Sales and marketing tactics are nothing new. No one likes to feel like they have been had. In recent days, some people are feeling that way, by how Microsoft tried to compel people to update their system.

There already exists a way for users to choose how they want their updates. Microsoft has long given people these choices:

  1. Install updates automatically (recommended)
  2. Download updates but let me choose whether to install them
  3. Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them
  4. Never check for updates (not recommended)

People have also long been accustomed to delete notifications that they didn’t care about. This time, Microsoft, without fanfare, decided to treat the X cancel button as an agreement to update the system anyway.

I, for one, am almost always on the side of having the latest and greatest update of my favorite tools, but it’s my computer and my choice. Our own private computers are not like cloud systems that we use, where we expect to get automatic updates without our input, and without our consent each time.

Computerworld reported today that this change in well-set expectations has been going on for a couple of months. Now, granted, a lot of people have an inherit dislike of Microsoft, and it’s just another opportunity for them to gripe. I’m not one of those people, but I also don’t like the idea of a service provider trying to override the will of their customer. It is simply not right, and the company deserves this criticism. Hopefully, they will learn from this incident, and make things right with their customers.