Pause your updates until 2033 on Windows

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coffeeprogrammer

Well-known member
Jul 19, 2021
173
14
I have always run updates manually; I don’t like Windows Update running on its own. Newer versions of Windows tend to try and update no matter what. I often use the pause updates feature. There is a group policy to turn off updates, but Windows still checks, it just does not download or install them with that setting. I found some registry settings that seem to pause the updates until 2033, typically the UI only allows for five weeks past the current date. If you needed to run updates, you could just click the resume updates button to install before 2033. I just found this online and have not tested over a long period, but if it does not work correctly then feel free to post feedback. Anyway, here are screen shots from 10 and 11 and the required reg file.

reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UpdatePolicy\Settings]
"PausedFeatureStatus"=dword:00000000
"PausedQualityStatus"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings]
"FlightSettingsMaxPauseDays"=dword:00000e42
"PauseFeatureUpdatesStartTime"="2023-11-06T14:03:37Z"
"PauseFeatureUpdatesEndTime"="2033-10-31T14:03:37Z"
"PauseQualityUpdatesStartTime"="2023-11-06T14:03:37Z"
"PauseQualityUpdatesEndTime"="2033-10-31T14:03:37Z"
"PauseUpdatesStartTime"="2023-11-06T14:03:37Z"
"PauseUpdatesExpiryTime"="2033-10-31T14:03:37Z"
 

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  • UpdatePause_2033_w10.png
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  • UpdatePause_2033_w11.png
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I fly the other way and install Preview updates as soon as possible and even have 24H2 installed, but not currently on the insider program. If something goes wrong it is a 10-15 minute restore from my weekly backup. But I have not had to do a restore because of a Windows problem in at least the last year or two. Maybe the last time was when I was on the Insider program.

IN my experience messing with registry entries causes more problems down the road (but I still do it from time to time).

To each their own.
 
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I understand people wishing to feel like they're in control of their PCs, but this is counter to modern reality. The issue I have with avoiding automatic updates is that now it puts another responsibility onto the user. They now need to, at least monthly, make a further decision about updates, which just feels kind of counter to having a PC to reduce the burdens of such things. With the recent WiFi RCE, it also highlights that sometimes a patch is too urgent to skip (for at least some users) and not every user is doing the research to understand this in a timely manner. In the end, I guess it's "to each their own" but I really do worry about people becoming a public nuisance/danger simply because they thought they knew best when they probably did not.
 
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Yes, that is a good point. There may be people who are better off leaving updates on. I have a few reasons why I don’t want updates to happen on their own. Some of it because of the idea that software vendors should get it right the first time and should not be relying on the idea that if they do something wrong they can just do an update. In the past I have spent time really locking down Windows XP and Windows 7. At that point in time, I really did not have a good way to understand how Windows or any operating system really works.

In fact, I use Windows and Linux the same way any one might, facebook, discord, word processing, video games, whatever. In those cases, I typically am using an updated OS, most likely Windows. But really I have started reloading Windows and Linux much more often than I would have in the past. Some of that is because, time permitting I would like to have a better understanding of OS internals. I also load things like python or JetBrains IDEs that don’t last long before I blow it away. In those cases, where not much is installed and I am not going any place on online, then I don’t really feel like updates are that important. I don’t often go to any new sites.

The other reason I wanted to see what I could do to disable updates is because I have stated using a Windows 10 tablet next to my bed so that I read before going to sleep and I use it for an alarm clock, it works quite well for a few simple tasks. In that case I don’t want it doing updates on its own. I let it update on its own in the middle of the day and typically will bring it to my office on Saturday and run updates.

Lastly, I really burns me what Microsoft is doing with Windows, I really hate a lot of the “features” they have added and continued to add. It is not clearly to me that you can get the security updates without changes to how the operating system works from the users prescriptive. I will not get into how Microsoft and other software companies really do things that I don’t like, but the bottom line is Windows is not something that I think of as being secure and do not use it in a way where I am believing that it is secure or that I trust. If Microsoft and other companies did business differently I might have different thinking on that, but they are who they are.

Also, I went looking for this reg change after I spent some time playing around with Windows Debugging symbols. I recently bought IDA Pro and been wondering if I can use it to reverse Windows and was trying to figure out how that would work, if it would be useful and would be worth the time. I was sent a private message suggesting I provide the link I got the information from, which is here:


On that note, one of things on my mind is how would I have found something in the registry like this or any setting without using a search engine. Often people can figure out undocumented registry settings and thing undocumented Windows and other software. I was thinking that I might figure out what code in Windows is using these settings. How would someone take nothing but a registry key or settings and figure out how Windows is using them. Anyway, they may be a bit verbose, but that is some of my reasoning.