How to Quickly Enable/Disable Windows Updates in Windows 10

If you are working on something important and do not want to receive Windows updates via the automatic updates service of Windows 10 (or Windows 8.x), then you will have to disable the Windows updates service temporarily. If the service keeps running, then Windows will keep downloading the automatic updates in the background and will start to install them. This could interfere with your work not only because the system needs to be restarted at the end of the updates installation, but also because the system gets busy as the system resources are taken up during the installation.

One of the ways of quickly enabling and disabling the Windows updates is through the SC commands. You have to issue these commands in an elevated command widow:

  1. Press Win+X and select Command Prompt (Admin) from the menu.
  2. In the command prompt window, give these commands:
    sc stop wuauserv
    sc config wuauserv start=disabled
    

    Disable Enable Windows Updates

  3. If you want to re-enable the Windows updates at any later time, then give these commands in the elevated command prompt:
    sc config wuauserv start=auto
    sc start wuauserv
    

You can also create batch files containing these commands and keep them somewhere in your PC. Whenever you want to enable or disable the automatic updates, you can right-click on these batch files and select Run as administrator. This would be much faster way of enabling or disabling the Windows Updates. You can actually download the ready-made batch scripts from this Google Drive link : https://goo.gl/4pGfcx.

Disable Enable Windows Updates

Another GUI way of disabling or enabling the automatic update service is obviously through the Service Manager in Windows:

  1. Press Win+R to open the Run dialog. Type services.msc in the Run dialog and press Enter.
  2. Scroll down and locate the service named Windows Update. Double-click on the Windows Update service to open the service properties.Disable Enable Windows Updates
  3. In the properties window, select the start-up type to be Disabled and click on the Stop button to stop the service. Then click on the OK button to save the settings.
  4. If you want to enable it once again, then choose start-up type to Automatic, click on the Start button and then on the OK button.

You do not have to use any third party tools to disable or enable the Windows Updates in Windows 10. In fact it is much safer and quicker to use the options provided by the Windows operating system itself compared to some shady software loaded with ads and spyware.

4 comments

  1. I used the second method and I haven’t had any updates for over a month. When I tried doing it manually, I got an error. So it worked excellent for me. Thank you Trisha!!

  2. These methods can disable wuauserv, but unfortunately Win 10 aggressively, secretly reenables it within minutes or hours. What’s needed is script running cyclically to play the cat (or the mouse) vs. Win 10

    1. Yes, Windows does NOT respect your settings.

      Q: what makes you think it respects all the other settings you make?!

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