I just got upgraded Saturday and the EULA specifically says that you can't bring a class action lawsuit against them. They want you to try arbitration for 60 days and if that doesn't work then you can try small claims. Yeah, sure.

Anyway I had two problems afterwards.

It logged me into a TEMP account so no config changes were saved and my files appeared to be all missing. They weren't, it just the shortcuts all point to the C:\users\TEMP\ directories. There's a few fixes for that one. Mine was checking the box that stopped OneNote from auto loading at start up.

After a reboot the start menu went away. The logo button is there but the menu doesn't come up. I found a site with a few fixed and tried them all in succession. I don't know which one solved it because I only rebooted after doing all of them.

So now I have 30 days to downgrade to Win 7 or forever hold my peace.

<backspaced off rant here />

> the EULA specifically says that you can't bring a class action lawsuit against them

Yeah, best of luck to them with this. It's not possible for them to put a condition into their EULA negating all legal rights. Imagine a completely ludicrous scenario: a Microsoft executive decides that they install an update that wipes your computer if it detects your version of Windows isn't licensed, and then another update accidentally causes your license to be invalidated. Then millions of computers get wiped. You think that licensing term is going to protect them from a class action? Think again.

EULAs aren't legally binding in some countries because they're not disclosed before the sale. So this might protect them in the US but I could imagine it becoming a problem in other countries still.

I know clickwrap EULAs have been contentious, but can a EULA for something you didn't even ask for and didn't want in the first place be forced on you against your will?

I had the option to not accept the EULA. In that case I was then free to not install Windows 10 despite it "prepping my system for the update" for an hour.

I figured any attempt at a roll back at that point would have been worse than just proceeding. =(

That's interesting. If the OS upgrades to Windows 10, does it prompt you to accept a new EULA after upgrading? If so, what does it do if you don't accept the new terms? And how can they ask you to accept terms AFTER upgrading?

The comments at https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/49eahx/computer_up... say that, if you decline the EULA after installing, it rollbacks to the previously installed version.

Bloody hell. And this rollback appears to be less than reliable.

Why not ask for the acceptance and then upgrade?

Do we know what data is lost when a rollback occurs?

I believe this stuff is contained in the EULA you've already agreed to, not the new EULA.

If enough people file complaints with the FTC and/or state Attorney Generals, they might get involved as well.

I wonder how privacy settings are being handled, and whether harm is being done to those who are automatically upgraded.

I know one of their Windows 10 preparation updates reset a telemetry setting in Windows 7.

I recall it was "Turn off Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program," which is disabled by default. There might have been other settings. (Search for security hardening guides for Windows to get a check list.)

What prompted me to check this was when Microsoft chose to willfully ignore the opt out setting they had handed us prior to the release date of Windows 10.. Let's not forget that either!

Edit: Oops. Double negative.

They will have done a good job covering themselves against class-action lawsuits with the arbitration clauses in the EULA. But one area where I imagine they're vulnerable is when an individual user who was force-fed Windows 10 loses access to some important third-party software or hardware that for whatever reason doesn't work with 10.

Imagine being Stephen Hawking. You wake up one morning to find you've been "upgraded" to Windows 10, and your assistive speech hardware no longer works. That will blow away anything in the EULA, as far as any judge is concerned.

The degree of irresponsibility required to pull something like this is simply staggering.