Microsoft’s Getting a Lot Less Intrusive with Windows 10 Upgrade Notifications

Microsoft could bring another end-of-support notification to Windows 10 devices, but this time, it looks like the company has learned a lot from its past mistakes and the approach it’s going to use would be a lot less intrusive.

More specifically, the warning that the company plans to use would be displayed in the Windows Update screen in the Settings app, as discovered recently, so no new notification would show up all of a sudden on the desktop.

“Your version of Windows 10 has reached the end of support. By updating to a newer version of Windows 10, your device will continue to receive important quality updates,” the message reads.

Past upgrade notifications

Previously, Microsoft used more aggressive approaches to convince users to upgrade.

Back in 2015 when Windows 10 was still a new operating system, the company turned to an application called Get Windows 10, or GWX, which was automatically installed on Windows 7 devices as an update shipped through Windows Update. The app, which displayed upgrade notifications right on the desktop, was also responsible for downloading the necessary files and initiating the upgrade process to Windows 10.

In many cases, however, users complaining that the whole upgrade was performed without their consent, so their devices ended up running Windows 10 all of a sudden overnight.

More recently, Microsoft started displaying end of support notifications on Windows 7 devices, again with an app activated with an automatic update. This time, however, Microsoft used a less intrusive approach and users were allowed to block the notification from showing up again with an option that was offered right within the app.

The next version of Windows 10 is 2004, and it’s supposed to go live for production devices at some point this spring. This is the moment when the end of support notification in Windows Update could show up for everyone running a retired version of Windows 10.