Woody’s Win10Tip: Block forced updates in Windows 10

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“They” said it couldn’t be done, but it can. If you have Windows 10, there’s a straightforward set of steps you can take to turn off Automatic Updates
[See the full post at: Woody’s Win10Tip: Block forced updates in Windows 10]

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How did it become much more difficult with the Anniversary Update?

You don’t need to use “Manage known networks”; you can click your Wi-Fi connection to set it as metered.

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OIC. Instead of going through Start > Settings > Network & Internet > Wi-Fi, you can just click the Notification/Action Center icon, click Network, then click on the current network, then click Properties. The slider’s the same. Does that work on 1511, too? (I don’t have a 1511 machine hooked up with a Wi-Fi connection.)

With builds 1507 and 1511, there’s a single group policy entry called Configure Automatic Update; click Disabled, and updates are blocked (Step 3B). With 1607, you have to go deeper and set a date countdown (Step 3E). In 1507 and 1511, you can turn Auto Update to “never,” much as you could with Win7 and 8.1. With 1607, you can only delay by 30 days.

There’s an additional problem – one that we hit in the early days of “Get Windows 10.” The method in this Tip relies on settings documented in GPEdit. The documentation may not be correct, and/or Microsoft may change its mind on how the settings are interpreted.

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But there is still an option in GPEdit to “Configure Automatic Updates” in 1607. And you can set it to disabled, in the same way that you could with 1511. And it appears to work, too (I haven’t had any updates forced on me since I installed Win10 last month).

There is also a setting called “Do not include drivers with Windows Updates” that seems to work just fine, too (I can confirm that I couldn’t get the Western Digital SES driver for one of my external drives to download and install until I went back and temporarily re-enabled it, even though the driver would come up when searching using the wushowhide tool).

So I’m confused. Are you saying that the policies don’t actually work the way that we’re expecting them to?

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As with the forced use of Windows as an OS, gamers again miss out here given that a wi-fi connection really isn’t recommended for gaming due to the need for a stable and fast connection.

Then again, I don’t really understand why so many gamers have switched to Windows 10 in the first place!

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As an alternative, I have mine set to “Notify for Download and Notify for Install” which makes it still check, but then it pops up a notification that “You need updates” and if you click on it, they download and install. (It doesn’t actually ask you to install them, so it’s only half true.) So far I haven’t had any issues with my systems being set up this way.

If you go to the Windows Update panel and updates are available, it’ll make you click on an Install button to make it download and install. (It doesn’t ignore your choice if you ignore the notification and then accidentally open Windows Update.)

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I’ve also seen a report here:

https://4sysops.com/archives/disable-updates-in-windows-10-1607-anniversary-update-using-group-policy/

that also says disabling “Configure Automatic Updates” (notify for download and notify for install) in 1607 works. But it isn’t clear to me from that discussion if it applies to Pro and Enterprise, or Enterprise only.

I’m 99% sure the technique I described works for Pro. I tested it – but, hey, you never know for sure.

Do you have any different observations? Suggestions? I’m all ears!

The “Do not include drivers” setting, along with wushowhide, will be the subject of a later article that discusses how to block specific patches.

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Are you running Pro or Enterprise (Education)?

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“But it isn’t clear to me from that discussion if it applies to Pro and Enterprise, or Enterprise only.”

Apparently both – from a comment posted by the author of the article:

“Can you please point to those source you are talking about? Because I tested mainly with Windows 10 Pro and the polices worked fine. I also tested an Enterprise edition and the Windows Update settings look just the same as in the Pro edition.”

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Pro

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It works well in both versions Edu + Pro 1607 however the regular security update gets backed up behind any Cumm update until you install the lot unfortunately

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No suggestions, unfortunately. But I do have a couple of observations.

I have mine set to disabled (along with the driver updates), and just run wushowhide every few days to see what is new. I don’t actively avoid any updates except for driver upgrades– which I still hide, even though the group policy setting does seem to exclude them from the list even though they show up when I search with the tool.

The configuration above appears to me to work as well in 1607 as it did with 1511. It’s also the only reliable way I’ve found to actually see the list before having to install anything. Unless the Settings app is lying to me (which I guess is always a possibility), it’s not checking for/installing any updates unless I tell it to do so.

