Alan
Administrator
Microsoft is, it seems, at it again. No stranger to irritating ads and nags, the company has been spotted pestering Windows 10 users with a full-screen prompt to upgrade to Windows 11 for free.
If the appearance of an unwanted nag screen was not enough, the upgrade prompt is also rather deceptive, appearing to give users just two choices -- install Windows 11 now, or schedule the installation. It is actually possible to back out of the upgrade, but Microsoft has made it less than obvious.
As you can see in the screenshot above, the full-screen prompt says:
Now unlocked: You're eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 11
Don't worry -- you'll be able to use your PC while the download runs in the background (it's about 4 GB)
Beneath this are two buttons, one labelled Get it, the other Schedule it, strongly suggesting that there is no other option. But there is a way to avoid installing Windows 11 if you want to stick with Windows 10.
In a dramatic departure from establish UI design, there is no familiar X button to close down the prompt. Instead, there is a white bar along the bottom of the screen that look rather like a search box. Within this, in a significantly smaller font than the primary message, there is -- after a Learn more link -- a link labelled Keep Windows 10 that places users back in control.
It's hard not to see this as sneaky behavior, but it is something that has become increasingly common with Microsoft.
Not only that but..... they are doing it with Office 365 as reported on Neowin.
" One Reddit user published a photo of their Windows 10 computer displaying a full-screen Microsoft 365 Family trial ad during the out-of-box experience (OOBE). "Windows 10 preventing me from booting into desktop without first non-consensually being forced to accept their free trial and $100 monthly thereafter (obviously I cancelled after but WTF Microsoft)," the Redditor's post stated.
user has two options: "Try for free" and "No, thanks." Weirdly enough, if a user clicks on "No, thanks," they will be redirected to a payment confirmation page where apparently they have no other option but to click "Start trial, buy later."
As BleepingComputer indicates, other users have reported seeing a different variant of the ad that uses "Next" and "No, thanks" buttons. However, clicking on the latter still takes them to the payment page.
Because there's no apparent way to skip the ad, the only thing users can do is to enter their card information and then cancel the subscription later through their Microsoft account. If they don't cancel, they will be charged $109 a month.
As some Redditors have pointed out, it's possible that the behavior is just a bug, given how the full-screen Windows 11 ad we reported on yesterday has a properly working skip button. For now, if you want to avoid seeing the offer, you can try disconnecting from the internet when going through OOBE.
And an image showing the buttons....
I see another lawsuit in the making.............................................
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