The Enterprise version allows controlled updates, but at seriously more cost per seat. Enterprise has never been part of the free upgrade offer.

Ah! Had that back in November. Made a total mess of the Laptop, was OK on the PC - but destroyed all remote setting between both. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The "Microsoft Way"

A useful article:

How Windows 10’s “Builds” Are Different From Service Packs

[howtogeek.com ]

So far the machine seems to have maintained most of my settings but I used to have the laptop/tablet (all in 1) set to auto-login after I initially provided the password and that's no longer working. It's back to asking the password each time the screen goes off. Seems like my screen timeout, screen saver and some other properties were also lost in the shuffle which is minimal collateral damage but iso core and simple it's really nexcusable IMO.

I'm sure I'll find more stuff as I plod along, but so far just lost a few settings.

I have noticed all machines are slower following the update. In addition, Win 8.1 machines are more noticeably slower, too.

Is Microsoft now out of its depth?

A few new telemetry backdoors are included in the new update. More data being reported real time to MS, and we haven't found them all yet. These are slowing some connections down, marginal, but measurable. Because Win8x was that close to Win10 in the first place, those machines will be affected as well. More later, when investigation is further along. BTW, no conspiracy here... after all, installing Win10 means you read and understood the Win10 EULA, right?

Review your Settings/Privacy

I had to change some again to OFF

Dec 15, 2015 12:15 PM - Microsoft has pulled an update to Windows 10 after users reported a wide variety of issues with the upgrade process, according to a post on the company's Answers technical support forum.

The patch, which was the first cumulative update Microsoft made to its mobile operating system after launching it, has been pulled from public update channels, moderator Mike Mongeau said.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3015507/microsoft-pulls-windows-10-mobile-update-after-users-hit-snags.html [pcworld.com]

Surprised nobody else has even mentioned it because I was shocked to see my machine doing such a big update without so much as a warning before installing, nothing, it just installed.

You didn't look very far!

[webmasterworld.com...]

Forewarning!

Another Win 10 update ... It's been a couple of days since I last used my Win 10 tablet, and I have to say it was working well, but tonight I struck it up, went to where I wanted to be and ... LOCKED UP, again, yet another big update:

Win 10 Version 1511 (KB3116900)
Plus a couple of other minor things

AGAIN I was locked out of my tablet, honestly this is ridiculous and makes my usage of this tablet pointless and thanks heavens I've removed this so-called OS off everything I own or have to look after.

I am so surprised that seemingly no one else, apart from iBill, has had any issues.

If your system (table, pc, etc) is on daily, and for hours at a time, these updates will come through in smaller chunks. There appears to be an assumption on MS's side that we keep these devices running 24/7.

Both my Win10 computer and my Win 10 Surface tablet/netbook (or whatever it's supposed to be) are on 24/7. They updated without me noticing.

I thought you could pick a time for these updates to take place?

You could for the upgrade but the updates are automatic AFAIK.

There appears to be an assumption on MS's side that we keep these devices running 24/7.

Mr Micro$oft always assumes the restart/update on the Laptop will take place at 3:30 am. Oh Duh?

I honestly believe these people at M$ live in another universe. If you look at their replies across the Insider or other forums, from the replies, they all too often seem to be divorced from reality.

In early days of Windows 10 testing, the link they gave me to remedying one problem was to an unrelated page about Win 7. Others with the same problem also pointed out the error. They just kept regurgitating the same link, no matter what we said.

It took another contributor to provide a proper link days later. Real head slapping stuff.

Surprised nobody else has even mentioned it because I was shocked to see my machine doing such a big update without so much as a warning before installing, nothing, it just installed.

This may or may not be a thing, but a few months ago I was hearing rumors that one day we were all going to wake up and find Windows 10 installed on all of our machines, even though we never asked for it.
That Microsoft was going to be upgrading incrementally, until one day, there would be a full version of 10 just waiting to start after a reboot.

I set up this snappy little hp mini notebook with Windows 7 Pro, and here it sits, always on, for about the past 3 weeks. Oddly enough it seems, there has been an update or two every single day for the past 10 days. Poking around on the back end and I'm not finding the so-called updates by any name that I can see .. all that are there are your standard .NET Framework stuff from back in early December.

My wife has Windows 10 on an older machine (we don't install windows on anything new) only because she needs to use Office 365 for her school remotely .. Whenever it updated, I made her go back in and check the privacy settings, because Microsoft "does" reset some of them to the default setting during updates. (Facebook does the same sort of crap with privacy settings - I guess it's a thing now to ignore the wishes of the end user)

At any rate, I'll keep this little notebook close by -- If Microsoft doesn't end up forcing the upgrade, then it's no big deal -- But in the case that Microsoft does force the upgrade, I want to be there to see it as it happens -

Today someone has brought me an 8.1 laptop to update to 10, understandably they hate 8.1.

I have the original Win10 ISO from a few months back, rather than let the laptop update OTA, I intend using the ISO and then let it update with the new update mentioned here.

Any opinions, is this the right way to do it or should I simply let it go with OTA?

I've checked around on the Net and it's not at all clear, maybe it's designed that way?

Be aware it can be prone to destroying settings, programs etc. Backup whatever is necessary. Create a restore 8.1 disk as well.

It will at some point ditch the existing video drivers, and hopefully install newer ones, don't panic if you have a prolonged period of "Back Screen of Death".

Laptops, by their nature take much longer than Desktops to upgrade.

All FWIW.

[ADDED] On reflection, I'd personally go OTA.

That seems to have gone very sweetly with everything working correctly at the moment and supposedly completely up-to-date, I'll check it again tomorrow to see if anything's untowards!

As I posted in one of the other Win10 threads I feel that more recent Win 8 machines are probably ok for 10 however my older 7s certainly did not like it.

FWIW this upgrade seems to be ok however trying to find some files and folders is very difficult and not very intuitive at all but it is certainly very quick.

With the problems people have been reporting i have been updating the machines here one by one.
I updated an 8.1 laptop with an OTA update and had no issues. In fact, I was expecting problems but was pleasantly surprised. Update time was about 1 hour. I'm just about to update an 8.1 desktop tomorrow and I'm hoping it'll go as smoothly.

Good luck Redbar

Everything seems fine, all programmes running as designed, it's certainly working much better than when I installed it on my Win7 laptops and desktop, this I could easily live with ... at the moment:-)

How long did it take, and did you have a prolonged period of "Back Screen of Death"?

No Black Screen of Death like I had with my attempted Win 7 machines, very, very smooth, the laptop was seemingly designed for Win 10.

I didn't rush it since it was working in the background behind me. The initial upgrade was probably just under two hours, I ensured everything was working as supposed to then went for the second upgrade which was completed in under the hour ... After adding various programmes the owner required plus antivirus and malware plus their initial scans, about another hour or so.

In all a minimum 4-5 hours to decide I was happy, I left it overnight, struck it up again and, quite simply, it worked very nicely indeed.

Lucky owner, they bought an A1 refubished machine, this thing hadn't even been used, a catalogue return I reckon, and for half new price they're flying:-)