This is on Pro (x64), by the way, and with wired ethernet (no metered WiFi connection). I also haven’t run Blackbird V6/ShutUp10/Anti-Beacon (or any other tool) to try and break updates and/or telemetry, though I have “disabled” Cortana via GPEdit, and disabled all of the questionable settings that MS allows us to change in the Settings app. And for what it’s worth, I also use a local account.

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Interesting. Thanks for the confirmation.

I’m going to write up the “disabling Cortana” piece in a while. Best I can tell, it disables the Cortana interface, but everything else is still running under the covers.

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Thanks!

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Thanks!

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AHA! I see it now. Thanks!

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Yes, that’s how it looks to me. It basically just gets her out of your face. A quick look at Task Manager clearly shows that she’s still running in the background, and GlassWire shows the processes are still going online from time to time.

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Yep, that’s been my experience. First brought to my attention by PKCano…

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Why not use Netsh?

I use this in a script:
netsh wlan set profileparameter name=”WiFi SSID” cost=Fixed

and then just reset cost=Unrestricted when Woody gives the OK!

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That should work – but I’m very concerned about telling people how to run netsh!

(Of course, I’m telling them to poke through GPedit, so maybe I shouldn’t be so worried.)

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+1 🙂

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Great program out there called”donotspy 10″ it let’s you control all your update, security and microsoft spyware setting in one play.

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Woody, on your InfoWorld article you suggested that the users with Win10 home version to change two registry settings based on TweakHound blog, but someone asked the same question on his blog – Since the Home version does not have the Group Policy capability. Could a person just use the registry keys instead? His answer was no.

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OMG. Yes, I see it.

Okay, Step 4A is dead. I’ll have to update the article.

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Except it bundles Adware and a “Web Search Bar” apparently:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/585486/is-donotspy-10-junkware-itself/

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Look for the script that does a thorough job not just interface.

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The new DirectX is supposed to be pretty amazing for gaming. Major performance improvements.

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Rather than go through all this, before I replaced Win 10 with Linux Mint, I used “Tiny Firewall” to just entirely block Windows Update. It has a default option to exempt Windows Update, which you can simply uncheck. It means you have to remember to check once a week (or whenever), but it’s far easier than messing about with the registry, gpedit or buying a wifi dongle.

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What’s wrong with “Set Windows 10 Ethernet connection to metered with PowerShell”?
https://4sysops.com/archives/set-windows-10-ethernet-connection-to-metered-with-powershell/

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Good question. I’m not sure if it’ll work with 1607. Just submitted a post on the 4sysops site.

If it works, that’s by far the cleanest way to block updates – unless Microsoft “fixes” it.

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Woody, one more tip for you, although it applies only to Enterprise and probably Education and LTSB – not tested for last two versions.
Even so, it may affect Pro, where more testing is needed.

With the Allow Telemetry Group Policy setting to 0 – Security [Enterprise Only], the Defer feature updates option disappears from view under Update settings – Advanced Options (after clicking on Check for updates once). I assume the deferral configured in Group Policy would not work in such a configuration. Probably the logic is that if using Enterprise and configure Telemetry for Security, then the computer is fully managed and not using Windows Update, but WSUS/SCCM, where deferring updates has no meaning, as any update can be deferred forever if chosen by the administrator.
Enterprise version can still be used like a regular unmanaged computer, but Microsoft might require to be configured in the way they want stand-alone computers in such a case (Telemetry on Basic or higher and not Security). Deferring updates is a feature of CBB/WUB (Windows Update for Business), but more likely for smaller environments, not fully managed or not managed at all.

Here it should be mentioned that the Allow Telemetry setting 0 – Security, although available in Pro, falls back on 1 – Basic for that version. However the side effects may be the same, so if not usable, it should not be configured as 0 in Pro, where the setting of 1 – Basic is preferred.

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I have metering set on my Win 10 system.
So Win 10 Update Status shows an update ready for download (“Lenovo Keyboard”), which I don’t want. It doesn’t download the update but provides a “Download” button to give me that choice.
I seems that update is now in the queue. On 11/8/16 or thereafter, there will be updates I need to download. Will I have to take the Lenovo update (and every other update in the queue) at that time–all or none?
Or can I remove updates from the queue?

