Someone’s Windows 10 PC upgraded to Windows 11 while showering
The battle between Windows 10 users and Microsoft is reaching unprecedented heights, as evidenced by one user’s unusually frustrating experience. After months of refusing to upgrade to Windows 11, which was offered to him on his Windows 10 PC, djseifer on Reddit was shocked to discover that his PC had made this decision for him.
When he left his computer unattended to take a shower, he upgraded to Windows 11 without asking.
The Reddit thread attracted a lot of attention (over 5,500 upvotes) and amusing comments, ranging from “This is why I never shower” to “You’re upgrading, please don’t resist.”
Can Microsoft force Windows upgrades?
What’s confusing here is that it shouldn’t be possible for Microsoft (or your own PC) to initiate an upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 without being prompted. As the affected user himself writes, he was asked to do this several times, but refused each time.
It is therefore more likely that it is a bug or that the user accidentally accepted it before going to take a shower. In any case, the damage should not be too great since users can always revert to the previous version after upgrading to Windows 11.
This restoration can be done either through the official channel, available for 10 days after an upgrade, or with free tools which also significantly increase the support period of Windows 10.
How to prevent automatic updates
If you are still worried that Microsoft could install updates or even upgrade to Windows 11 on your PC without your permission, there are some precautions you can take:
- Turn off automatic Windows updates so only you can decide if and when they are installed. However, if you do this, you shouldn’t delay critical security updates for too long.
- Disable TPM so that your PC is no longer eligible to upgrade to Windows 11. To do this, go to “Security” or “Advanced” in your BIOS settings and search for TPM/FTPM/PTT. (Disabling this option should pose no problem on a Windows 10 PC.)
- With tools like Rufus, you can not only install and launch different versions of Windows from a USB drive, but also bypass Microsoft’s frequent (annoying) upgrade prompts.
