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Microsoft won't back down from Windows 10 nagware 'trick'

Redmond assumes closing nagware dialog means 'yes', says that's by design

Microsoft is hurt and disappointed that people would think it was trying to “trick” them with a confusing Windows 10 upgrade dialog that scheduled an upgrade without users explicitly agreeing to do so.

Redmond recently created a new Windows 10 nagware reminder that presented a dialog asking you to install the OS. But if users clicked the red “X” to close the dialog - standard behaviour for dispelling a dialog without agreeing to do anything - Microsoft took that as permission for the upgrade.

Redmond (via its flacks) has e-mailed The Register – and, we presume, World+Dog – to say that the UI had worked like that for ages: “the UI of our ‘your upgrade is scheduled’ notification is nothing new (including the ability to just ‘X-out’ of the notification with no further action needed to schedule your upgrade) – it’s been part of the notification UI for months” (their emphasis, not ours).

In this Knowledge Base article, Microsoft notes that “Based on customer feedback, in the most recent version of the Get Windows 10 (GWX) app, we confirm the time of your scheduled upgrade and provide you an additional opportunity for cancelling or rescheduling the upgrade.”

+Comment: You'll have noticed that Microsoft didn't say it would re-write the app so that closing the app is taken as a “no”, as happens for just about every other dialog Windows offers.

Or is Redmond saying users who didn't like the UI sleight-of-hand are at fault for delving into its Knowledge Base every time they find a dialog confusing? We'd expect commenters to have an opinion on this … ®

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