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I would say Group Policy is the cleaner one or at least with the enforceable effect, regardless of what future updates would change in the default behaviour. Well, nothing is 100% guaranteed… We are just renting the OS as I understand it.

Group Policy has precedence over regular settings and as far as I know, PowerShell would configure “regular” settings.

The registry keys specific to Group Policies are under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPolicies
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWOW6432NodePolicies
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREPolicies

and not quite right, but still acting as Group Policies for certain (older?) settings:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWOW6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies

Any other registry location belongs to the “normal” settings.

The Group Policy specific locations can be set in this order of precedence by Active Directory Group Policies, Active Directory Site Policies (rarely recommended to be in use), Local Group Policies.

The specific location in the registry can be set directly which would have the same effect with Local Group Policies set by gpedit.msc, which is only a GUI for administrator’s reference.

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The Driver GP settings for proper configuration are more like here. They also correspond to the GUI settings.

Computer ConfigurationAdministrative TemplatesSystemDevice Installation

– Prevent device metadata retrieval from the Internet
– Specify search order for device driver source locations
– Specify the search server for device driver updates

The one you specified in your post is new and acts more like brute force than configuration.

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Gamers are not serial complainers and find solutions where many others find problems. There must be something good for them in Windows 10 if it is their OS of choice.

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Is this site known?

Manage and update Windows 10

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/index

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For a Win10 tip, could you do a post on how to disable Cortana as much as possible in 1607 (I know you can’t completely turn her off)?

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I have that one on the list. But it’s going to be difficult because I don’t think anybody really knows the answer….

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Yep, I refer to it frequently. Main nexus for all sorts of interesting info.

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Yep. But the folks on Home are still left hanging.

(I’m also not 100% certain of the exact effect of the various Group Policy settings. As I explained to “b” that’s what the documentation seems to imply, but MS has published bad documentation for GPedit before.)

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Use wushowhide. I’ll have a Win10Tip on it next week, but for now this is a good starting point:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3053701/microsoft-windows/block-windows-10-forced-updates-without-breaking-your-machine-part-2.html

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Understood. I think that’s why there’s a warning in GPedit.

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Woody,
wushowhide worked nicely to hide the update.
It looks like a good combination with metering, at least for now.
I did have to reboot to hide the update.

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I think you are right by what I am reading, sorry for not being able to confirm, but I don’t have absolutely any interest in Home Editions. They are not considered manageable by end-users by Microsoft and this is why they get forced updates.
In regards to policies, they have to be tested individually, as it is true that some documentation if not incorrect, it may certainly be misleading. Think about settings which if you disable do nothing, while if you enable and make the selection disabled under enabled, then they have the expected effect. What can be more confusing?!

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Sorry, I forgot about that warning. However it is not very visible. The policies which are documented are those related to deferring Feature Updates and not the Telemetry policy. It is entirely normal and logical practice to configure the Telemetry setting and not be aware of implications, because the user might want to use the default setting for deferred updates, which is gone with Telemetry on Security.
If you don’t consider it useful as a tip to be posted separately due to the target audience which is fine, it is at least useful to know about this behaviour.

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It is easy and a single policy in Enterprise/Education.
Computer ConfigurationAdministrative TemplatesWindows ComponentsSearchAllow Cortana
LTSB does not have it at all, but generates warnings that is cannot be started. I still have to figure out why?!

A dirty hack is to run as the built-in Administrator instead of another administrator. If running under a different Administrator, the policy Run all Administrators in Admin Approval Mode needs to be disabled. This configuration should work on Pro but would disable all Store Apps including Edge and will put you effectively on the same experience that those on LTSB have. Not recommending this configuration unless understanding exactly the implications.

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Yep. That and the procedure for disabling driver updates are two important extensions to the block Windows 10 discussion.

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Woody,
Do you have a link for the procedure to disable driver updates?

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“I’m going to write up the “disabling Cortana” piece in a while. Best I can tell, it disables the Cortana interface, but everything else is still running under the covers.”

I’m eager for your coming writeup, as I seem to have disabled Cortana, which I wanted to do. Unfortunately I have also lost Windows Search in the task bar; or does that always happen when one disables Cortana?

