Woman Wins $10,000 From Microsoft After Unwanted Windows 10 Upgrade

A California woman has won a $10,000 judgement from Microsoft after the company dropped its appeal in a case in which she alleged that her work computer became slow and unreliable after automatically upgrading itself to Windows 10. ~ Gizmodo

http://gizmodo.com/woman-wins-10-000-from-microsoft-after-unwanted-window-1782666146

Oh, this has so made my day!

 

Great. Other with similar experience can follow her and get some compensation from MS. Some actions that MS used to trick people into upgrading should never be used by company like theirs.

 

She could buy an iMac and a few MacBooks for 10 grand lol.

 

" In a statement to the Seattle Times, Microsoft denied any wrongdoing and said it dropped the case to avoid further litigation costs."

I would have thought the opposite. Litigation costs will be much higher than fighting it out in Appeals Court. MS has more rabid lawyers than there are stars in the universe and I can not see them giving up protecting the W10 golden goose. This smells a bit funny - could be a hoax

 

Or they don't want the negative publicity.

 

That smell is right. More then half of what you read on the web is crap. That's what your smelling.

 

M$ is shooting itself in the foot by pushing out upgrades too fast. If they would slow things down and put more time and thought into development, people might be more inclined to upgrade.

 

Was the lawsuit in State or Federal Court? I'd think this was a case of interstate commerce with this being sent via MS technically out of State.

 

Yes. Well, too fast or not. The problem IMO is that MS should not be pushing their users like this at all, it should be up to each user to decide if and when they want to install/upgrade to a new OS, or not.

If the story is true, then congrats to her big time.

 

It was in a Superior Court - equivalent to a Court of Common Pleas in other states. It was in the Marin county Superior Court. The case involved state level matters of law. All small claims are at the state level.

In many states, small claims cases are initiated in a Magisterial District Court = in front of a magistrate\magisterial judge or "justice-of-the-peace." District courts are the lowest level courts in some states.

Magisterial District Courts (Municipal Courts in large cities) are typically the courts in which criminal charges are filed\civil complaints are filed and cases are initiated at the local and state levels - both criminal or civil.

For small claims, typically the amount of the suit is $10,000 or less. For larger amounts it involves higher courts - similar to a Court of Common Pleas.

California doesn't use the magisterial court system; the point of entry for most cases are the Superior Courts.

Every state has their own unified judicial system - but for the most part they are all similar. Various courts have different jurisdictions and names depending upon the state, county and municipality.

* * * * *

The level of the court isn't important; that the suit was successful is all that matters. Microsoft has 30 days to appeal the case...

 

That's good...

 

It made my day too.

It looks like the ball maybe starting to roll with the lawsuits against M$. "What Goes Around - Comes Around".

 

Oh, I'm sure by this point M$ attorney's are crafting - if not already crafted - ways to avoid any further suits and payouts; they will move to quash any future small claims regarding system failures due to W10 upgrades - forced or otherwise.

Their main goal is to avoid payouts by having suits summarily dismissed via the EULA Terms & Agreement.

If M$ had not made the $150 offer, then her case would have likely failed.

This will all be interesting to see how it pans out for other suits...

 

I would imagine that there might be plenty of other people who had their work disrupted by an unwanted 10 upgrade....

 

This probably helped her win her case - MS was involved and they were unable to recover her system.

"... After Comcast told her the problem was entirely at her end, she contacted Microsoft. After hours and hours of support desk calls, her computer remained in a barely usable state: three technicians uninstalled and reinstalled the operating system software to no avail. It was a complete waste of time."

The EULA did not give them cover. That too is something that all courts should do.

 

In my opinion, this was an inevitability. It really did make my day though.

 

Expect a new EULA from M$.

 

That's quite a bit more information than I asked for, I'm pretty familiar with the Court system but thank you anyway.

 

indeed, a new EULA is less expensive

 

Only 10K? That's just a new handbag and two pair of shoes. She should appeal.

 

LOL... that's a good one.

 

Figured you might want to do the same -- file a claim -- someday. Just a heads-up... LOL.