Exec Admits Microsoft Went “Too Far” Pushing Windows 10

Microsoft wound up a lot of people with its aggressive push for Windows 10 since its release last year: Windows 7 and 8 users became increasingly infuriated by the insidious nagware known as Get Windows 10 (GWX), which presented a free “upgrade” to Microsoft’s new operating system not just inevitable but as a blessed relief from constant harassment. Even if you didn’t want your upgrade, GWX would download the damn thing anyway.

Now that the free upgrade period is over (though, there are always loopholes), Microsoft has admitted – too late, mind – that it may have overdone it with constant bothering. During the latest episode of Windows Weekly, Microsoft’s CMO Chris Capossela conceded that the company went “too far” with its overzealous strategy.

“We know we want people to be running Windows 10 from a security perspective,” Capossela said, “but finding the right balance where you’re not stepping over the line of being too aggressive is something we tried and for a lot of the year I think we got it right, but there was one particular moment in particular where, you know, the red X in the dialog box which typically means you cancel didn’t mean cancel.”

“And within a couple of hours of that hitting the world, with the listening systems we have we knew that we had gone too far and then, of course, it takes some time to roll out the update that changes that behaviour,” he added. “And those two weeks were pretty painful and clearly a lowlight for us. We learned a lot from it obviously.”