I don't believe this. That article nor the article it links did not state that Windows forced the install at any point.
Rather the Washington Times article states that: "The company denies wrongdoing, and a spokeswoman said Microsoft halted its appeal to avoid the expense of further litigation."
And: "Microsoft says it offers users a choice to update, not a requirement. People have to acknowledge a dialogue box before the installation, and agree to a license agreement afterward, to receive Windows 10, the company says."
I've experienced the process on multiple PCs starting from day 1 when Microsoft started the campaign at it never _forced_ me to install. Specifically, the Close button never started the installation. There _always_ was a specific button to accept the start of the installation.
An anecdata point for the "did force" - what it did to me was schedule the upgrade for a specific time, and the dialog let me know that's when it was scheduled. You had to change the scheduled time to "do not upgrade" to avoid the upgrade; simply closing the dialog left the scheduled update in place.
I had the same experience -- I have numerous PCs and no evidence of any attempt at a forced installation. Not even on my wife's PC, and she's as non-technical as people get.
I've generally assumed that people either don't actually read what's in front of their faces (probably pretty common among the non-computerate), or don't understand what they read (ditto), or they panic and do something stupid. Of course, I have no evidence for any of these assumptions in Windows 10's case, but I've seen them in other situations.
I know people who apparently can't tell the difference between an operating system, a web browser and an email service -- or else they just don't have the vocabulary to express such distinctions. It takes some time to find out what they've actually done, and why. The idea that they know which party is at fault is generally not one that fits reality.
Note: this is not a defense of "dark patterns" or whatever. I'd assume Microsoft has a good idea of the technical level of much of its audience, and that it should therefore have been extra extra careful to communicate the Windows 10 upgrade in a far clearer manner than it did.
All the drive-by installs bundled into freeware/floss installers is enough proof that people don't read... I had to stop my mom mid-install after she clicked next pretty quickly, back before she had a chromebook... It was only chance that I was there with her... She almost installed 3 drive-bys with the one app she actually wanted... until switching one of my grandmothers to a chromebook, I'd have to remotely clean all the crap off her PC remotely twice a year... that wasn't at all fun.
I entirely believe there's a lot of people that just click on everything that comes up.
Rather the Washington Times article states that: "The company denies wrongdoing, and a spokeswoman said Microsoft halted its appeal to avoid the expense of further litigation."
And: "Microsoft says it offers users a choice to update, not a requirement. People have to acknowledge a dialogue box before the installation, and agree to a license agreement afterward, to receive Windows 10, the company says."
I've experienced the process on multiple PCs starting from day 1 when Microsoft started the campaign at it never _forced_ me to install. Specifically, the Close button never started the installation. There _always_ was a specific button to accept the start of the installation.