How many of the hundreds of millions of people using Windows computers are affected like this that don't have someone tech-savy to ask for help? There's no possible way Microsoft didn't think of this scenario, which can only mean that they simply do not care.

I am certainly in agreement. From what I can see they used social engineering for a few months, then dark patterned it so users would install. (Im referring to users being slowly trained to close the window saying upgrade, then that same click agreeing and installing).

Which in my opinion is exactly that. Social engineering to get them use to it (same action over and over), and dark pattern (doing something do so they would agree to something they didn't necessarily want to).

Very scummy in my opinion. I wish I could change but I am very much stuck on Windows (my only product uses windows voice recognition engine. . . .I don't have the knowledge to wrote my own).

Edit: typo

As long as changes and 'upgrades' correlate with net gains for investors and shareholders, it's all good. It's all that matters. We are faced with faceless super-agents, we can't realistically complain to anyone, nobody is responsible. I hope the era of user empowerment comes soon, and this kind of mammoth-sized digital stomping over humans ends.

Oh... They surely care! For the upgrade rate, which historically was always very low.

One advantage to my grandmother still using Windows XP: it won’t auto-upgrade to Windows 10.

Meh. The safest and easiest migration path from XP now is to LXLE (which is Ubuntu Linux) with a similar theme (and the same set of apps); I wouldn't keep anyone on XP any more: if W7 is obsolete, XP is a rotting corpse.

Or maybe http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/04/windows-xp-theme-lubuntu

Haha, maybe. That's a bit over the top for me personally, I never liked the Luna theme :)

Well, Microsoft will parade you mum as part of the great success of the adoption rate and popularity of Windows 10!

Rings a bell... Same happened to my mom when Google changed their Gmail UI. For us it seems like a small change but for older people this is really a tough thing. Well, we moved to an email client since then...

I feel your pain, but after migration to linux or mac you'll probably be using SaaS apps to do this. And at in this case you could reinstall.

In the "future" (ie. web apps and android apps), there won't be any control about software upgrades anymore. Even, or perhaps especially when they're really more downgrades than upgrades.

Hahaha. Nope, your attempt at FUD fails: after migration to Linux, my first worry is "okay, the network connection sucks, so no cloud dependencies". Cloudcloudcloud may be all the rage right now, but tried-and-true, full-offline software didn't disappear.