Hellbovine
Well-Known Member
This guide explains how to pause Windows Update for any amount of time, and prevent the operating system from performing other related automatic updating without consent. The benefit of this guide's approach, is that it does not break anything and is a safe and official method, how Microsoft intended it to be tweaked. This guide was tested on Windows 10 Home (21H2), but should work on other similar setups.
INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS
WINDOWS UPDATE
OTHER UPDATERS
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INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS
The tweaks discussed in this guide are all included in the attached file, which should be integrated into a Windows image. To integrate a registry file, load an image into NTLite, click Registry from the left menu, now click Add from the top menu, point NTLite to the registry file's location and then process the image. Next, cleanly install Windows and the tweaks will be active out of the box.
Once you reach the desktop you will notice that Windows Update is paused until 4 years from now, unless the user manually resumes updating. The advanced options page for Windows Update also extends the choices, so that you could pause for any date in the future, rather than the original 35 day limit that Microsoft sets. This guide also includes tweaks that make other automated updaters follow these same principles.
Once you reach the desktop you will notice that Windows Update is paused until 4 years from now, unless the user manually resumes updating. The advanced options page for Windows Update also extends the choices, so that you could pause for any date in the future, rather than the original 35 day limit that Microsoft sets. This guide also includes tweaks that make other automated updaters follow these same principles.
WINDOWS UPDATE
This section discusses some of the details regarding the tweaks specific to Windows Update.
- The "FlightSettingsMaxPauseDays" is the most important key of all, since it controls the default 35 days maximum limit for pausing updates, and is a required companion key for the other tweaks to work correctly. A value of "000005b4" for this key means it should allow pausing up to 1,460 days and can be modified to any amount of time.
- The "Pause" and "End" keys are what tell the different Windows Update tasks and services if update features should be active or not. The keys that have the word "Start" signify when the update feature was paused, and the ones with the word "End" and "Expiry" signify when the update feature should automatically resume itself. The timestamps are in Zulu time, signified by the "Z" at the end of each key's value. This translates into a start date of July 1st, 2022 at 8 PM (UTC) and an end date of January 1st, 2026 at 8 PM (UTC). If the "Start" dates are set to a time before Windows gets installed then it allows Windows Update to be paused by default out of the box.
- The "SearchOrderConfig" key prevents Windows Update from forcibly installing new drivers and upgrading existing ones. This is important, because the driver installation feature can be rather dysfunctional, offering bugged or incorrect drivers that cause performance issues and crashing.
- The "FlightSettingsMaxPauseDays" is the most important key of all, since it controls the default 35 days maximum limit for pausing updates, and is a required companion key for the other tweaks to work correctly. A value of "000005b4" for this key means it should allow pausing up to 1,460 days and can be modified to any amount of time.
- The "Pause" and "End" keys are what tell the different Windows Update tasks and services if update features should be active or not. The keys that have the word "Start" signify when the update feature was paused, and the ones with the word "End" and "Expiry" signify when the update feature should automatically resume itself. The timestamps are in Zulu time, signified by the "Z" at the end of each key's value. This translates into a start date of July 1st, 2022 at 8 PM (UTC) and an end date of January 1st, 2026 at 8 PM (UTC). If the "Start" dates are set to a time before Windows gets installed then it allows Windows Update to be paused by default out of the box.
- The "SearchOrderConfig" key prevents Windows Update from forcibly installing new drivers and upgrading existing ones. This is important, because the driver installation feature can be rather dysfunctional, offering bugged or incorrect drivers that cause performance issues and crashing.
OTHER UPDATERS
This section discusses some of the details regarding tweaks related to various automatic update features.
- The "AutoDownload" key prevents the Microsoft Store from updating apps silently in the background. You can still manually update apps individually, or all apps at once from within the Store app though.
- The "PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork" key prevents the Devices and Printers section of Windows from silently updating external devices with optional drivers and add-ons. Nothing installed by this feature is required for anything to work correctly, it is optional software that most people do not realize exists on their machine, since it does not typically show up in the start menu or other related places.
- The "AutoDownload" key prevents the Microsoft Store from updating apps silently in the background. You can still manually update apps individually, or all apps at once from within the Store app though.
- The "PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork" key prevents the Devices and Printers section of Windows from silently updating external devices with optional drivers and add-ons. Nothing installed by this feature is required for anything to work correctly, it is optional software that most people do not realize exists on their machine, since it does not typically show up in the start menu or other related places.
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