A California woman has won a $US10,000 ($13,383) judgement from Microsoft after the company dropped its appeal in a case in which she alleged that her work computer became slow and unreliable after automatically upgrading itself to Windows 10.
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“I had never heard of Windows 10,” Teri Goldstein told the Seattle Times. “Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to update.”
Since Windows 10 shipped last year, users have complained that the operating system has automatically updated itself from older versions without permission. Sometimes the update leads to corrupted files and slower processing speeds, according to some users.
Goldstein won the case last month, and Microsoft sought an appeal, but has decided to back down. In a statement to the Seattle Times, Microsoft denied any wrongdoing and said it dropped the case to avoid further litigation costs.
It’s unclear if this settlement will open up Microsoft to more lawsuits from people who say their computer updated to Windows 10 without their authorisation, but it seems certain people will try.
Despite Goldstein’s troubles, Windows 10 is a solid OS. There’s one month left to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. After that, it will cost $179.