It has come to the attention of everyone that Microsoft is so anxious to get you on Windows 10 that all PCs running Windows 7 and Windows 8 which have automatic updates enabled are silently downloading Windows 10 just in case you need it. It does not install automatically but does use up several GBs of your internet plan and disk space. While this behaviour was expected for users who had explicitly reserved Windows 10, it has surprised many others who found a huge, hidden folder on their PC with Windows 10 Setup files.
Several users noticed that Windows Update which is normally used for downloading small updates was actually downloading the entire setup for Windows 10. This is not nice of Microsoft and making the folder hidden is even worse.
Once the OS files have been downloaded, the user will be prompted to "install Windows 10" via the free upgrade offer.
For the average user it means:
- Around 3 GB of disk space will be taken by the Windows 10 "update". This can be an issue for those who have small disks/partitions especially smaller sized SSDs.
- A lot of bandwidth will be used, which is not suitable for those with limited data plans.
If you have the KB3035583 update installed which contains the Get Windows 10 app, a tray (notification area) icon will appear and you will be invited to install Windows 10 for free. The entire setup will be downloaded forcibly even if you never intended to move to Windows 10 and never reserved a copy.
If you have no plans to use Windows 10 since the new OS discards a number of Windows 7 and even Windows 8 features and options, it is a good idea to uninstall the Windows 10 reservation app as described here: How to remove the Windows 10 reservation app.
After that, check out if it has already downloaded Windows 10 for you. Check if you have the following folders:
C:\$Windows.~BT
C:\Windows\$Windows.~BT
The mentioned folders have a "hidden" attribute, so you will have to turn on visibility of hidden files in File Explorer to see those folders.
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This is why I’m not upgrading to Windows 10. These forced updates are dodgy as hell. I uninstalled 3035583 months ago anyway, so hopefully, if that’s a required update I won’t find the setup stuff in my update list.