Confirming the Wushowhide technique for blocking forced Win10 updates

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I have a comment from ch100 that I wanted to elevate to its own post. He says: Woody is right! I did the test in a ‘controlled’ environment using the
[See the full post at: Confirming the Wushowhide technique for blocking forced Win10 updates]

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I’m running the Tech Preview. Usually I log in and go immediately to Windows Update and search for updates (on my time table). Lately (past several builds) I’ve noticed that frequently the “circle” spins for a while before the desktop comes up. If I immediately go to Windows Update, I find that it is already searching for updates (the ….. is going across). This may pose a timing problem for catching the update to disable it – possibly could be stopped by disabling WU, re-enabling after login then immediately running wushowhide). This may also confirm that there is a task running to automatically search for updates.

All this is way over the heads of the general public. Only computer savvy people benefit. And I’m hearing lots of dissatisfied feedback from users that have been forced or have elected to update.

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I believe that Windows Update runs every time Windows starts, every time a new user logs on to a machine, and overnight.

Still haven’t found the triggers for all of that, though.

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Woody, thank you for elevating my earlier post in another thread which as I understand now is relevant for what was requested earlier in relation to testing.
Just elaborating on the previous post in relation to blocking Windows Update in ways that do not impact other functionality and is fully supported by Microsoft at least on Pro and Enterprise.
Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise and the less known version Enterprise LTSB come with the Local Group Policy Editor. This can be invoked by either searching for it with Cortana or using the command line gpedit.msc. It is the same like in previous editions. It may generate an error when opened which was introduced in 1511 if upgrading from 10240 and can be safely ignored. This can be fixed by doing some manual editing although I am not getting into details here as it can break the policy editor if not done correctly.
The relevant setting is under Computer ConfigurationAdministrative TemplatesWindows ComponentsWindows Update – Configure Automatic Updates.
What is entirely new is that the Never Check for Updates setting is missing, but this configuration is available by setting Configure Automatic Updates to Disabled. After that, I think Check for Updates in the Windows Update app needs to be clicked once to apply the setting for a reason which I don’t understand yet and it must have something to do with the way Universal Apps work.
The equivalent registry key set by the local policy is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdateAU NoAutoUpdate DWORD 1.
In theory this should work on Home Edition where the Local Group Policy Editor is not available but I am not able to confirm as I am not a user of that edition.
The manual Windows Update from Microsoft is not blocked, only the Automatic behaviour. However, please be aware that when new updates are discovered even when scanning manually, they tend to be installed and applied without further approval. Sure wushowhide can play a role into this behaviour as discussed before.
Being here, I think I discovered a bug in one of the policy settings which while not critical should work nevertheless. It is about Automatic Updates Detection Frequency which I tend to set to 1 hour for testing, however while this works in any previous version of Windows, it does not work correctly in Windows 10 and the documentation says that it should.

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I think that behaviour is configured by default by the tasks found under Task Scheduler (Local)Task Scheduler LibraryMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdate. The important ones are Automatic App Update for the Store updates and Scheduled Start for patches update.

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I think you and Noel are on to a safe solution – but I’ll repeat the question I asked him:

I’ve looked all over. I find plenty of documentation about that group policy setting in Win7, 8 and 8.1. But I don’t see anything official for Win10. Have you seen anything?

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I noticed after posting. It is an overlapping of solutions with Noel. I replied there about the doco, I think the most up to date is the description found on the left when clicking on each policy.

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I need all the confirmation I can get. What I’m looking at is a recommendation that will have me fried, drawn and quartered (probably simultaneously) in Redmond. Need to make very, very sure I have the details right before making the next step.

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@woody Using Group Policy Editor is fully supported, no doubt about it. In general any GUI interface is fully supported, although damage to the system can be done using GUI interfaces too.
However Microsoft does not recommend or support direct editing of the Registry, unless this is done under their direction or in one of their official documents, blogs and so on and even then with reservations and disclaimers. This makes the solution for the users of Home Edition which require direct editing of the Registry unsupported.