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Ch100,
Could you clarify what you meant by “not be aware of its implications…”
I used OOSU10 &/or SD anti-beacon to turn of Telemetry.
Does that have any downside?

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This is related – Delivery Optimization about which we discussed before.
Here is the authoritative reference with more details than the very good series of blog articles from Michael Niehaus.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/waas-delivery-optimization

and the more recent blog article, i.e part 2:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mniehaus/2016/08/16/windows-10-delivery-optimization-and-wsus-take-2/

Conclusion: End-users on all editions of Windows 10, but mostly Home and Pro as this is out of the box, should be concerned with excessive Internet usage.
Delivery Optimization has apparently been activated only now in 1607, although it was presented in the GUI since RTM 1507.
To avoid excessive Internet usage and possible failures to update, configure Delivery Optimization in Windows Update Advanced settings to either Disabled or if it works better for you, PCs on my local network.
Note: Enterprise/Education are configured out of the box for PCs on my local network.
This can also be configured in Group Policy, but there is no need to do that as the normal setting is available in all editions, including Home. Please confirm the availability of the setting in Home as I am not testing Home, but the documentation says it is there.

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I laid out a working process for taking full control of updates and have used it for a long time myself. I don’t get Win 10 updates until and unless I want them.

It didn’t get any more difficult in the Anniversary update.

It’s like nobody listens.

The Windows Update service simply needs to be stopped and set to Disabled during all the time one does not want updates.

For when it is briefly enabled, so that it doesn’t start up doing things itself, the group policy (or registry tweak) should be set to disable automatic downloads.

The method for checking for updates is to enable and start the Windows Update service, then run the WUShowHide tool.

If, after enabling/starting the Windows Update service you like what you see and want the updates, you just check for updates in the Settings App.

I don’t see how that could be considered more troublesome than a 4 step process with substeps from A to F.

-Noel

1 user thanked author for this post.

MrBrian

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Cortana can most certainly be expunged, as can any and all Apps.

http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/14393/Win10Desktop.png

Note specifically what’s showing in the PowerShell window.

-Noel

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Still skeptical?

Here, a week has gone by since I prompted a check for updates. Note the times and dates in this screen grab:

http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/14393/NoAutoUpdates.png

Don’t believe what it says in the Settings App about what it will do with Available updates. It doesn’t, unless instructed to do so.

-Noel

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The performance improvements for DX12 have thus far only been present on AMD GPU hardware. Nvidia has a much larger market share than AMD in the GPU market, so for the time being, relatively few gamers stand to benefit from the performance boost of Windows 12.

Still, the belief is that “Windows 10 is the future,” and certainly it has more supported years coming, so a lot of gamers (being universally non-enterprise customers who were thus eligible) grabbed the free upgrade while it was available.

If ALL I cared about was running games, I might have done the same. Being spied upon, having ads pushed to the PC, having a disjointed half-phone, half-PC interface, etc., don’t directly affect the ability to play games. The forced updates might, if it decided to update during a gaming session (which can be mitigated per the article above), or if a future update removed support for something the person wanted to keep… but other than that, Windows 10’s worst offenses don’t mean as much if gaming is all that matters to the user.

Even so, the Steam survey for October 2016 indicates that almost half of Windows-using Steam customers are using versions of Windows other than 10.

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Would this work?
http://betanews.com/2016/07/26/cortana-unkillable-in-windows-10-anniversary-update/
I know it is old news, just trying to figure out what is going on in non-Enterprise versions.

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That helps, but I still think Cortana’s baked in so far that you can never pull her out.

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I’m listening. Loud and clear.

Here’s my problem: I generally avoid disabling Windows Update entirely. I’m afraid there’s something lurking that we don’t know about, which requires Windows Update.

And… if you have a Wi-Fi attached machine, with a metered connection, how do you get a list of available downloads for wushowhide to work on?

And… how do you get a Home machine to disable automatic downloads?

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So….

How did you block Cortana? What steps did you take?

Is Cortana still running in TaskManager? That was the tripping point PKCano mentioned.

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See my new post.

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Yep, “b” posted it earlier… several methods suggested on a Google search.

