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I admit I’m a Microsoft certified engineer, but even still, this isn’t rocket science. Microsoft isn’t exactly hiding their opt-out stuff. Someone with even a little curiosity could very easily go into the Control Panel and find the options to remove any monitoring or unauthorized changes.

This is media scare tactics at work, IMO. My guess is that this isn’t happening to a plurality of users.

I'm a developer with twenty years experience programming Windows apps in C++. Although I'm not a "Microsoft Certified" anything, I'm fairly tuned in to Windows.

Although it may be the case that " Microsoft isn’t exactly hiding their opt-out stuff," they certainly didn't give any hint whatsoever that those who are running Windows 7 would see repeated signs that their computers were being prepared for Windows 10 installation without their knowledge, or that attempts would be made by Microsoft to install Windows 10 without permission.

Why do I say "attempts would be made by Microsoft to install Windows 10 without permission?"

Because I can see them in my "Update History."

I see entries labeled "Update to Windows 10 Pro" with Status equal to "Failed" on the following dates: August 3, 4, 5 (two separate attempts), 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, followed by further attempts on August 13 (two separate attempts), 14 (two attempts), 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 (two attempts).

Further attempts were made on August 20 (two attempts), 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 (two attempts), 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 (two attempts), and 31. Additional attempts were made on September 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (two attempts) and 6.

Continued attempts were made on September 7, 8 (two attempts), and finally on September 9.

This is a total of 47 attempts (by my count) to install an operating system upgrade that I didn't ask for and do not want.

Because I trusted Microsoft, I enabled automatic updates. I have disabled that option, and will never trust Microsoft to manage my operating system updates again.

I am never among the first to upgrade my Microsoft software. I always wait at least a year or so before I do so. Why? Because Microsoft releases so much software before it is properly debugged, and I don't want to be a beta test site for their debug process. I depend on my computer to earn my livelihood, and am not guaranteed a fat paycheck by Microsoft as are people who work for them.

For this reason I resent their attempts to overrule my practices.

I didn't realize that I had to "opt out" of having my Windows 7 installation shit-canned without my permission. It never occurred to me that Microsoft would decide that they know more about how I should manage my user experience than I do. Again, I won't make that mistake again.

I have disabled that option, and will never trust Microsoft to manage my operating system updates again.

This is sage advice for anyone wanting to maintain their sanity with an operating system. There are a multitude of examples one could find online that show that Microsoft updates have had problems in the past. Our corporate update change control processes were changed drastically after an Office update crippled our clients. We went almost a full work day with no email, and people were freaking out. (In retrospect, it's funny how much we rely on email.)

I recommend this same advice for Apple and Google devices as well. Updates are not flawless. The developers are often smart and do their smoke tests and regression testing, but that never accounts for every possible contingency. And if there's one thing I know about clients, they have no problem throwing engineers and admins curveballs when it comes to software support.