I haven’t run windows since 2019. However I need to boot my old drive to grab some data. I really need to make sure this system doesn’t update any windows components, but I’ll need it to have internet access for a portion of the time.
On a different system, I used to have two reg keys that I would run to disable or enable updates when I found that disabling the services only worked until the watchdog would re enable them. Those resulted in updates saying something was wrong, which is perfect by me.
Now that web searches for stuff like this are all AI-gen’d SEO BS, can anyone tell me or point me to a reliable resource for truly disabling updates on Win 10?
PS - Bonus points if Anyone can link me to the page I used a few years back that had all sorts of privacy enhancing and telemetry disabling option on the left side and would create a reg file for applying those changes on the right. It might have been a purple theme, I forget.
Edit: it may also have been a “services” command that fully disabled services from CLI where the GUI says access denied. I forget.
Edit 2: I got the updates services disabled via registry. Thanks to those who refreshed my old Windows admin memory. I dumped Windows on my personal systems years ago, and haven’t had to think about this for a while. It’s a shame when the operating system changes to this model of SaaS where they call all the shots. I want security updates, but not bleeding edge drivers, candy crush, “feature enhancements”, random unexpected reboots, etc. I miss when the update feature didn’t assume nobody in the world could handle manual updates. You know, like sudo apt-get update.
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Everyone here is dramatically overcomplicating the solution. Simply:
- Turn on the PC without an Internet connection
- From an elevated cmd, run net stop wuauserv
- Connect the network and copy your files
This stops the update service and will absolutely prevent windows updates from running. BUT it reverts at the next boot, so be careful.
If you want a more permanent solution, you can edit a regkey to trick the system into looking for a local wsus server, which will prevent it from reaching out to the web. Read this for a rundown: https://learn.microsoft.com/de-de/security-updates/windowsupdateservices/21669493
Source: More than a decade as a sysad with a focus on endpoint patching
Hate to be “that guy”, and maybe OP’s no updates since 2019 exempt them from this, but modern 10/11 both immediately auto-restart the Windows update service when it’s manually stopped.
This is not my experience on Windows 10 Pro
Good, it’s been my experience, at least on fully updated 10.
No, you’re absolutely right. That’s what happens when you have the WaaSMedic service running, which cannot be easily disabled in services.msc. I would think I had finally gone the “full-nuclear” option and broken al updates by disabling and stopping the update services (that I knew about), but they would re-enable themselves without fail.
This comment explains where you need to disable it (if you want to go that route).