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Has it been proven that the registry tweak discovered before (and embodied in that little application I wrote) won’t stop Windows Update from automatically running?

If so, that’s the problem with sharing tweaks here. You’re popular enough that doing so may doom everyone to have them closed off.

You worry too much about “things lurking”, Woody.

Hey, I’m only one career software engineer with 40 years experience running Windows systems tweaked in my particular way, but I haven’t had any problems with having the Windows Update service kept normally disabled (except when I WANT updates) for YEARS on Win 7, 8.1, and 10 systems. Windows Update works just fine when re-enabled and a Windows Update is manually requested.

I guess my question is this: What are you worried about breaking?

-Noel

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Noel, there are 2 groups of AU related Scheduled Tasks in Windows 10 Anniversary Edition.They are under:
– WindowsUpdate
– UpdateOrchestrator

The UpdateOrchestrator tasks in particular tend to undo a lot of end-user customization and need to be kept under control.
Group Policies now have a tight relation with the Scheduled Tasks and do not behave as we were used in Windows 7 or previous OSes. I think W8.x is more like W10 for that purpose.
Some of the services do not comply with the Group Policies, unless you are in an AD Domain. Just look at Windows Time, AU Detection Frequency and you will find that the triggers associated with the services do not take some of the settings as intended outside of a domain. Even in an enterprise, there are stand-alone machines in what is called DMZ which have to comply with local policies, but in W10 they do not. I think that the “triggered services” are a flawed concept or maybe it is only a flawed implementation of the trigger logic for some of them. I tried to remove the triggers from WU service, but the Orchestrator tasks restore the built-in configuration not long after. This is far beyond the understanding of the casual Windows user and this is why I am not very keen to advice about major structural changes in the OS design and in context, even to advice users to disable services. The complicated implementation is done on purpose by Microsoft as a response to too much “advice” from unqualified people. Democracy and engineering tend to clash in many instances.
We are either in a major transition to something better or it is the beginning of the end for the MS Desktop OS and Windows 7 is the last (almost) reliable OS. I know you prefer 8.1, but it has exactly the same issues like Windows 10 for the considerations above.

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Woody, see my reply to Noel. My post is not against Noel’s advice, but rather trying to make him aware that what he understands about Windows is not what most casual users understand and are able to take corrective action outside of the supported guidelines.

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See my post in context. We discuss Group Policies and not third-party products. I don’t know what third-party products configure and if there is any downside.

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Fair enough. There are layers of expertise – and tolerance to pain.

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If this hasn’t been mentioned already, why not just use ShutUp10? Literally turn off two toggle sliders down towards the bottom of the list of controls, reboot, and Windows Update is completely disabled. Ready to turn WU back on to install updates for the month? Toggle the same two sliders back on, reboot, proceed to open WU and hit “check” as normal. Once all the updates are installed and no more new updates are available, open ShutUp10, toggle the two Windows Update sliders back to the off position, reboot, safe again indefinitely. And you never have to look at a single group policy setting.

ShutUp10 does NOT disable anything in a “non standard” way. It uses preexisting group policies, service start controls, and registry settings to accomplish everything it does. AKA it doesn’t break stuff.

ShutUp10 is free, clean, portable, published & actively maintained by O&O software, no ads, no install, no upsell, nada. You can even import and export settings presets.

So, why not just do it this way?

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Also forgot to mention, toggling any setting on or off, makes or reverts the exact same changes, so you never end up with “dirty” or inconsistent leftovers, as long as you use the same version of ShutUp10 to toggle the setting. If you are paranoid, export a “defaults” preset before changing anything, save it somewhere, and do a settings import / export with every ShutUp10 update. I’ve not found this to be necessary.

And ALWAYS make a backup! Or at the very least leave system restore enabled. ShutUp10 will automatically create a system restore snapshot for you when toggling ANY setting, if system restore is enabled. If it isn’t, you WILL get a warning message.

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Hey, Woody. Just piling on: disabling automatic updates via that Group Policy works in Pro, Enterprise, and Education even in 1607.

The only difference in 1607 is that you no longer get a visual cue that it’s working. From what I can tell, it’s probably just a bug.

