Setting up your Wi-Fi as Metered connection or Choosing “Defer feature updates” from Windows Updates > Advanced Options does not work because Microsoft will keep pushing some updates which could be nagging and cause interruptions at work. If you are a webmaster running websites, operating network or maintaining servers where PCs have to be kept running 24×7, these updates can slow down your systems and their pop-ups to restart your PC can be irritating, time consuming and may cost you money if your system goes down even for few minutes to install Windows updates. So you can disable these updates altogether and relieve yourself from troubles.
The method is very simple. Just follow these steps:
• Go to Start > Windows Administrative Tool > Services > Windows Update > Properties > Startup type: Disabled
Also stop this service completely by clicking on “Stop” under “Service Status:”
*You can also use Run and following command “services.msc” or Cortona to access “Services” easily
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This will disable the updates. Now to make it permanent do this:
• Services > Windows Update > Recovery. For First failure, Second failure and Subsequent failures choose “Take No Action” and also in “Reset fail count after:” enter 1000 days or anything you want.
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• Open Task Scheduler (Start > Windows Administrative Tools > Task Scheduler or simply use Cortona to access that quickly) and disable all “WindowsUpdate” tasks and their triggers. You can access “WindowsUpdate” tasks by going to Task Scheduler > Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > WindowsUpdate. Disable the following tasks and all their triggers:
– Automatic App Update
– Scheduled Start
– sih
– sihboot
[Right click on these tasks and go to Properties > Triggers and disable them]
Out of all these tasks “Scheduled Start” got a trigger “One time” that will force restart Windows Update service. You need to disable it along with other triggers or change its date to some future date from coming years to permanently disable Windows Updates.
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This should do the job as long as Microsoft does not find a way around this fix and again start annoying users with pushy updates.
To restore the Windows update service do this: Services > Startup Type: Automatic or Manual and Service Status: Start. Also in Recovery choose “Restart the Service” for First failure, Second Failure and Subsequent failures and set “Reset fail count after: 1 days”.
This will turn on Windows update service.
Also note that disabling updates permanently will result in not receiving latest security updates and may put your computer at risk.
Li Fai
this was really helpful. hope it worked.
I bought Sony vaio laptop with original windows 8.1 installed on it. but i did not know why it got updated, i was too busy on laptop with my work. and after work, i got some break, but unfortunately dont know how to restore win8. though i dont like win8 and win10 after win7, but hope your config will help me keep the system not-updating. though i have doubt about auto-update of windows defender by this. will it also stopped windows defender from updating its virus definition?
Talal A.
If you install a good antivirus, you won’t be needing Windows Defender since antiviruses automatically turn off Windows Defender to avoid conflict between the two. Overall Windows own builtin Windows Defender is really pathetic and can’t even detect simple malware. You should use some other antivirus.
Drew Mills
I hope this works. I’ve tried everything I can to get MS to stop. This is the first new tactic I’ve seen in awhile. This is what I’ve tried so far:
* Stopped Windows Update service
* Set service startup as manual
* Disabled the Service
Even with the above, Creators Update still happened. I reformatted my hard drive and now I have:
* Used sc command to delete triggers on the service
* Renamed the Windows Update folder
And finally (your idea) controlled the failure responses.
Not sure how MS is getting around these tactics but I hope this stops it.