While Windows 10 has had no shortage of critics, some of the strongest voices against the new platform are now emerging out of China.
News from Xinhua suggests that many Windows users within the country are frustrated by forced upgrades, feeling that the market dominance of the operating system leaves few alternatives for those who are unhappy with the change.
The primary critique is that there is no option to decline the upgrade, only to postpone it. Users of older versions of Windows have also been surprised to see the upgrade start automatically, after prompts had been ignored for an extended period of time. One worker from a Beijing PR company claims that he lost almost half a million US dollars when a forced upgrade led him to lose work on a lucrative business plan and a scheduled meeting.
The microblogging site Weibo now hosts some 1.2 million posts criticizing the platform and an advocate for China’s Internet society has even called upon users and regulatory agencies to bring lawsuits against Microsoft. He claims that the company has violated the principles consumer choice and that they set to profit from this move.
Microsoft has responded to the criticism by offering additional support to postpone or cancel the upgrade. This comes after last year’s offer to update all copies of Windows 10 for free, regardless of whether they were legitimately purchased. Far from being generous, this was viewed by most as a hard-line attack on China’s massive piracy market.
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