(Actually I did a brief search, and didn't find anything.)
So at this point, maybe you're right and it's not adware. I'd consider it borderline at least, but fine. Whatever.
However I got a second notification some weeks later, from the same package which I had already uninstalled and hidden remember, after it apparently reinstalled itself because MS released an 'update' to this package. So despite uninstalling it and following all the steps required to clearly communicate that no, I do not want this fucking thing on my PC, MS decided they'd push the update to my system anyway.
At this point it's no longer borderline. It is harassing behavior from something that is very obviously adware.
Is it a "notification" or a longterm limpet on the hull? I looked at a relative's W7 machine and there was a promotional application ("GWX" - Get Windows X?) running permanently with no apparent way to decline its offer or uninstall it.
They stop doing it when I tell them to knock it off, and they don't creep back in and do it again after a few months, either. The update responsible for the notification, even after I removed it and hid the update within WU, found its way back after MS released an 'update' to the package with the totally unintended, honest! side effect of unhiding the package and reinstalling it.
> They stop doing it when I tell them to knock it off
Oh, I wish what you said was true. It's funny because they didn't do that when I was on an older version of Ubuntu (11? 12? I forget). It just kept popping up and telling me to update no matter what I did. Stuff like this: http://askubuntu.com/q/218755
> Don't reward this behavior by buying Windows 10. Or at least delay the purchase as long as possible.
There's no buying if you've already got a valid Windows 7/8 license; it's a free upgrade. And as long as it's optional, I don't mind this instance of a notification for a very generous offer (at least generous in terms of regular Microsoft pricing).
So they pushed an alert to everyone to upgrade? If it were like on os x where you already have the software installed and that software gives an alert to upgrade would it have been fine? I don't see how giving users a heads up to update is considered adware. Maybe a slippery slope at worse.
It's no different than Windows Update telling you that there is a new update available, except that this time it's an update of the entire operating system to a new version. Calling it "adware" is a stretch of a largest magnitude.
It isn't AdWare...sheesh. It's a notification from a vendor you "trust" (I say trust because if you are using their OS, there is some measure of trust).
Living in a world where a lot of users enable global cyber-security threats by disabling their software update system, I would really love to reward this behaviour.
Don't reward this behavior by buying Windows 10. Or at least delay the purchase as long as possible.