Microsoft Will Hit Users With Full Screen Windows 10 Pop Up

Microsoft will be blasting Windows users with a full-screen pop up alert for a Windows 10 upgrade in a last ditch attempt to cajole them to switch to the new operating system while it is still free.

The pop up, which will hit users of Windows 7 and 8.1 before July 29, will be the last in a long line of Windows 10 pop ups that many users have labelled as intrusive.

Microsoft has come under constant fire since the release of Windows 10 in 2015 for trying to force users into upgrading to Windows 10. The free upgrade period for the operating system ends on July 29.

Read our Windows 10 review!

Sorry to interrupt

The pop up will read: “Sorry to interrupt, but this is important. Windows 10 free upgrade offer ends July 29.”

The company recently had to pay out a £7,600 bill to a woman who said her computer was left unusable after she was forced to upgrade to Windows 10.

Teri Goldstein, of Sausalito, in the San Francisco Bay area, alleged her computer began attempting to download Windows 10 soon after Microsoft released it as a free upgrade in July of last year.

Microsoft has also had to change its latest Windows 10 pop up after users discovered attempting to cancel the upgrade by clicking on the red ‘X’ actually initiated the upgrade process.

Windows 10 allows users to roll back to their previous system for 31 days, but after that period expires they are stuck with Windows 10 whether they want it or not.

Microsoft provides instructions on how to decline the updates and turn the notifications off in a support site article, while a program called Never10 is available from a third-party developer that blocks Windows 10 update prompts.

“We’re continuing to listen to customer feedback and evolve the upgrade experience based on their feedback,” Microsoft said in a statement.

With the new pop up, however, there will be an option to silence Microsoft forever by clicking ‘Do not notify me again’. There will also be an option to be notified three more times.

The latest figures for Windows 10 usage from Netmarketshare claim the operating system has 19 percent market share of the desktop market, dramatically smaller than the 49 percent claimed by Windows 7. Microsoft also claims Windows 10 has been installed on more than 300 million devices.

Upgrade

In June, Microsoft confirmed that Windows 10 will get its first major update on August 2, adding updated security features, Cortana upgrades, and Windows Ink capabilities.

“When we introduced Windows 10, our vision was not only to deliver the best and most secure version of the OS ever, it was also to create an experience that would keep getting better,” said Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group. “The Windows 10 Anniversary Update is a great example of this — and we look forward to building on it even further in the future.”

Take our cybersecurity quiz here!