Anyone have a stick?

Coffeebean · Feb 10, 2026

Hello hello, new user/long time lurker here

I've been trying to find a way to stop W11H from checking for updates and running Defender EVERY time I turn on my laptop—but net searches keep returning "how to stop automatic updates" which I've already done by using instructions found in this forum a few years back—a truly wonderful find imho thankyousoverymuchindeed

I want to stop the checking for updates, or more accurately, control exactly when windows checks for updates and run scans

I shut down my laptop when I'm done with it for the time being, sometimes that's for days sometimes for hours but no matter which, every time I turn it on I have to wait FOREVER for win11 to fart around Defending & Checking... whatever it wants to look for... which takes too bleeping long before it hands over access so I can use my laptop. This constant time wasting messes with productivity. Compared to my old XP computer (just timed both fwiw) which I even have a bios password on that has to be entered first, (this one does not) W11 takes over 5 times as long to hand over control of my "modern" (ha!) desktop.

That machine is over 20 yrs old and has 1/3th the proc-power with 1/4 the ram but it loads in 18 SECONDS while this one takes 30-50 seconds just from the ASUS page to loading the first "picture screen", then 20 more seconds (sometimes longer) before my login page appears, and then anywhere from 20-40 more seconds before it stops farting around and hands over access to my frozen desktop/programs/etc... And the last thing it does before handing control over? The annoying "Windows Defender Found No Threats" pop-out (which you have to waste more time on clicking to dismiss ^%$@#&!!. ) Good lord, is every OS/App/Prog nowadays purposely designed to waste as much time as humanly possibly with needless clicking? I digress...because I long for the clean and simple days of old lol...

Anyway It has been like this from new, w/clean install & no added programs. I don't game, or run anything that windows didn't come with. Literally nothing. All Asus bloat cleaned out with a fresh 11 install. This is literally an old lady latop that writes docs in wordpad or notepad, reads news and sends email once a week on a busy day! I only realised it still hunted updates when today I opened settings for a different reason a saw it had "last checked for updates 3 hours ago".... exactly when I turned my computer on today.... grrr

I thought I had stopped the "checking for updates" side of things when I gave myself the "20 Year Tweak" but alas no, it may not updatate automatically but it is still always loooooking - slowing things down and jamming things up.

So, figuratively speaking - I want to poke it's eyes out...
Anyone have a stick? :wink:

Fishmill · Feb 10, 2026

What do you see at settings/windows update?

I see "updates paused till 2/26/26".

What do you see at settings/windows update/update history?

I see nothing newer than 1/22/26.

SoFine409 · Feb 10, 2026

Head over to gethub and download WUMGR by David Xanotis.

GitHub - DavidXanatos/wumgr: Windows update managemetn tool for windows 10

Windows update managemetn tool for windows 10. Contribute to DavidXanatos/wumgr development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

I’ve been using it for several years. It lets you decide which update to install and when to install them. I use it on all of my PCs.

antspants · Feb 10, 2026

Coffeebean said:
That machine is over 20 yrs old

I doubt it. But if true, how did you load Windows 11 24/25H2 with a 20 year old CPU? You can't.
Are you running an unsupported Operating System version?

So what are the specs and what is the Windows build, please

Coffeebean · Feb 10, 2026

Coffeebean · Feb 11, 2026

antspants said:
I doubt it. But if true, how did you load Windows 11 24/25H2 with a 20 year old CPU? You can't.
Are you running an unsupported Operating System version?

So what are the specs and what is the Windows build, please

I didn't say I had w11 on a 20 yr old computer lol - I said my 20yo XP computer (as in winXP) started up WAY faster than my new one... which it does, infinitely faster.

Coffeebean · Feb 11, 2026

SoFine409 said:
Head over to gethub and download WUMGR by David Xanotis.

GitHub - DavidXanatos/wumgr: Windows update managemetn tool for windows 10

Windows update managemetn tool for windows 10. Contribute to DavidXanatos/wumgr development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

I’ve been using it for several years. It lets you decide which update to install and when to install them. I use it on all of my PCs.