This is one Group Policy I do not believe will ever be removed from Pro. There’s a lot of stuff riding on that policy; for example, some businesses have long-established methods of updating Windows that exclude the built-in Windows Update features, and doing this requires automatic updates to be disabled.

I guess Microsoft could roil its userbase even more, but there would be some very mad admins if they removed it.

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Specifically which Group Policy?

And any observations about side-effects? I’ve already confirmed on my main system that Windows Defender updates come through. But is anything else broken or warped by turning it off?

Any idea if there’s a registry edit counterpart? Home users are getting the short end of the stick.

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I haven’t tested it because I have no versions of Home, but my understanding is that many of the registry counterparts were removed in Home (and Pro, for that matter) to “encourage” users to upgrade. I don’t know for sure if this is one of those.

I know for a fact that many of the registry counterparts were removed for policies that previously worked in Pro and were moved exclusively to Enterprise in 1607, so it would surprise me zero if they did the same here.

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Every indication I’ve had is that O&O ShutUp10 works as advertised. But I’m leery.

O&O is a combination of companies, based in Berlin. https://www.oo-software.com/en/company/oogroup

I don’t know anything about the company, or its founders. That makes me uneasy. Their main products are a defragger (Win10 doesn’t need a defragger), a disk image generator (many, many established competitors), a file recovery app (think Recuva) and a disk eraser (another niche that has dozens of entries) — and they have a couple dozen more.

ShutUp10 makes many changes to Group Policies and the registry. The ad says it “means you have full control over which comfort functions under Windows 10 you wish to use, and you decide when the passing on of your data goes too far” — a claim I don’t believe, because MS hasn’t built the hooks into non-Enterprise versions to do that.

I haven’t seen an analysis of what it does and what it doesn’t do. I’d feel horrible if I recommended something that occasionally phoned home, or harvested email addresses, without explicitly warning people about it.

I’d have to hear from many, many more people before I’d recommend it.

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I believe I’ve mentioned this before but I’m also a bit suspicious about ShutUp10 and similar utilities which claim to disable telemetry, etc. in Windows 10.

I’m not saying that the makers of these utilities are being dishonest. But, I’ve always wondered if they really do work or has MS designed W10 in such a way that it has a ‘dummy’ group of settings which they expected people to find and disable (but don’t actually do anything) while a hidden and (presumably) almost impossible to find and disable group of settings continue sending telemetry, etc.

I’d be interested to know what sort of testing the makers of ShutUp10 have done to make them believe that their software really does work as advertised.

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Agreed. I feel the same way about recommending software I’ve not had personal experience with.

To date, I’ve only used ShutUp10 for the Windows Update toggle, so I can’t speak as far as the privacy / telemetry related toggles go. But as far as toggling WU goes, which is what we are focusing on for now, I’ve been using it for almost a year, on both 1511 and 1607 installs currently, and it has always worked great for this purpose. Not a single hiccup.

O&O’s defragger is pretty well known among the “when Windows 2000 / XP was new” crowd, with a good reputation that still holds up today, i.e. they didn’t ruin a good thing when it got popular in the past, like so many companies do, so that makes me feel better about using their current free software.

That being said, I’ve never done any network traffic captures while it was running to really get into what it may or may not be doing that isn’t advertised. Nor have I compared before and after registry snapshots to see if it was accomplishing everything through “supported” means. Because I’ve had no reason to, it has never given me the impression that it was doing anything other than what I asked it to, without using questionable methods to do so. Their other popular free software HAS been analyzed through said ringers and been found pretty clean, so there is that.

I would love for lots of people with more time than I have right now, to more closely check out ShutUp10 for cleanliness and compliance for working through supported interfaces, and report back.

Especially when it comes to Home edition users, this could be an invaluable replacement to gpedit / regedit, when it comes to disabling / enabling WU on demand anyways.

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Whatever.

My goal isn’t to try to provide turnkey advice to the masses on how to get around Microsoft’s will. It most certainly CAN be done; I’ve done it. But you might as well give up the search for a “magic bullet” tweak that anyone can apply, with no downsides. There was only ever one before because that’s what Microsoft chose to provide. That was then.

