Tasks for the Weekend – January 30, 2021

Youtube video here

If you are still running Windows 10 1909 I’m recommending that you move onto 2004 or 20H2.  I’ve been running both platforms both at home and now at the office and have not seen major issues. Microsoft is working on the next release and one of the things I recommend to do is to push off feature releases until a time that you have time and patience to deal with any side effects.  While MOST of the time there are little to zero issues with installing a feature release on a consumer or home computer, but it still takes your machine out of commission for a short time. At the office every feature release means that I have to repair the Lacerte/QuickBooks pdf printer driver as that is impacted and I can no longer generate emailed PDFs from the tax software that is installed until I repair the issue. Fortunately it’s easily fixable, but it’s more of an inconvenience I don’t want to deal with during busy season. Therefore, I don’t want feature releases installed during the months January through April 15 (the traditional tax season in the United States). In the past I would use the deferral setting and push off feature releases for 365 days. I no longer recommend using this setting. I now prefer a setting called Targetreleaseversion. You’ll often see the setting mentioned as “TRV” on posts in the forums.

Here’s how to set this:

If you have Windows 10 Professional and 2004, you can actually see this setting in the local group policy editor settings.  Open the local group policy editor, then browse to   Computer Configuration, then to Administrative Templates then to Windows Components then to Windows Update then to Windows Update for Business.  You’ll want to double click or tap on the Select the target Feature Update version policy to edit it.  Set it to enabled and the enter in the feature release version you want your machine to be offered. If you are on 2004 and want to stay on 2004, enter 2004.  If you are on 2004 and want to be offered 20H2 and no MORE THAN 20H2, even when the next version comes out, put in 20H2.  You won’t be offered any higher version that what you enter.

For Windows 10 Home you can use the registry key method to set the value you want.  You’ll want add the TargetReleaseVersion with a dword value of 1 and then set the TargetReleaseVersionInfo (see in the video how this looks on the machine itself).  It’s easier to download a prebuilt reg file and just add it to your computer.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]

“TargetReleaseVersion”=dword:00000001

“TargetReleaseVersionInfo”=”2004”

The code above would set the registry value to 2004.  You can download this 2004 version here.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]

“TargetReleaseVersion”=dword:00000001

“TargetReleaseVersionInfo”=”20H2”

Would set the registry value to 20H2.  You can download this 20H2 version here.

To undo either of those registry settings, you can “blank out” the info but using another registry file.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]

“TargetReleaseVersion”=-

“TargetReleaseVersionInfo”=-

Using this reg file will reset it and remove the settings if you want to reset the values back.

If you want (or need) to stay on 1909 at this time, you can use this registry key download which will set the value to 1909.

Merely click on these registry files and download them to your computer. Double click on the file to have it merge into your computer. You will get a User account control prompt, click yes to approve the install on your computer.

To do this manually editing your registry keys do the following:  Click on the search box and type in run. Type in regedit and click OK to enter the registry. Drill down to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate

In the right hand side pane, if the info is not there in the window you will have to manually add the information. Add the value of TargetReleaseVersion with a Dword of 1. Then add on TargetReleaseVersionInfo string value (REG_SZ) and again pick the feature release version you want to be on.  Again type in 2004 if you want 2004 and no later. 20H2 for that version and no later. Click OK.

Last but not least, you can use the batch file from the Tenforums site. But be aware that in order to use that batch file you have to click through quite a bit warnings and smartscreen prompts so this final batch file version is a bit scarier than the other methods.  Personally I think the reg file method might be the easiest to do.

I hope that helps to make it easier to set this value on your machines?