I appreciate this for sure, but it isn't about deciding which to install at this point - I just want windows to stop looking for updates in the first place, at least until I say it can - it takes bloody forever to do it's "looking" when I just want to start working on something kwik-like without waiting

(apologies for the goofy spelling but I just found out I autohotkeyed my "kew" by accident and haven't restored it yel lmao!)

antspants · Feb 11, 2026

Coffeebean said:
I didn't say I had w11 on a 20 yr old computer lol - I said my 20yo XP computer (as in winXP) started up WAY faster than my new one

OK, understood.

An update manager as SoFine409 mentions. There is that one, I was using WAUManager, there are also others, apparently.

antspants · Feb 11, 2026

Coffeebean said:
I just want windows to stop looking for updates in the first place, at least until I say it can

Did you at least run it to look?

Coffeebean · Feb 11, 2026

SoFine409 and Sinto you rock! Cheers!
I freakin' LOVE this forum :clap:

SoFine409 · Feb 11, 2026

Coffeebean said:
I appreciate this for sure, but it isn't about deciding which to install at this point - I just want windows to stop looking for updates in the first place, at least until I say it can - it takes bloody forever to do it's "looking" when I just want to start working on something kwik-like without waiting (apologies for the goofy spelling but I just found out I autohotkeyed my "kew" by accident and haven't restored it yel lmao!)

WuMgr runs only when you open it and click on Search for Updates. You don’t have to run it and even after you instruct it to search for updates you select the update you want or simply close it without installing anything. You can even tell it to hide any update you wish. Your control is absolute. If you don’t want to search for updates for 6 months then simply don’t run it; it does not run in the background.

antspants · Feb 11, 2026

Coffeebean said:
SoFine409 and Sinto you rock! Cheers!
I freakin' LOVE this forum

Happy you found a solution

You win a prize

SoFine409 · Feb 11, 2026

Coffeebean said:
SoFine409 and Sinto you rock! Cheers!
I freakin' LOVE this forum

Over the years this forum and its predecessor the Win10 forum, have been an invaluable resource for me. The members are the absolute best!

cereberus · Feb 11, 2026

Well here"s the thing - stopping updates is actually counter productive. Updates fix bugs (and to a lesser degree introduce new ones) but more critically they fix security holes.

A lot of people fail to recognise Windows 11 builds cease to be supported after 18 months.

People complain about automatic updates but MS was forced to introduce them with Windows 10 as MS was getting heavily criticised as having an unsafe OS despite reason being people were deliberately turning off updates.

It was estimated up to 40% of pcs werevl getting attacked. In fact people were trying to sue MS despite it not beong their fault. So MS made the decision to force updates.

Bad decision? Definitely not - from my own experience, I was forever sorting out family and friends pcs due to viruses and primary reason was they kept turning off updates. I have only needed to do it say 3 or 4 times in the last decade since Windows 10 came out.

Also, guess what? Many here will attest that they rarely get update issues (eben if one gets them, most are minor annoyance issues).

Personally, I accept that I may get a minor update issue but happy knowing the OS is as secure as it can be.

There is a commonly held opinion whereby people say they like to wait to do updates aa they think it is sensible. In reality it is silly because even if a bug is nominally fixed, you have no idea if it is fixed FOR you.

The only way to test if an update fixes your problem is to try it yourself.

A much better strategy is to make an image backup and roll back an update if you get any real issues. I cannot remember ever doing that on Windows 11 but did it a couple of times on Windows 10 in its early days.

Of course, there are cases where people need to genuinely block an update but for most users it is just rhetoric.

Coffeebean · Feb 11, 2026

SoFine409 said:
Over the years this forum and its predecessor the Win10 forum, have been an invaluable resource for me. The members are the absolute best!

Ditto - in a world currently run, and overrun, with a seemingly endless stream of buttock-chapeaus, it matters so much that the really smart and really, truly good guys are still online all over the world helping folks simply because they can.

yep you all, every brainiac, techy, nerd, guru, noob or other kindness carrying keyboard tapper that has ever taken a moment to give a moment — folks like you are a huge reason why the world doesn't suck completely right now — may you all

Ghot · Feb 11, 2026

Coffeebean said:
So, figuratively speaking - I want to poke it's eyes out...

FreeBooter · Feb 11, 2026

This batch script will set Windows Update to Never Notify or Check for Updates in Windows 10 but should also work for Windows 11.

