Soon, Windows 10 Will Be Automatically Pushed Through Windows Update

This is a daily opinion column written by Lowell Heddings, the founder of How-To Geek, featuring his take on the latest in the world of technology.

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Microsoft is determined to make sure every Windows 7 and 8 user upgrades to Windows 10. They have used all sorts of tactics to get people to upgrade, and now they are taking the big one: using Windows Update to push Windows 10 to everybody.

Making it Easier to Upgrade to Windows 10

We will soon be publishing Windows 10 as an “Optional Update” in Windows Update for all Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 customers. Windows Update is the trusted, logical location for our most important updates, and adding Windows 10 here is another way we will make it easy for you to find your upgrade.

Early next year, we expect to be re-categorizing Windows 10 as a “Recommended Update”. Depending upon your Windows Update settings, this may cause the upgrade process to automatically initiate on your device. Before the upgrade changes the OS of your device, you will be clearly prompted to choose whether or not to continue. And of course, if you choose to upgrade (our recommendation!), then you will have 31 days to roll back to your previous Windows version if you don’t love it.

It’s important to note that you will be able to opt out if you feel like it — you aren’t going to wake up with Windows 10 already on your computer. What will happen, however, is that the installer will automatically launch and you’ll be prompted to go through the upgrade steps.

We don’t yet know exactly how this is all going to work — we know that the installer will be automatically downloaded to your PC, but we don’t know if all of the gigabytes of Windows 10 are going to be downloaded. Yes, Microsoft did that in the past, but are they going to do it that way again? Or will it just be the “web installer” that downloads Windows 10 during the installation process, after you select the option to upgrade? Since many ISPs even in the US are using metered data, we’re going to hope that Microsoft doesn’t automatically download tons of data on your connection. But based on their track record, we can’t state anything with confidence. They really need to work on their communication.

You can prevent any of this from happening by disabling automatic updates — but then you’re leaving yourself wide open to security holes. So you really shouldn’t do that.

At this point there are a lot of reasons to just go ahead and upgrade to Windows 10, and the latest update of Windows 10 is coming out really soon, with a lot of fixes and enhancements. It’s much more stable than it was back in July when it launched, and you should really consider it.