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I can’t say I’ve seen any explicit documentation, but I CAN say I’ve tested this strategy for quite a long time now.

-Noel

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Just for completeness, note that there is a WOW6432Node subkey that also is set by gpedit on a 64 bit system. Specifically:

HKLMSOFTWAREWOW6432NodePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdateAU

The same value, NoAutoUpdate, shows up there as well.

-Noel

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Wow! I sure hope no one is at this stage recommending anything along these lines to a general population of non-technical Windows 10 users of any edition.

My eyes got dizzy trying to follow this thread and the Carboni Method here and beyond in other posts at AskWoody.

If even I can’t follow these instructions, what chance does the average Windows 10 user stand of following these instructions correctly?

Remember, if anyone messes up the Home or Pro editions, we pay our local technicians (at the Microsoft Store) $49.00 to reinstall Windows 10 on our devices, and we may lose data in the process.

I’d still like to know if wushowhide can allow me to select only the March Flash Player Update for Win 10 Pro, without downloading the CU for this month?

Instead of dangerous gpedit and regedit procedures, why not use wushowhide with a Metered Connection, opening the connection only when wushowhide has got its job done? Or does this still result in installing all Win 10 updates at the first opening of the connection to let wushowhide do its job?

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That is the preferable approach – Metered Connections are easy, fast and (as best I can tell) foolproof.

Unfortunately, Metered Connections don’t work on hardwired internet connections. Thus, the more convoluted methods.

Nope, there’s no way to separate out the Flash Player update from the entire mish-mash of CUs. You either get the CU, or you don’t get diddly. I don’t know if MS will ever see the light.

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Waittaminut…

Just saw this link from Reddit:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-networking/how-to-set-an-ethernet-connection-as-metered-to/ecdaca08-d413-4a6a-9e33-b4afb337fc18?auth=1

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Back up your registry first!

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Absolutely correct and setting both keys is the correct Registry implementation. I missed it probably for the reason that the binaries that matter are all 64-bit and the WOW6432Node key is not applied in this instance.
But yes, the correct implementation is to set both Registry locations if editing Registry manually is the choice. This is mostly the case for the Home Edition where there is no other choice.
Thank you Noel.

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There is always a way, but it is even more dangerous than editing Group Policies which are fully supported.
I think rc primak is right in saying that it is all too complicated.
As I see it, this thread is not meant to provide any recommendations, only to collect information from volunteering testers to find out if there are alternatives to the already known methods.
The InfoWorld articles come closer to providing recommendations, although still complicated for most end users who are primarily interested in using their PC as a productivity tool.
Windows 10 is still a highly experimental Operating System and as I see it, only after the first year when the ‘free’ upgrade grace period will be over we will see something more ready to be utilised by everyone in the same way Windows 7 is today or better said it was after SP1.
We are already at the equivalent of Windows 10 SP1 with 1511, there will be a soon to be released future major upgrade codenamed Redstone which will be SP2 like.
My prediction is that Windows 10 will be fully ready when the equivalent server version named Windows Server 2016 will be released. At this stage the server at Technical Preview 4 is updated in parallel with Windows 10 which makes Windows 10 look still like a Technical Preview to me.

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Yes, from my perspective, it’s all about gathering info at this point. Once I’ve figured out what in the Sam Hill is going on, I’ll try to make it understandable to normal people. Like me….

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Not sure if anyone trying to figure out what is going on behind the scenes in Windows 10 is too ‘normal’

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Well, they dohave the update in the Microsoft Updates Catalog.

No help for Edge users, but as long as IE 11 is still alive and kicking…

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Oooh! I don’t like changing Permissions on a Protected Registry Key, and then typing a lot of DWORDS and HEX Codes in there!

Maybe if this works, it can be added to some third-party utility or suite of utilities for the rest of us to use? (Hello, Glary Utilities!) A simple button to add or remove this setting could work wonders for those on hard-wired connections.

Maybe someone here could try this out and report after a few months whether it works, and whether it survives a CU update or two.

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