There are some things in life that are really obnoxious and annoying.

Car dealer commercials.
A dog that's left outside and barks for hours on end early in the morning or late at night.
Politicians who will promise anything to get elected.
Computerized telemarketing calls on your cell phone.
People who make an appointment then don't show up and don't call.
People who feel entitled.

And last but not least - the Get Windows 10 nag icon in the bottom right corner of Windows 7 and Windows 8 computers.

 

When Windows 10 was first made publicly available at the end of July, I made it very clear more than a month ahead of time that my recommendation was to NOT upgrade yet. I know some people who went ahead and got Windows 10. Some are okay with it, and I've talked to many people who have regretted the decision to "upgrade". Some of my clients even purchased brand new computers with Windows 10 already installed, and ended up sending them back to the manufacturer (in this case, Dell) for a refund.

And now, each week I get the question - "Is it safe to upgrade to Windows 10 yet?" And my recommendation is still the same: not yet. When will I recommend you upgrade to Windows 10? I don't know.

One thing I do know is this. Microsoft has been extremely and obnoxiously aggressive in pushing Windows 10 down the throats of Windows computer users. In some cases, they included it in a Windows Update and computers were upgraded to Windows 10 even without the permission of the user. Lots of Windows computers have already downloaded (silently, in the background) the Win10 installation files and folders so that all it takes is a click from an unknowing user, and the installation begins. Even if it doesn't get installed, that download takes up several gigabytes of space on the computer's hard drive.

When this first started happening, I found a way to fix it on my client's computers. I would just go into the Windows folder on their computer, and rename the GWX (for Get Windows 10) folder to something else. With the folder showing a different name, the upgrade app and icon was not able to run automatically when you turned on the computer, so the icon would not be displayed.

Unfortunately, Microsoft caught on to that pretty quickly. Soon Windows got another update and the folder was renamed to the original name, and that icon started popping up again.

Well now we have a more permanent solution, and you can do this on your own.

A software developer in Portland, Oregon has created a small program that solves this problem, and he has made it available for free. It's called GWX Control Panel.

There are a couple of ways you can get this program:

You can go to the website ultimateoutsider.com and click on "Software", and you'll see GWX control panel listed as one of the programs available for download. If you want to read about the program itself, what it does, and all of those details, you can do that at the website.
The other option is to just use a shortcut I created - ComputerTutorFlorida.com/gwx - as a direct link to download the program. That link takes you to a Dropbox file, so you can just click "Download", and then run it to install.

You can run the installation file and just leave everything as default - it won't try to sneak anything in with it. When it's done and you run the program, you'll first see the Agreement window:

 

After that you'll see the main program window. This is what mine looks like now, since I have already installed and run it. For most people, the first time you run it, the answers to the questions will be "Yes".

 

While it may look like a lot of items to contend with here, it's really this simple: the first 2 wide buttons near the bot...