Last weekend I gave in to my desire to keep software fresh and upgraded to Windows 10. The upgrade wasn’t smooth. I expected multiple restarts and lots of twiddling and driver updates, but the last straw was being unable to fix a problem where my mouse stopped working after waking the computer from sleep. So I uninstalled Windows 10, which was easier than the install, and then recovered a few things that didn’t get put back, like some NVIDIA dlls. It wasn’t a great experience, but I got back to working. I wasn’t completely incensed.
It did squander some of the good will I’ve been feeling for a post-Ballmer Microsoft. The recent, nagging changes to the “Free Upgrade” notification [ Microsoft Makes Windows 10 ‘Free Upgrades’ Worse | Forbes ] haven’t helped either. Now that I’ve gotten my Win7 box back to normal, the nagging is back at full tilt. News flash: If I uninstalled the update and gave markedly negative feedback after the install and during the uninstall, No, I do NOT want to upgrade to Windows 10 AGAIN, and please stop asking me!
Googling around for how to stop the nagging doesn’t yield a clear solution. Some involve installing software written just to stop the nagging: it’s probably perfectly fine and safe software, but I just don’t like that idea. So what I’m going to try, since I need my Win7 box for work again, is Method 1 from a Microsoft support engineer responding on answers.microsoft.com. If Microsoft had toned it down after the uninstall (or never escalated the nagging to current levels), I’d be more likely to try upgrading again later. A gentle reminder every few weeks, once issues like mine are addressed, would have felt helpful. Now I just want it to go away permanently, and that’s not good for me or for Microsoft.
Mixed methods 1 & 2, and it seems to work. I still have a Win10 icon in the tray, but I did not get the horrible Sophie’s Choice of “Install Now” or “Download and Install Later”. We’ll see if that survive’s the next Windows Update push.
The Nag returned after several “Shutdown Updates”, so I’ve gone into Windows Update and hidden it again. Hopefully it will stay gagged this time, but we’ll see.