We’ve passed the point of “playing nice”. Microsoft is not longer a partner; they’ve become an adversary. They no longer gain by being valuable to us. They’d rather write malware and just try to take from us. If you think this is extreme then you are still in Denial.

You either need to take on the full responsibility for EVERYTHING running on your system – which means getting smarter and working a little harder, so that you can completely override / disable / remove what they set up that you don’t want – or you need to cede all control to Microsoft, because they don’t intend to provide a middle ground.

It’s no accident they reinstall all the stuff we remove and unset all the tweaks we’ve made when they install a new build a few times a year. They do it on purpose.

For the above reasons, and even though I’ve mastered controlling it with each new release, I’m not choosing to use Win 10 as anything more than a learning experience by running it in a VM for the foreseeable future. Windows 10 – because of Microsoft’s policies – is not a suitable platform for someone who values controlling their own computing environment.

-Noel

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If the O&O utility works as presented by ky41083, then it is exactly what such a utility should do.
I cannot confirm either way as I am not using it and in fact not really interested in using third party utilities.
However I have my favourite utility for testing (not for regular use though) which is Windows Update MiniTool.

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It’s sad, but you’re right. I may give up the pursuit of the Jabberwock.

If pulling Cortana out of your system leaves the system so unstable or unpredictable, it’s not worth doing. Reminds me of the attempts to pull Internet Explorer 8 out of XP – you could get it out, but you were left with something that just didn’t work.

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Woody,
The relevant comment by Paul Thurrott in the URL that you referenced is this:

“The inability to disable Cortana and return to the basic search functionality rankles some.”

So I take that and your comment to mean that if one has disabled Cortana–it does not show up in my Task Manager–one has lost the basic Windows search functionality, e.g, there is no way to have one’s cake and eat it too?

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Two possibilities:

You can install a replacement search function with Classic Shell.

You may be able to sidestep all of this by changing your region. That’s a very interesting idea that was just proposed here.

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I changed region but that had no affect on anything, including absence of Taskbar search.

Before I install Classic Shell,
were you referring to this program:

http://www.classicshell.net/

If so, has anyone had experience with CS in Win 10?

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ARGGGH. Changing region would’ve been such a neat, simple solution.

Yes, that’s Classic Shell. I haven’t heard of any problems with it. They’ve been making it for a long time.

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I think only a limited set of policies are disabled in Pro, likely related to Windows Store. Windows Update is not among them.

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Automatic Updates is not supposed to run itself during a gaming or Full-Screen desktop Application session. That’s a built-in policy.

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Not sure it’s any more effective on this point than ShutUp 10.

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More like once a month, but right idea.

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With third party products this is the exact issue. They don’t expose all the changes they are making to the end user. So what exactly any setting or combination of settings has or hasn’t done is not readily visible.

That’s a huge downside if any of the changes made by these utilities have undesired side effects.

What exactly do we do to reverse the damages? Hint: Keep a current System Backup handy at all times before using these products.

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If you run wushowhide before running MS Updates (before unmetering the connection) you will not have to restart to enforce them just-hidden updates.

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I presume this refers to the option to get updates from other PCs over the network or over the Internet?

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My preference is to control to the max what I can without adverse system stability or usability effects.

It’s a bit of a compromise, but this is also what I do with browser privacy add-ons. For example, I leave these turned off while visiting your AskWoody site. And a few others where the privacy gains aren’t worth the side effects.

So instead of pursuing Cortana into her innermost lair, I put the ShutUp 10 restrictions into place and hope this will be enough. It seems to be keeping me off Microsoft’s radar well enough that I’m not interested in doing anything more drastic at this point.

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While I share Woody’s concerns, I take a more relaxed approach to such utilities.

I don’t know who owns or operates the browser extensions for privacy, like Ghostery and NoScript, and for that matter, I don’t know how trustworthy Mozilla Foundataion of Canonnical (for Ubuntu Linux) are with respect to the same issues. I do know that Abine (makers of Blur and other do not track extensions) has been collecting and selling user data ever since they were founded.

What I would like to see documented, is whether and how ShutUp 10 works in more details. That is, is it really effective in regulating telemetry and Cortana communications with Microsoft, and if so, how exactly does the utility interact with Windows (what changes does it make and what functions does it block and how)?

