Whether you’ve installed it yet or not, Microsoft intends Windows 10 to stick around for quite some time, so get comfortable folks.
It’s fortuitous then that, for the most part anyway, Windows 10 is a pretty solid OS, or at least its core functionality is. Its fluff needs a little work, however.
One of the biggest gripes a good deal of the community is having with Microsoft’s “amazing” Windows 10 is the inability to disable automatic updates, an intended design by Microsoft.
Irrespective of why someone does or does not wish to disable that functionality, it really shouldn’t be there in the first place. We should have the choice to install updates how we please.
We don’t want drivers we had no part in selecting conflicting with what’s already installed. Nor do we want Microsoft installing whatever bloatware they deem fit without our say-so.
For all intents and purposes, we own our copy of Windows 10 and should be given more, not less, control over it.
Windows 10 – Automatic Update Settings.
Realising they made a bit of a booboo, Microsoft has released a tool designed to assist in preventing unwanted updates from installing. It’s not integrated into the OS, like it should have been from the get-go, but it’s a start.
But just how do you go about doing it?
Microsoft’s Tool:
- Download Show or hide updates tool – labelled “Diagnostic Cabinet (wushowhide.diagcab) – from Microsoft here.
- Open/Run the tool on your Windows 10 machine.
- The tool’s job is to search for all available updates and let you effectively hide them from Windows 10, preventing the OS from attempting to download those packages in the future.
- If you need to download the same package in the future, simply run the tool and unhide them.
We advise that for the moment you use the tool only to disable conflicting drivers. It’s probably not a good idea to disable updates that are designed to secure your system from tampering or intrusion.
Security vulnerabilities are not to be underestimated. Moreover, given how new Windows 10 is, there are bound to be a number of functionality and performance updates you will almost certainly want.
For those dead-set on disabling automatic updates, WCCF Tech has provided another way to disable those confounded things.
The workaround:
Setting your system to “metered connection” will automatically disable Windows 10’s automatic update functionality.
A “metered connection” tells Windows 10 that your bandwidth is being billed by the megabyte, or that you’re on an otherwise expensive wireless connection, so it disables systems that might harm your wallet.
- Launch Windows 10 Settings with Windows key + I.
- Click on Network & Internet > scroll down to Advanced Options.
- Spot the Set as metered connection switch? Toggle it On.
Whatever you do, don’t blame us if disabling updates altogether puts your PC in poor shape following a few visits from more than friendly malware.
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There is an option to defer updates, which will allow you to delay it for a couple of months. The less intrusive option is to set your network to metered which will delay until you set that back to not metered. If you elect to go with automated updates you can always go and roll back a specific update if it causes issues.
I am on automatic updates with metered connection and takes the metered option off at night when I have surplus bandwidth. I prefer to stay updated. In the advance options you can also set an option to allow pcs on the same network or the entire network to share downloading, almost like a torrent function. I run my two notebook on a single network with this option on and it reduces bandwidth as part of the download is shared instead of downloading every update for every pc separately.
Apart from a couple of small teething problems, I find Windows 10 the most stable Windows ever. Only issue is sound and bridged networking in VirtualBox Clients running under Windows 10 host. If that is a necessity you should for now not upgrade to 10, but I am not aware of any other outstanding issues.