Microsoft is now installing Windows 10 by default in Windows Update

It should come to nobody’s surprise to hear that Microsoft is very insistent on having people upgrade to Windows 10. Microsoft’s latest idea seems to involve having Windows 7 and 8 users upgrading to Windows 10 without their knowledge.

It appears Microsoft is downloading Windows 10 files to computers whose owners still haven’t decided whether to upgrade or not. In most cases, these files end up taking 6 GB of hard drive space.

It seems that Windows 10 is getting on your PC, whether you want it or not. Not literally, at least not yet, but it’s certainly a reason for concern. If you’re not the type of person to check your optional updates before clicking on “update all”, the Windows 10 installation is ticked as a default option, which means you’ll get upgraded without even realising. If you’re careful, you can hide that upgrade and install the other ones, but let’s be honest here – are all Windows users this observant?

Microsoft has since issued a statement in which they own up to their mistake. They claimed that the Windows 10 installation was always supposed to be an optional update, and that checking it by default was just an accident.

Even if you put this down to an innocent mistake by Microsoft, it’s hard to deny that Microsoft seems hell bent to have all the Windows 7 and 8 users switch to Windows 10 as soon as possible. After all, they have been pretty unapologetic about having their users download those 6 GB of Windows 10 files that serve no purpose on older Windows versions except taking up valuable hard disk space.

In related news, the new Windows 10 builds which are currently being tested on the Insider programme will reportedly be the first to start triggering the ads in the Windows 10 Lock Screen and Start Menu.