You need to click a small, easily missed link in the pop-up to cancel the upgrade, instead.įurther reading: You will upgrade to Windows 10: Inside Microsoft’s strong-arm tactics Now, the pop-up says “We will upgrade you at this time,” and pressing the X counts as consent. For the past six months, the “Get Windows 10” pop-up asked permission to start an update, but lacked a “No thanks” option, so the only way to avoid it was to close the window by pressing the X in the upper-right hand corner. Microsoft’s putting away the carrots and breaking out the sticks in its quest to migrate 1 billion users to Windows 10 over the next couple of years.Īfter pushing out the free upgrade as a Recommended update to Windows 7 and 8 users earlier this year-which means that you downloaded the initial installation bits if you use the default Windows Update, like most people should-Microsoft changed its nagging pop-up prompt in an insidious way over the past week.