Let me clear, Windows Update is a mandatory and very important thing for any Windows PCs, starting from Windows 7 to the latest Windows 10 operating system. Windows updates contain security patches, bug fixes, and additional features to Windows.
Windows Update works silently in the background. It notifies you when there is an important update which may require restarting your computer.
Although it is recommended to always keep your Windows PC updated to make it secure and stable, there might be other reasons that you want to stop, postpone, or disable updates at all. Your reason could be either having slow, limited or no internet connectivity, or you don’t like to be interrupted while working at your computer, or a Windows upgrade is consuming too much space on your hard drive (probably using an old computer).
Difficulty Level: Easy
In this post, this tutorial recommends a tiny utility (only 1 megabyte) called StopUpdates10 that can help you disable Windows 10 updates as well as new upgrades.
Keep Windows 10 Update disabled
Here at The Nerdic, we’ve already covered a tutorial to disable Windows 10 Update, unfortunately, it seems that Microsoft intentionally made it difficult for you to completely disable its automatic update feature. Thankfully, a software company called Greatis created a dedicated and permanent solution for that matter.
Before dealing with the solution, let me tell you why disabling Updates using Services management console doesn’t work well. The developer’s website clearly tells us the reason, to quote:
Why StopUpdates10 if I can easily stop Windows update service?
This way does not work on Windows 10.
Windows 10 uses a WAAS Medic service and some scheduled tasks to recover the Windows update service.
According to the utility, StopUpdates10 completely disables Windows Update executable files from running, enough to stop Windows automatic updates, even if you are not logged in to Windows.
The utility has a feature called Updates Guard, a system service, working in the background. It clearly monitors the activity of Windows Update executable. If it detects that Windows Update service (Wuauserv) is running, it will disable it right away.
Updates Guard runs automatically and it’s very light in system resources considering its small size of around 1 MB only.
StopUpdates10 was also designed to make it a lot easier for ordinary PC users to disable Windows 10 update or upgrade.
StopUpdates10 can also stop new update notifications and annoying forced Windows upgrades thus, allows you to continue working undisturbed.
Good thing, this tool also provides you with an option to disable updates temporarily. For that matter, StopUpdates10 features an instant Restore Windows Updates that allows you to undo changes made to Windows configuration where Updates are allowed.
The restore button comes very useful when you are on a better internet connection and decided to enable update.
Where to get StopUpdates10 utility?
- Navigate to this link: https://greatis.com/blog/stopupdates10
- Scroll down and click the link which says Download StopUpdates10 – Version: 2.x.xx (1Mb) (x is the build number, it increases when a new program update is released)
- Open the downloaded zip file, execute the program and follow the instructions within the installer.
How to use StopUpdates10 utility?
StopUpdates10 utility is pretty simple to use and straightforward.
To disable Windows update
Click Start > Open StopUpdates10 > Click Stop Windows 10 update button. Voila, your Windows Update should now be disabled, close the popup window that appears. Also, make sure that Updates Guard is enabled to actively disabling updates in the background.
To enable Windows update
Simply open the utility, and click Restore Windows Updates button. All the changes made will be rolled back. This utility also shows the status of Windows 10 Update.
For power users/advanced users, they provide a setting under file menu where you can do more customizations according to your liking.
All the changes made are completely restorable and can be done easily with a single click.
Final Thoughts
We firmly believe that the solution provided by the developer is solid and effective. It’s the only workaround we found so far to permanently disable the update feature of Windows. Aside from it, it’s completely free for both personal and commercial use and does not contain any adware (as claimed). Ultimately, this utility does not delete or break any application on your Windows 10. 😉