News JVTech Windows 10: if you’re unlucky, Microsoft forces you to pay 99€ to use it
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If you’re still on Windows 10, you might run into a big problem: Microsoft is forcing you to enter your credit card details to continue using the operating system. It is unlikely that this will happen to you, we explain.
Windows 10, still a clear majority
Microsoft seems determined to move as many people as possible to the latest version of the most widely used computer operating system in the world. But the reality is that millions of people still remain attached to Windows 10. The transition is still taking place, with a share of 18% of PCs currently on Windows 11 since its launch in October 2021, for a drop in PC shares on Windows 10 from 84% to 68% from December 2021 to December 2022.
No matter which version you use, Microsoft continues its quest to push users to get their Microsoft 365 service. This is the new name for the Office suite that we know well, with great classics like Word, PowerPoint , without forgetting Excel of course. The American company is not stupid: with hundreds of millions of devices in circulation, they represent an ideal medium to promote their own Microsoft 365 service for free, via a window appearing on Windows PCs.
A Windows 10 bug, and not the least
Even though Windows 11 has been out for over a year, Microsoft continues as usual to deploy updates for previous versions. So, in October 2022, a new Windows 10 patch called 2H22 began to be released with its small batch of software improvements, bug fixes and security updates. But some users have a problem.
This Microsoft 365 promotion window takes up the whole screen, and is intended to offer a free trial of the service. This page has been around since 2018. Its recurrence may already annoy some people, but that’s not the real problem. Unable to close the window, only two options are available to you: accept the free trial or refuse. Except thatdue to a bug, even when we click on “No thanks”, a page appears and asks us to enter our bank information to start the free trial period.
It is in particular
u/whatsurissuebro, a Reddit user who shows us his misadventure in a video. He wants to refuse the offer, but Microsoft does not seem to agree and pushes him to type in his credit card code. The only solution he found was to hunker down and enter his card information, start the free trial, and finally be freed from this page. The Microsoft 365 subscription costs 99 euros, but don’t worry, the user was then able to cancel the trial period so that they didn’t have to pay anything.
While there is a solution to this problem, it’s far from ideal, especially when you’re dealing with an impossible-to-dodge page and need your computer to work. According to one user in the comments, CTRL+SHIFT+F3 shortcut would allow to circumvent this very unfortunate bug, but we could not verify it by ourselves.
