If you’ve got a Windows 7 or 8 PC, chances are you’ve seen that annoying helpful pop-up telling you to update to your computer to Windows 10. But a lot of folks out there just plain don’t want to upgrade to Windows 10. And that’s totally cool.

Unfortunately, that pop-up has caused a number of people to upgrade their PCs to Windows 10 without wanting to. If you’re one of those folks, here’s a little bit of schadenfreude for you.

According to The Seattle Times, Microsoft has lost a lawsuit brought against it by a woman who says her computer updated to Windows 10 without her authorization.

Travel agent Teri Goldstein says she unwittingly downloaded the new operating system only to see her system slow down and crash for days — hurting her business in the process, according to the Seattle Times.

When Goldstein reached out to Microsoft’s customer support it wouldn’t help, she told The Seattle Times. So she sued and won $10,000 for lost wages and the computer, according to The Seattle Times. Microsoft decided not to appeal the judgment, though, according to The Seattle Times. The company denied any wrongdoing.

Microsoft’s Windows 10 upgrade system has been a pain for many consumers, as the pop-up window offering the update may be misleading and cause people to upgrade their operating system without actually meaning to.

That’s because Microsoft changed the meaning of the red “X” in the upper right corner of the upgrade pop-up window. Instead of canceling the program as the “X” button has done for years, it actually acts as a kind of confirmation acknowledging the update.

For example, some update pop-ups show a date when a customer can schedule their computer to upgrade to Windows 10. Normally, if you would click the “X” you’d be canceling the update offer. But instead, Microsoft set it so that clicking the “X” actually confirmed the date shown in the pop-up window. That could be seen as a sneaky move to be sure.

In fact, when I wrote a piece explaining why you should upgrade to Windows 10 before July 29th, I received a deluge of emails from readers complaining that their computers updated to Windows 10 when the owners didn’t want them to.

That said, veteran Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley reports that the company is changing the way the pop-up window and “X” button function. Now when you click the “X” you’ll be canceling the update to Windows 10. You can also click a box on the pop-up that says you want to decline the free offer.

If you did happen to update to Windows 10 without meaning to do so, it’s worth noting that you can always rollback the upgrade to your previous version of Windows.

via: The Seattle Times, ZDNet

Email Daniel at [email protected]; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.