I've never had to fight with a Windows 10 force install. Windows 10 has left me alone to use my Windows 7.

PRO TIP: Pirate Windows. Illegal copies of Windows do not get Windows 10 force upgrades or popups. I would recommend a clean ISO of Windows 7 Home Premium from the old Digital Rivers site (if you can find a copy) and use Windows Loader 2.2.2 to crack it. Be very sure to check the MD5 and SHA1 so you have a clean version of it and not a malware filled one.

Yeah, and it sucked. I took the time to downgrade back to Windows 7, though. Definitely worth it.

Windows ten forced me to update on our laptop and it drove me completely bonkeres because our super slow internet connection it took two days.

bigger0gamer : I also have a pirated copy of Vista, Microsoft once made an official dev keygen which still works.

Luigi442wii : "I would but I wouldn't." Touche.

I never knew M$ made a keygen for Vista though; I might look into it. I would imagine that it doesn't get much use though. For most people, Vista was horrible and they would like to forget about it.

bigger0gamer : They did, I found one, and it had the MS agreement and all that, so I'm assuming it was real.

NovemberJoy : It's a pain, I some other friends who have this issue who don't like it I like windows 10 but it should not be forced on people who don't 

Retrofit: yeah, I hate Windows 10

Honestly, my computers that I have are so old that they do not even support Windows 10. Keep in mind, these computers have a Pentium 4 processor which actually could run the earliest versions of Windows 10, but otherwise, they probably might not handle Windows 8. My friends have been forced to upgrade to Windows 10 before, and even my dad gets notifications to upgrade to Windows 10 or it forces it onto your PC. We all use Windows 7 at our house, and it is my favorite Operating System besides Windows XP.

The GWX thing is literally malware with how it still stays on computers that can be upgraded, and requires a really, really good computer to operate decently. Like, really, the other Windows operating systems were just nothing more than offers, and didn't shove popups in your face. Windows 10, on the other hand... good luck rebelling against the upgrade and their requirement of Microsoft Accounts. The operating system spies on your activities and you can't do anything against that. That is, if your CPU is newer than a Pentium 4. Otherwise, if you have a computer as old as mine, you can stay on Windows 7 literally forever, and Microsoft can't make a workaround for that.

Thankfully, I never had to deal with it because I took action before it had the chance. I have since helped others remove the nag screen and Windows 10 icon that looms in the taskbar/notification box on Windows 7 so that they can live peacefully.

One of the steps in doing so is a little complicated/confusing to novice users (changing permissions and deleting previously undeletable files) which removes the taskbar icon. I will not describe that here just in case someone too inexperienced but careless is reading (you can look it up elsewhere, but I do not want ot be responsible for your mistakes.)

The other major step is to uninstall a specific list of Windows updates related to Window 10 upgrading as well as a few telemetry updates just for good measure. But an additional step I have found gets overlooked is that many people have Windows Update set to automatic, and the updates eventually get reinstalled. You have to turn off automatic updates, keep track of the list, and hide the particular list of updates when they eventually reappear so that they never appear or try to install again.

Here is the list of updates for Windows 7 in case anyone is still interested at this point:

2902907 -- Microsoft Security Essentials
2952664 -- Get Windows 10 assistant
2976987
2977759 -- System32CompatTelRunner.exe
2990214 -- Get Windows 10 (for Win7)
3021917 -- telemetry
3022345 -- telemetry
3035583 -- Get Windows 10 (for Win7 and Win8.1)
3050265 -- update for "Windows Update"
3068708 -- telemetry
3075249 -- telemetry
3080149 -- telemetry

... and a few additional for Windows 8/8.1

KB3044374 -- Get Windows 10 for Win8.1
KB3065987
KB3075853 -- update for "Windows Update" on Win8.1/Server 2012R2

use "wusa /uninstall /kb:####### /quiet /norestart" without quotes, replacing ####### with the update number.

CobraGuy : Thanks for the full list, been oddly difficult to find all of the relevant updates listed in the same place. Don't know how good this script really is (basic CSS is the extant of my programming knowledge), but thus far it's been effective in keeping mine, my parents, and my sisters computers free from GWX.


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdate]
"DisableOSUpgrade"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsGWX]
"DisableGWX"=dword:00000001

My computer has Windows 10 pop-ups all the time, but last night it gave me the option to deny the offer of the free upgrade, so I did. Last month it told me that it scheduled the free upgrade for a few days from then, and I cancelled it. I'm glad that I'm getting on my computer more often or I'd probably have Windows 10 now and be aggravated to lose my data from Windows 7.

In my opinion this automatic free upgrade thing is a horrible idea and it might result in Windows 10 not being as much of a success as Microsoft thought.

I just came back to say even though its a little off topic. My cousin said I should upgrade to windows 10....I rather not but he explained why and reasons to do with it. So I might just do that since he said its much easier to use than windows 8...if that's the case I might have to do it. But when he is around though. '-'

NovemberJoy : I believe I deleted the windows update that would have auto update if so I've been in the clear, it doesn't even pop up anymore.

Windows 10 is cringey I wouldn't update to that if you held a gun to my head.

I just read an article on PCWorld (source) posted earlier today that says Microsoft has re-confirmed earlier announcements that the free Windows 10 upgrade promotion will end at 11:59 p.m. (UTC-10) on July 29, 2016.

Four hours from now, the Get Windows 10 nagware will cease its nagging! (though you may still have to delete the GWX folder/files yourself... there is no word yet on whether a future Windows update will do it for you.)

It's about time!

I don't use Windows, so no. I'm 90% "free" of Microsoft's clutches. During that horrible "one-year period of free Windows 10" I did my best to not even think about accessing my second HD which had W7, as I believed any boot could lead up to that poor thing upgrading itself and - sorry about the choice of words - f***ing me up.

I thank myself every day for making the move of switching to Linux.

I have had that piece of nagware annoy the living crap out of me and it forced itself onto my father's laptop,thankfully he did not continue on and I was able to get rid of it. Windows 10 is more like Microsoft's spy.

One of the (very few) benefits of still being stuck with Vista is I never had to deal with this problem lol.

I'd prefer to have 7 if that was an option, or even more so XP if it was still supported by anything, but I tried doing a clean install multiple times over the course of a week and it turned into an absolute nightmare

Windows 10 needs to have kerosene poured on it and burned.