Re: Something Missing
"what's new?" Microsoft interns are failing to hush-up the problem now that Win 10 has been released to the public, would be my guess.
Win 10 insiders have been reporting this exact issue at least at the time of release if not earlier, along with frustrations and queries about whether MS will download things regardless, how to ensure it doesn't get downloaded etc. It's okay if you missed that or were unable to find such reports with a search, because their forum is an absolute nightmare to navigate, and a search with Google just brings back articles like this one now.
I have found a thread with some more recent posts (early August) that claim to have experienced this issue (scroll down to august posts): http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-update/will-microsoft-seek-permission-before-downloading/137b2c7d-5c08-43ad-ab44-75b0ebae9357
Canadian Tech's posts in these threads indicate that yes, unwanted download of Win 10 files is a thing that is happening:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-update/how-to-stop-windows-10-upgrade-from-downloading/c03b556d-ba87-425a-8359-f93cde7b61c3
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-update/how-do-i-stop-windows-10-installing-on-my-computer/cdb3d4a0-4399-4a59-962f-37372607679a?page=1
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-update/update-says-its-downloading-windows-10-setup-files/4734e8b7-43aa-414a-b03b-4c3e00815ad8
And then there is this thread from a few weeks ago:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/win-10-download-issue/167c447e-12a7-4036-9e78-7362c34cb8f3
I don't have a link since I haven't found the thread again, but one Win 10 insider reported the 3GB update being downloaded on their non-reserved machines, as well as the machine they had explicitly reserved. My dad's been a Win 10 insider since last year and has been following the problems on the official MS forum as well as others, and has told me of several instances of insider reporting the download occurring despite Win 10 not being reserved on the machine. These include "horror stories" of people on limited connections finding suddenly they've gone massively over their cap, have had to fork out money to their service provider due to that, and found this Win 10 download was the culprit.
Even if it wasn't being downloaded regardless of reservation status, there are more than enough complaints from insiders and regular users about the persistent "upgraded to Win 10" updates, that show that Microsoft is all but taking control and forcing Windows users to upgrade despite what the users want. And even if the update being downloaded because one of the previously persistent updates escaped a user's notice, this is still not on. A download of that size should not be happening without the user's explicit consent, especially if it's one that will want to install and potentially fuck up the user's system.