Bizarre MS Microsoft intrusion upgrade Disappearance of file

[narconaut]

Please be sure to look at the edited part that I added at the end.

please bear with me, this is bizarre, and i'm not sure how to post this.

please help me figure out what happened to this file.

i have a new laptop. it has win 8.1, and i have not wanted to go to win 10. because i lost my last laptop to windows automatic updates, i set updates to download but not install until i review them.

my laptop builder performed all updates for me before shipping the laptop. i began using it on august 31. i haven't looked at the updates and planned on doing this about once a month or more.

yesterday i read an article about microsoft sneaking in an upgrade to win 10 even if a person did not register for it or ask for it in any way. i go to look at my updates to see if i have this sitting in my downloaded but not yet installed box, and it was there in the optional updates with a check mark next to it so that it would update with the important updates. (screen cap provided below) i then unchecked the box to be on the safe side.

i was a bit miffed at having lost 3 gigs of space so i posted on microsoft about it and asked how to get my space back. i posted on fb about it. i also posted in a thread that MS was watching on the site The Inquirer. i got off line. i got off the computer.

i get back on my computer and look at the updates waiting to be installed so i could start dealing with the win10 upgrade update. the file is gone. i'll provide a screen cap. the same number of important updates is there. they are all still checked. if the file had installed itself (after i unchecked it), then why hadn't these other updates taken place? the number of optional updates is the same minus one, being the win 10 upgrade file.

my interface and everything else is the same. there are no changes. i have no message to restart my computer. there is no evidence whatsoever of this upgrade being installed. how could it just disappear if i had the option to download but not install in use?

did unchecking it mean that it would disappear? if so, then why doesn't this happen with other updates? is the update still there? if so, then i want to delete because it is 3 gigs. i want that space back. and how do i know if any of the other updates have anything to do with win 10?



1) this was my first screen cap. i took it before getting offline, and so the upgrade to win10 update is listed. you can see where i said that it was checked, and you can see that i unchecked it. ignore the other stuff.

2) this is a screen cap that i took after getting back on my laptop. i took it of the important updates to show that there were files check marked, which to me is significant because if the upgrade update installed itself, then why didn't the check marked important updates install? also, you can see that the important updates stayed the same number and that the optional updates decreased by one (from 15 to 14); a numerical representation of the disappearance of the win10 upgrade file.

EDIT: apparently, there have been many people that this has affected, and i did empty the Download folder. it's *still* there. i cannot get this off my computer. also, if i go into "pc settings" and look at updates, it is there with the box checked, and i cannot uncheck it.

i am truly baffled.

 

[Saga Lout]

That's the first indication I've heard about where the update appeared without you having reserved your entitlement to it. Anyway, having unticked that update, if you now go to c:\windows\softwaredistribution\download and empty it - preferably by-passing the Recycle Bin - and do the same to c:\$Windows.~BT, you're unlikely to see the update again. If you do, search the Registry for GWX (Get Windows 10 - geddit?) and delete any related hive or key the search throws up.

I can't see an unwanted update getting past that.

All that said, I've updated eighteen older systems for some of my customers in the last two weeks or so and providing you negate all the options MS wants you to accept to enable them to harvest data about you, it's not a bad system. A slight improvement on Seven and vastly better than Eight, or 8 SP1 as I regard it.