Best way to turn off Automatic windwos update in Windows 10

There is no option to turn off Windows Updates using the Control Panel or Settings app in Windows 10, as it used to be with earlier versions of Windows. But there is a workaround to disable or turn off Windows Update in Windows 10, that we’ll talk about in this post.

Windows Update applet in Control Panel missing 

Advanced Windows Update options

It appears Microsoft is fiercely determined to force Windows 10 users to always install the latest updates. The latest build, 9926, only offers two update options: Automatic (recommended) and Notify to schedule restart. The latter option won’t download updates over a metered connection, and you will be asked to schedule a restart to finish installing updates.


Disabling the Windows Update service

However, we have another option to turn off Automatic Updates altogether. All we need to do is stop the Windows Update service and make sure that it won’t start again. I recommend to first check if updates are currently downloaded; if so, wait until all updates are installed. Then, type “services” in the Windows 10 search box and click View Local Services.

Windows Update service

Scroll down to Windows Update and double-click the service. Set the startup type to Disabled. If the service is already running, click Stop. After the service has stopped, click OK.

Disable Windows Update service

If you now click Check for Updates in the Windows Update app, you should see a reassuring error message:

Error message: There were some problems installing updates

Yup, that is all we wanted: “some problems installing updates.”