And yes, the owners of this software have not been very open about who they are or what businesses they answer to. That is a legitimate cause for concern, but for me, not a red flag.

I haven’t seen any adverse effects of using ShutUp 10’s Recommended Settings. I have seen things stop working in Win 10 Pro if the more aggressive settings ( which the program flags with distinct symbols) are switched to blocking positions.

This utility is useless for blocking MS Updates, as it’s either all on or all off, which is not a good setting for system stability.

@Woody — Running wushowhide and choosing first “Hide Updates” has always shown me every available MS download, including the current list of updates, for Win 10 Pro.

If it’s not time to apply the CU or something else, I then hide these and apply Flash Player and MSRT and anything very critical. (Very critical updates are rare.)

I run wushowhide before unmetering the connection, and the full list shows up until I hide something.

The list in wushowhide also has listed some components which will not download through MS Updates, like drivers or optional features which I haven’t installed yet.

So if run on a metered connection, wushowhide is not prevented from checking for current MS Updates.

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I too would like much more detail before declaring that ShutUp 10 is effective, and to what extent.

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See my comment below, but wushowhide can be run before unmetering the connection. This does not prevent wushowhide from checking for current updates, and Windows Update is still set not to check for these updates, and not to download anything yet at that point.

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That seems to be the optimal solution for Wi-Fi attached Win10 users.

Now… what of those who simply turn off the Windows Update service? Any side effects?

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Good to know. Still, sometimes something happens and you have to restart the game client, and if MS decides that’s a great time to start the update process, you might have a bad time.

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I posted elsewhere about removing the triggers from Windows Update service and trying to configure it like in Windows 7.
The Orchestrator Scheduled Tasks recreated almost instantly the default configuration of the Windows Update service. This is on 1607 Enterprise, LTSB, Server 2016 and I am expecting all other editions to behave in the same way.
I didn’t remove the Orchestrator tasks as I am fundamentally against too much modification of the default behaviour, especially when not understanding all implications.

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Woody,
This forced download situation has me at my wit’s end. I’ve had Windows based computers since their inception and can not believe what they are ramming down our throats now. Currently running Home edition 10 “Anniversary” on a Dell 24 3000 series. Please keep up the good work, as I haven’t seen any recent posts.
Hopefully the juggernought hasn’t taken you out. Anyhow if there is a way to avoid it on Home without any third parties involved I would like to know about it.
Thanks,
Jim V.

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It’s easy if you have a WiFi connection – and much more difficult if you don’t.

Read this article and tell me if there’s a stumbling point for you…

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3138088/microsoft-windows/woodys-win10tip-block-forced-win10-updates.html

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Where did MS get the idea that metered connections have anything to do with wireless LAN connections anyway? The only person I know who has a metered connection for home internet has satellite… which is wired via ethernet cable into his home router.

From that point, he could use wired or wireless to connect to a PC. If I were stuck with satellite internet (ugh), I’d be using it wired, as my desktop doesn’t have or need wireless, and my LAN serves other functions than internet sharing.

It’s just more MS arrogance that would have them determining which kinds of connections are eligible for taking a pass on their “we own your PC and we’ll decide what is done with it, and when” policy. They will still determine what’s done with it… just not exactly when.

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+1

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I realizes this is an older post. But we have a strange glitch.

We have a groups of PCs that were on 1511 and we had added the registry entries to defer updates. And now these PCs are getting the 1607 Upgrade.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdate]
“DeferUpgrade”=dword:00000001
“DeferUpgradePeriod”=dword:00000008
“DeferOSUpgrade”=dword:00000001
“PauseDeferrals”=dword:00000001

In 1507 the Defer Upgrade was checked and greyed out. After the upgrade the Defer feature Updates is greyed out and we can’t get it ungreyed.

We removed the registry entries, we tried the new GP settings and still Defer feature updates stays greys out.

These PCs are NOT part of a domain.

Any way to remedy this issue?

-Mark-

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Good question – and I’m seeing it pop up all over the place.

I posted it here: https://www.askwoody.com/2017/win10-getting-forced-from-1511-to-1607-in-spite-of-group-policy-settings/

Let’s see if there are any insights. It certainly bedevils me…

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