The two problems with this is that your internet bandwidth will be consumed in background without your knowledge and you might have to wait while shutting down the computer which may feel like forever. So, today we’ll show you how to temporarily disable Windows Updates when you need it out of your way.
Disabling Windows Updates
You can open Windows update from Windows Control Panel but I prefer using the wuapp Run command. After Windows update opens up, it gives you many options on the left sidebar you can use to configure update on your computer. Click on the Change settings link to make changes to the Windows update settings. By default Windows update will be set to auto mode but you can choose to disable it or notify you and ask for permission before making an update. I personally would not vouch for disabling the update altogether as it’s not a safe practice. But if Windows update has already downloaded all the update files and waiting for you to shut down your system, there’s still a way to postpone the update process. We came across it on the freewaregenius blog. So let’s see how it can be done.
Skipping Windows Update During Shut down
Step 1: Instead of shutting down Windows using the Start Menu, press the Alt+F4 key to bring up the Windows shutdown menu. Step 2: In general the drop-down menu in this window will show you options like Shut down, Restart, Sleep, Log off. But when you have a Windows update to install you will see an additional option saying Install updates and shutdown which will be selected by default. If you don’t want to install the update in the current shutdown-restart cycle, simply select the Shut down or Restart option. You will have to repeat the steps for skipping the update in each shut down. When you want to apply the update, select the install update option or simply shut down using the Start Menu.
Conclusion
So that was how you can disable Windows updates temporarily. But it’s not recommended to do that for a long time. You should always install the updates the first chance you get as they contain many security patches and bug fixes that your computer needs for proper functioning. The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.
