Microsoft 10 is now categorized as a Recommended Update

Microsoft 10 is now categorized as a "Recommended Update."

This is significant, because it means that systems that are configured to download and install recommended updates—which for most people is the safest option—will automatically fetch the upgrade and start its installer. The installer will still require human intervention to actually complete—you won't wake up to find your PC with a different operating system—but Windows users will no longer need to actively seek the upgrade.

“As we shared in late October on the Windows Blog, we are committed to making it easy for our Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 customers to upgrade to Windows 10. We updated the upgrade experience today to help our customers, who previously reserved their upgrade, schedule a time for their upgrade to take place,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Venture Beat.

The change means that anyone using Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 that has automatic updates activated with recommended updates automatically selected will have Windows 10 downloaded without requesting it.

Microsoft has stressed that users will have a say on whether or not they want Windows 10 installed; it isn’t a mandatory update and users will be able to stop the install process. There will also be a 30 day period where users can roll back to the previous version of Windows.

Microsoft aims to have Windows 10 installed on 1 billion devices over the next two or three years, and the company is doing everything it can to increase uptake. The OS recently passed Windows 8.1 and Windows XP to become the second most-used operating system in the world.