Disabling Win10 Updates Anniversary Edition

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mda

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Mar 23, 2011
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Hello all,

Is it now still impossible to disable updates on Win10 on a wired connection for Windows10 Home OR Windows10 Pro?

The reason I am asking is because our internet at our workplace (which I manage) does not have a very high bandwidth connection, and several W10 machines downloading updates at the same time will choke the connection. A search yields nothing but maybe some of you more savvy [H]'ers may have done the impossible. ;)

As of right now, I have a few W10 PRO machines that I can set to disable updates by turning off automatic updates in the group policy editor.

Unfortunately, on a test unit running the anniversary update, turning off automatic updates in the group policy editor no longer seems to work.

My only current option seems to be running an un-updated version of Win10 Pro and disabling automatic updates before the thing updates itself to the anniversary edition. We have some computer units coming in that come bundled with Windows 10 Home -- don't want to waste money upgrading to PRO just for this purpose.

As of right now, getting my hands on older copies of Windows (7/8) is not an option, as is running Linux for some of these machines (we already run Ubuntu on most of our machines here at work!)

Thank you for any inputs!
 
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why dont they just update all the machines after hours manually? And be done with it? No reason for each machine to download big files then anyway.
 
Users aren't savvy enough to know when there are updates.

Also, they don't have 2 hours to spend after hours waiting for their computers to install the updates before shutting down.

I am the IT guy around here, so if anyone will be waiting on each and every machine to finish installing updates, it will be me (especially if they are on older computers with spinning drives, it will take ages to update).

There was a time when the updates were still set at auto where we lost about 2-3 hours of productivity for each desktop with Win10 on it due to updates that start installing on boot... I got an earful from that.
 
mda said:
Users aren't savvy enough to know when there are updates.

Also, they don't have 2 hours to spend after hours waiting for their computers to install the updates before shutting down.

I am the IT guy around here, so if anyone will be waiting on each and every machine to finish installing updates, it will be me (especially if they are on older computers with spinning drives, it will take ages to update).
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Overtime right?:woot: lol How many machines?
 
Here is an interesting thread; apparently, after using the group policy editor to configure automatic downloading to "Notify for download and install", the Update Settings window misleadingly says that available updates will be downloaded and installed automatically, when in fact the Notify pop-up comes up instead of the updates downloading or installing automatically.
 
primetime said:
Overtime right?:woot: lol How many machines?
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No OT for me, sadly. Haha. Right now I am dealing with 6 Windows 10 machines, but am looking to add at least 5 more W10 computers within the year.

We are too small for volume licensing and we need to get our copies either the OEM or boxed copy route.

evilsofa said:
Here is an interesting thread; apparently, after using the group policy editor to configure automatic downloading to "Notify for download and install", the Update Settings window misleadingly says that available updates will be downloaded and installed automatically, when in fact the Notify pop-up comes up instead of the updates downloading or installing automatically.
Click to expand...

Will read up on this, and comment again. Thanks!

New Edit: Seems I can do this instead. No workaround for home versions though, as I *believe* I have tried disabling the Windows Update service before. Good info!
 
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Will Microsoft fix that by making the Windows Update properly reflect the policy setting, or will they remove the policy setting because it isn't supposed to be working? Only time will tell...
 
My question is why in god's name did you install Windows 10 in a business environment.
 
DPI said:
My question is why in god's name did you install Windows 10 in a business environment.
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mda said:
As of right now, getting my hands on older copies of Windows (7/8) is not an option, as is running Linux for some of these machines (we already run Ubuntu on most of our machines here at work!)
Click to expand...

To elaborate:

Windows needed. WINE not acceptable.
Windows 7/8 no longer available (lots of counterfeit boxed copies running around in my country, keys bought online even from [H] sellers will be difficult to explain when MS drops by to inspect your computers - having a key but no proof of purchase is just about the same as having a counterfeit for them anyway)
Company too small to use volume licensing
Only surefire option is to buy using MS online store, which only has Windows 10 Home and Pro at the moment

evilsofa said:
Will Microsoft fix that by making the Windows Update properly reflect the policy setting, or will they remove the policy setting because it isn't supposed to be working? Only time will tell...
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Hopefully it will remain as is, but as of present I will need to just stick with unupgraded/straight-from-the-installer versions of Win10 Pro. Only time will tell if this screws up anything else... =/

Edit: Got my hands on one of the Win10 Laptops we recently ordered in. NOTHING short of a (converted) $1200+USD laptop in this country comes with Windows 10 Pro, so naturally, we got Windows 10 Home on it. Will try disabling Windows Update in the services and will checking to see if it will force update tomorrow.
 
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Just to update. Seems that disabling the Windows Update service works even on Win10 Home, running the Anniversary Update. Updates now disabled, and attempting to manually check for updates results in an error. I am hoping it stays this way.

If this is indeed the case, not sure why this method hasn't been more publicized.
 
mda said:
Just to update. Seems that disabling the Windows Update service works even on Win10 Home, running the Anniversary Update. Updates now disabled, and attempting to manually check for updates results in an error. I am hoping it stays this way.

If this is indeed the case, not sure why this method hasn't been more publicized.
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IIRC MS can still push forced updates to your computer even if you disable the service.
 
