Microsoft finally stops bothering you to upgrade to Windows 10

[sincity]

Remember the Get Windows 10 (GWX) app? The one that constantly prodded Windows 7/8.1 users to upgrade to the newest OS? Well, it's finally been removed by Microsoft.

And about time too, you might rightly think – after all, didn't the free upgrade to Windows 10 offer expire at the end of July, almost two months ago now? Indeed it did, and while you might not have heard from GWX since, the program – and related nagging software – has still been sat on your PC.

Until now that is, because Microsoft has released an update which 'removes software related to the Windows 10 free upgrade offer'. And you can get it via Windows Update, unsurprisingly – you'll find it under optional updates, where it's labelled KB3184143 (although as ever the description given is just a vague bit of 'this resolves issues in Windows' patter).

The full description is given in the relevant Microsoft Knowledge Base article here, which actually shows that this gets rid of a number of pieces of software aside from GWX.

GWX's little helpers

So as well as dumping the Get Windows 10 app, it also removes 'Windows 8.1 OOBE modifications to reserve Windows 10' (along with an update for that piece of software), and the 'Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 end of free upgrade offer notification'. Along with a few other bits and pieces such as 'Internet Explorer 11 capabilities to upgrade Windows 8.1 and Windows 7'.

Which shows you just how serious Microsoft was about pushing Windows 10 over the course of the free offer. If you didn't already realize that from the amount of times the upgrade nag box popped up, and the controversial measures the company sometimes used when trying to get people to switch to its latest OS. Including the sort of tactics usually employed by spammers.

At any rate, this marks the official end of the GWX matter. We hope – because the bullheaded app had a habit of coming back when you uninstalled it via third-party solutions. We presume this won't be the case when you remove the thing via the official channels, though.

Via: Supersite Windows

• Check out our full review of Windows 10 Anniversary Update

[Alita]

I tired this yesterday. "Updated" via Windows Update. Took forever to reboot...then took forever to shut down, for just this one update. On next reboot...it hung at the Starting Windows screen, never gets to the log in page. The fan a running like crazy so it must be chewing up a lot of CPU cycles. It seems like the next attempt to get you to upgrade to Windows 10 is to f*** up your Windows 7 installation.