Microsoft to introduce changes to its Windows 10 upgrade strategy

Mainstream support for Windows 8 ends in 2018 but you’ll still receive security updates until 2023 – but ONLY if you’ve installed the free upgrade to Windows 8.1.

Located down under, the University of Newcastle is starting a campus-wide rollout to Windows 10, and will have over 10,000 machines running Microsoft’s newest OS by the end of 2016.

He says Microsoft not only reinstalls this application daily, and sometimes more frequently, but that it slightly changes the code to make it look like a new application, apparently in an attempt to fool the GWX Control Panel tool.

Why is this happening?

Microsoft has been preparing Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs for a more aggressive Windows 10 upgrade strategy that the company will kick off shortly, according to the developer of a tool that blocks such upgrades.

Does all this sound like reasonable behaviour from your operating system?

“This is new behavior, and it does leave your PC vulnerable to unwanted Windows 10 upgrade behavior”, he said.

This means after January 12th there will be no more security updates or patches to help users protect themselves against malicious attacks and browser vulnerabilities.

The new push will consist of two steps. The GWX Control Panel 1.6 was released on November 24 and is available for free download, reports Computer World. Enterprise users can be slow to update at times due to fear of any software incompatibilities, but Microsoft solved this problem with IE 11, which has a legacy mode, allowing for compatibility for older web-based apps. He attributes this theory to the recent updates on the Windows Update tool for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. If you’ve decided against an upgrade to Windows 10, have you taken any steps to stop it happening automatically?

Mayfield said he began hearing from users that their PCs were being switched from a “do-not-upgrade-to-Windows-10” status to a “do-upgrade” state.

While there is a steady, albeit low decline of Windows 7 users, Microsoft is not satisfied with how things are going with their upgrade campaign.

Also in play, said Mayfield, were updates to the Windows Update client on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs that Microsoft has also pushed to customers: Windows Update was refreshed last week for both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.