That sucks :|

Will set up another laptop with the Windows Update Service turned off (no anniversary update) and will run these two for about a week to see if they phone MS for an update by themselves.

Thanks for the info!
 
Can you really afford to disable updates in a corporate environment? Sounds even riskier than letting MS patch it.

You could set up an automatic imaging system to snapshot the systems (to recover if MS does something bad) and have users store their data on a network share or non-os partition (which I always set up personally).
 
We're more of a small business, but with terrible internet in our country. Internet is both slow AND expensive. We are on a approx 100$ / month 4mbps DSL connection. Any higher bandwidth and we're looking at a relatively large jump in cost.

With faster internet and assuming this doesn't break any of our inhouse applications, I'd rather leave the updates on. But I can't afford to have computers randomly saturating a 4mbps connection whenever they feel like it, AND locking out the user either late at night or early in the morning when they come in with a 2 hour update process.
 
Doesn't Windows have it's peer-to-peer update component, which is supposed to be exactly for scenarios like this. So long as you disable global seeding, and allow LAN connections (I can't recall what the option is called off hand) - it should be a lot better than what is going on now
 
mda said:
We're more of a small business, but with terrible internet in our country. Internet is both slow AND expensive. We are on a approx 100$ / month 4mbps DSL connection. Any higher bandwidth and we're looking at a relatively large jump in cost.

With faster internet and assuming this doesn't break any of our inhouse applications, I'd rather leave the updates on. But I can't afford to have computers randomly saturating a 4mbps connection whenever they feel like it, AND locking out the user either late at night or early in the morning when they come in with a 2 hour update process.
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Then add a server, put WSUS on it, and set a bandwidth limit for the downloads on that server. It trickles in the updates, your boxes stay patched.
 
To prevent Windows Update from downloading anything at all you can also set a network adapter to metered (there's a trick to do it with wired connections). But I think it will be a pain to manage this with multiple machines since you will want to turn it back on sometimes. Well maybe not that bad with scripts and stuff in a small environment but still.

At least with this method you can be 100% sure Windows won't download any update, ever (that includes updates for the store apps too).

edit : apparently it will still download "priority updates", well damn I really do miss the simplicity of win 7/XP sometimes although I can understand the idea behind the changes in win 10 for the average joe.
 
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Brian_B said:
Doesn't Windows have it's peer-to-peer update component, which is supposed to be exactly for scenarios like this. So long as you disable global seeding, and allow LAN connections (I can't recall what the option is called off hand) - it should be a lot better than what is going on now
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Thanks for this info. It does, and I was checking this yesterday. However, a quick test over the network (viewed from our router) still showed Windows pulling data from the internet.

No real way to block it and tell it to ONLY download from the network.

Tawnos said:
Then add a server, put WSUS on it, and set a bandwidth limit for the downloads on that server. It trickles in the updates, your boxes stay patched.
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Thank you! Will look into this, but will first need to check out free alternatives before shelling out cash.

kalston said:
To prevent Windows Update from downloading anything at all you can also set a network adapter to metered (there's a trick to do it with wired connections). But I think it will be a pain to manage this with multiple machines since you will want to turn it back on sometimes. Well maybe not that bad with scripts and stuff in a small environment but still.

At least with this method you can be 100% sure Windows won't download any update, ever (that includes updates for the store apps too).

edit : apparently it will still download "priority updates", well damn I really do miss the simplicity of win 7/XP sometimes although I can understand the idea behind the changes in win 10 for the average joe.
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I think I saw this a bit of a wile back but I will read up on the trick on how to do this with wired connections.

Thanks. Didn't know it would still download "priority" updates though. There doesn't seem to be any good solid info about this whole update thing on the net.
 
Seriously, any of you fucks work at M$? Who's seriously thinking these changes are actually good? 15 new features in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update Hey Nancy can you prepare a document for me? Um maybe? Give me a minute I can't find shit anymore. Thanks Microsoft. It's like a bold change to avoid a streamlined interface and make it look like a cluttered to shit iphone or android device. It's absolute garbage. I can't believe how well Linux is looking for a business right now, it's seriously amazing how unprofessional the interface has become. It's like asking a couple of 14 year old girls to design it.
 
I don't work at M$, wherever that is. Oh, Microsoft? Yeah, I'm here, as are others. Do you care to express something cogent, like what you mean about not being able find things?
 
Tawnos said:
I don't work at M$, wherever that is. Oh, Microsoft? Yeah, I'm here, as are others. Do you care to express something cogent, like what you mean about not being able find things?
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Windows 10 is really just going to be an ongoing beta test isn't it? It's what it feels like. If you think I'm off my rocker just think to yourself who puts the button to find all your programs below the power button...... How does that make sense, it's like this convo
 
Did you read your own link? Did you see the opinion expressed in the paragraph header ("A more confusing start menu") and not bother reading the rest?


SpongeBob said:
who puts the button to find all your programs below the power button......
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The link you posted:

SpongeBob's link said:
There's no longer an "All apps" menu. Instead, all of your installed apps appear in a list on the left side of the Start menu.
Click to expand...
 
To top it all off, the windows10 update update style is getting applied to 7 and 8.1

No more blocking individual updates, or removing one that conflicts. Cumulative updates for everyone!
 
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