MS has some of the best software testing processes in the software world, but the increasing complexity of their environment is making it harder and harder to get it 100% right.

Right. This isn't the B&D Apple environment, or the relatively limited range of cell phones and tablets.

This is the open "PC clone" environment, where many, many combinations of issues are possible and cannot all be tested. This is the primary reason why the forced/cumulative update approach cannot be used with Windows. People don't complain about having updates shoved down their throats for iPhones and such because it works there. It doesn't work here, and it can never work here. It's not because MS are a bunch of screw-ups; it's because the task is far more complex in this setting.

I think they're in serious danger of completely trashing the good will and, for lack of a better term, "trust", that they've built up among most of their non-techie customers if they don't reverse this soon.

Ken