Windows 7 users complain Windows 10 installing on their PCs automatically

Windows 7 users have been reporting that Windows 10 has been automatically installing itself on their PCs without permission.

Scores of users had posted on Twitter, forums, Reddit and gaming sites complaining about Windows 10 automatically installing, and often in the middle of doing something important.

A warning posted by Reddit user LHoT10820 had attracted more than 2,800 comments, about the forced Windows 10 upgrade after it ''bricked'' his father's computer.

Geekygirlhere said, ''Yep this happened to me this morning. Working and all of a sudden Windows closed all my programs, logged me out and started the upgrade. I quickly shut down my computer and was able to stop it but my son wasn't so lucky. Same thing happened to him today.''

Another user, 8165128200 said: ''We've been getting calls trickling in all week from doctor's offices, dental practices, B&Bs and roofing companies – among others – that have been hit by this and it's a fucking mess.

''In some cases the upgrade went OK and the user is just really confused. In others, Windows 10 is asking for a login password the user set years ago and hasn't used since, that was fun. In still another it's screwed up access to their shared folders.''

Meanwhile, even as sales of Windows 10 opened in summer last year, businesses preferred to adopt a wait-and-see approach to the new operating systems largely due to the upheaval and cost such upgrades could cause.

There was a further complication as businesses also had to wait for their other software vendors to get their software ready to work with new operating systems. Business customers, therefore, tended to be years behind home users in adopting new software.

This time around, though, it seemed that businesses were moving faster than in the past and according to analyst Gartner, half of all organisations would have commenced their Windows 10 rollout by January next year, which meant it could be the most widely installed version of Windows ever - ahead of even Windows 7.