Windows 10: Woman get thousands of dollars from Microsoft after operating system pushes itself onto her computer

The company has been repeatedly criticised for pushing Windows 10 too hard – and companies are now complaining that it has hit their profits

Fans celebrate the launch of Windows 10 in Sydney (Microsoft)

A woman has been awarded $10,000 after her computer automatically installed Windows 10.

Microsoft has been repeatedly criticised for forcibly installing the new operating system onto people’s computers. And now it appears to be paying the price.

Teri Goldstein first saw her computer trying to download and install the new operating system just days after it was released last year, according to the Seattle Times. She says that she didn’t authorise but that her computer downloaded it automatically – and then failed to install it.

“I had never heard of Windows 10,” Ms Goldstein told the Seattle Times. “Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to update.”

After that, the computer kept crashing and wouldn’t be able to be used. That proved to be a problem because Ms Goldstein uses the computer to run her California travel agency – and was no longer able to.

She took Microsoft to court for the damages that followed. She looked for compensation for the lost money and a new computer – and collected $10,000 from the company.

In a short statement, a Microsoft spokesperson said that “The company dropped its appeal to avoid the expense of further litigation”. The company denies wrongdoing.

Ms Goldstein’s story is just one of a range of complaints about the pushy Windows 10 installation process. That has also included pop-ups appearing on screens that people were using for TV broadcasts and complaint that automatic downloads were being pushed onto computers and taking up space.

The new operating system has received positive reviews from most who use it, and the company has pushed it hard as a way of sorting out some of the problems that came with previous versions. But at the same time it has been criticised for that same pushy installation process, as well as putting updates onto people’s computers without their permission.

People are usually given the option to postpone any installation or to tell the computer that they never want to move up to Windows 10.