[Navy salad]

I got on my computer this morning and was greeted by a screen displaying nothing other than that creepy message! My first thought, of course, was that my PC had been hijacked and all my files were now encrypted and that I would soon be getting a ransom demand! The message then faded and a new message appeared talking about some "exciting improvements" in Windows. It also said "Do not turn off your PC". In the back of my mind, I assumed this was probably so some Trojan Horse could continue wreaking havoc on my PC. Other than these messages, my PC was mostly unresponsive. I couldn't even get Task Manager to work. Afraid that my personal files and back up drives were being encrypted as I watched, I immediately DID turn off my computer. But after Googling the messages on my wife's computer, I learned this was just another poorly managed and sketchy update from Microsoft! Once I convinced myself the update was legitimate, I tried to reinstall the update, but my system said it was already updated, despite my having turned off my PC after being told not to do that. But I haven't found anything amiss, other than some of my file extension default applications (like .pdf, .txt, and others) have reverted to Microsoft products, "Edge" has become my default browser, and who knows what else. I read that in some cases, this "Update" removes user-installed drivers and certain utilities.

[NacMacFeegle]

Which version of windows did you have before? Sounds like your PC upgraded itself too windows 10.

[Navy salad]

Windows 10, but I upgraded several months ago. This was a Windows 10 update. This is a fairly new update. Google the phrases I mentioned and you'll get lots more complaints about this.

[Randito]

I'll bet a committee spent weeks working on the wording of that message, just in English. I wonder how weird the Japanese translation sounds...

[boot up]

Thank you! I read this thread minutes before this happened to my wife's new Windows 10 computer. She went through the same thought process of you, assuming it was a deadly virus or something and frustrated by the cryptic and genuinely piss poor message. Thanks to your tip, we did not kill power, and its back up and running again. And we are one step closer to going Apple on our next computers. We already have iphones and ipads in our house.

[NacMacFeegle]

I haven't had this particular update issue, but I've had plenty of others. The most disturbing problem I've had is that windows 10 forces me to update it, even though I've made it so that it can't install updates without me telling it to, it does it anyway. Once it has downloaded an update (usually overnight, which it never tells me it's doing), the whole PC freezes up and I am forced to reboot it, and it takes that opportunity to install the updates. I'm tempted just to give in and let it have its way with the updates just so that I won't have to fight it anymore! For every good design choice, Microsoft seems have inserted something annoying into Windows 10.

[cdestroyer]

(with tears in my eyes) he he he ,,,ha ha ha,,,,he he he

[tigermn]

Yea now Windows 10 does the updates automatically and you can't really stop them.. Unless you have some special version I think... With previous version of windows you could control the updates.

[boot up]

and its interesting that they can't figure out how to do the updates in the background anymore. Just lock up you computer with a big blue screen and a Trojan looking message with no hint of what is going on. And no choice on your part when it will happen. What kind of idiots are they hiring at MS these days?.....or where is the outsourced coding happening? which is more likely.

[NacMacFeegle]

You can go into the group policy editor to shut updates off, but that only works in the professional edition, and even though I have that edition I am hesitant to dig around in things like GPedit for fear of unintentionally screwing everything up! Here's a fairly complete looking guide to managing and turning off windows updates: http://www.howtogeek.com/224471/how-to-prevent-windows-10-from-automatically-downloading-updates/

[Slugman]

I got the ransom warning today. Since shutting off the computer worked so well for the OP, I did that. No issues so far.

[Joey]

hmmmmm....... Maybe I will get the wife an apple laptop and keep her XP machine so I can use it when my XP machine croaks.

[Bedivere]

Smugly sticking with Win7, thanks.

[contour5]

I've had pretty good luck with my current Mac, a 2009 Mini. Still running the original OS X 10.5 install for the most part, although some websites whine about my ancient version of Firefox. Newer web video formats don't want to play So, occasionally I have to fire up 10.6. which I have installed on an external drive. I also have 10.7 and 10.8 installed but never use them- most of my old graphics software is incompatible beyond 10.6. Every few months the machine politely offers me a free upgrade to 10.9 but I haven't taken the plunge yet. Never installed Windows or Linux either- can't think of a reason for doing so.

[Olympic Hiker]