Batch:

::  Set Windows Update to Never Notify or Check for Updates in Windows 10


@Echo Off & Cls

net sess>nul 2>&1||(powershell start cmd -ArgumentList """/c %~0""" -verb Runas & exit)

Cls & Mode CON  LINES=11 COLS=80 & Color 0E & Title Created By FreeBooter
Echo.
Echo.
Echo.
Echo.
Echo            Set Windows Update to Never Notify or Check for Updates (Y/N)?   
Echo.       
Echo.
Echo.


Set /p input=^>

If /i  Not %input%==Y (Goto :_Ex) Else (Goto :_Start)

:_Ex
If /i Not %input%==N  (Goto :EOF) Else (Goto :_RegRestore)



:_Start


Reg.exe delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" /f
Reg.exe add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" /v "NoAutoUpdate" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f



Cls & Mode CON  LINES=11 COLS=80 & Color 0E & Title Created By FreeBooter
Echo.
Echo.
Echo.
Echo.
Echo         Configuring Windows Update to Never Notify or Check for Updates
Echo.
Echo.
Echo.
Ping -n 6 localhost >Nul
Goto Reboot


:_RegRestore


Reg.exe delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" /v "NoAutoUpdate" /f
Reg.exe add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" /v "NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f




Cls & Mode CON  LINES=11 COLS=50 & Color 0E & Title Created By FreeBooter
Echo.
Echo.
Echo.
Echo.
Echo            Enabling Automatic Updates
Echo.
Echo.
Echo.
Ping -n 6 localhost >Nul


:Reboot

CHOICE /C YN /M "Press Y to Reboot, N for exiting script."


If %errorlevel% == 1 ( Shutdown /r /t 0) Else (Exit)

The "Disable Windows Update" Batch Script

This script does three things: it stops the update services, disables them so they don't restart on boot, and modifies the Registry to set the "No Auto Update" policy.

Open Notepad.
Copy and paste the code below.
Save the file with a .bat extension (e.g., DisableUpdates.bat).
Right-click the file and select Run as Administrator.

Batch:

@echo off
:: Check for Administrative Privileges
net session >nul 2>&1
if %errorLevel% neq 0 (
    echo [ERROR] This script must be run as Administrator.
    pause
    exit /b
)

echo ---------------------------------------------------
echo Disabling Windows Update Services...
echo ---------------------------------------------------

:: Stop services (Windows Update, BITS, Delivery Optimization, Update Orchestrator)
net stop wuauserv /y
net stop bits /y
net stop dosvc /y
net stop usosvc /y

:: Disable services from starting automatically
sc config wuauserv start= disabled
sc config bits start= disabled
sc config dosvc start= disabled
sc config usosvc start= disabled

echo ---------------------------------------------------
echo Applying Registry Changes...
echo ---------------------------------------------------

:: Create the AU (Automatic Updates) key if it doesn't exist and set options
:: AUOptions 1 = Never check for updates
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" /v "NoAutoUpdate" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" /v "AUOptions" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

echo.
echo Process Complete. Windows Updates are now set to "Never Check."
echo Note: Windows may occasionally attempt to re-enable these services.
pause

Marcus Vinicus · Feb 11, 2026

Ghot said:
View attachment 162920

Do a Lizzie Borden and give it 40 whacks! :axe:

Coffeebean · Feb 11, 2026

FreeBooter said:
This batch script will set Windows Update to Never Notify or Check for Updates in Windows 10 but should also work for Windows 11.

The "Disable Windows Update" Batch Script
This script does three things: it stops the update services, disables them so they don't restart on boot, and modifies the Registry to set the "No Auto Update" policy.

Thanx for this! will give them a shot - if and/or when I should need/want to update sometime in the future how would I reverse these?

IanMosley · Feb 11, 2026

Coffeebean said:
I just want windows to stop looking for updates in the first place, at least until I say it can

This attachment may help

Anyone have a stick?

Member

My Computer

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My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

Like a rolling drone.

My Computers

Member

My Computer

Member

My Computer

Member

My Computer

Like a rolling drone.

My Computers

Like a rolling drone.

My Computers

Member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

Like a rolling drone.

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computer

Member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

Well-known member

The "Disable Windows Update" Batch Script​

My Computer

Semper paratus

My Computers

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The "Disable Windows Update" Batch Script​

My Computer

Windows Insider

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