Recently, a Micro crap er I mean Micro slop er I mean Microsoft Windows ten update failed to install properly. Also, since their August of two thousand sixteen anniversary update three applications including Microsoft Edge failed to work. Another annoying factor, is that Windows ten has been rebooting at times when I needed to use my computer, after installing updates.
I found two ways to either configure Windows 10 updates so that it prompts you to download update(s) or to disable this feature entirely. You can configure Windows 10 to prompt you when there are available updates. You need to edit your group policy.
Type in “gpedit.msc” from a run box or click on Cortana search. Type in “Edit group policy”. Select “Edit group policy Control panel” from a list.
You may receive some administrative template pop up messages. Click OK on them. In a “Local Group Policy Editor”, click on “Computer Configuration”.
Click “Administrative Templates”, then double click “Windows Components”. Scroll down and double click on “Windows Update”. Double click on “Configure Automatic Updates” to open up a Configure Automatic Updates window.
You have three options to choose from:
* Not Configured
* Enabled
* Disabled
You want to change default Not Configured to “Enabled”, then look for “Configuring Automatic Updating” drop down menu. Change default option from “3 – Auto download and notify for install” to “2 – Notify for download and notify for install. This configures Windows 10 updates to notify you when new updates are available instead of automatically downloading them and installing.
You want to make sure to click on an “OK” button to save those changes. If you want to completely disable download and install of Windows 10 updates, then you will need to open up Services.
Type in “services” in Cortana and select “Services desktop app”. Also, you can open up Services by typing in “Services.msc” without quotes in a run box. Scroll down and look for “Windows Update”, then click on this item.
You can either right click and choose “Properties” from a menu or double click on “Windows Update”. Now you want to select in a drop down menu “Disabled” and then click apply and or OK. Hopefully, this will disable Windows ten from trying to download and install updates.
As a caveat, I had this selection set to manual and was still receiving Windows ten updates. Also, some users claim that they are not able to disable Windows ten updates. Perhaps you are in a corporate environment with a group policy that will over ride these settings, Microsoft will disable this ability in future.