Windows 10 - how to disable windows auto update, while using deepfreeze?

Question

We use deepfreeze, which is a software for cybercafe, public locations to allow the user to use the PC but on reboot it clean everything and goes back to our old stable setup.

Now that windows 10 finally arrived and using deepfreeze is making life complicated.

Windows 10 only allow to modify the windows updates in following options:

00000002 (Notify for download and notify for install)
00000003 (Auto download and notify for install)
00000004 (Auto download and schedule the install)

Now when i select 00000004 and let it install, after every reboot all the updates become a nightmare to handle and erase by deepfreeze.

How can we finally have the old method of disable windows update in 10 please? (we cant remove/stop using our decades of stable/reliable deepfreeze software)

I'd be awfully tempted to find out what 00000001 and 00000000 do. — RedGrittyBrick, Apr 06 '16 at 11:09
The proper way to handle this is to unfreeze the hdd, install the updates, then perform a freeze. Since you can schedule, when the installation is installed, you can also automate this process if you want. — Ramhound, Apr 06 '16 at 13:58
Seems to me that a group policy and a value of "2" above would prevent the auto-downloading and install. (It does for me), but Win10 will still show the system-modal about updates being available and a button to schedule a task that is blocked by the group policy... — Yorik, Apr 06 '16 at 14:02

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 06 '16 at 13:03

3

Your only real option to disable Windows Updates is through Group Policy but that's a huge IF, as you need the Professional Edition. Not all editions of Windows allows this. Also, there's a lot of security updates being sent out, so you're missing out on those.

If I'm not mistaken, Deep Freeze won't let you schedule updates which in our school district was a huge pain. We moved over to Drive Vaccine. We're able to schedule updates and it installs to the baseline (equivalent to the 'Frozen State') so you may want to look into that if handling updates is important to you.

answered Apr 06 '16 at 13:03

MeganInIT

46

1

Updates are COMPLETELY NOT IMPORTANT FOR US. We install the system for one time. we get paid job is done. but after several months we get call or every week get call for "windows issues" which we do not / never ever get paid, we all waste time just because for Windows issues. How can we completely stop updates so that we can have a easy life going like before? should we move to Professional edition of windows 10? – YumYumYum Apr 06 '16 at 13:14
Drive Vaccine - ask too much money for this, which was FREE in past without Windows 10 messed up with force update. Now Windows 8.1 keep getting popup upgrade to Windows 10. This is messed up by Microsoft. We need permanent option to disable updates. There are billions of reason why we need AUTO NO UPDATES. – YumYumYum Apr 06 '16 at 13:25
2

From what I've heard and seen, the GPO settings may work, but the thing is too, Microsoft may also decide to bypass it entirely. It's Microsoft. So the GPO settings is the only real solution I can think of, but even that's going to be problematic. I know a local library that tried the GPO method and MS sent out the 1511 update and bricked their systems.
You can try it, maybe just on one machine? I still think the better option here is to look into Drive Vaccine. I think you'll get more value out of it in the long run.
– MeganInIT Apr 06 '16 at 13:27
GPO - DOES NOT SOLVED THE PROBLEM. Microsoft sent 2000 updates and the system get frozen. Because of Microsoft forcing to install updates the whole DeepFreeze concept is not working anymore. Please give some other solution FREE or less Cheaper then Drive Vaccine. – YumYumYum Apr 06 '16 at 13:28
Wow, good luck. I can only speak from personal experiences. – MeganInIT Apr 06 '16 at 13:55
@YumYumYum - Now Windows 8.1 keep getting popup upgrade to Windows 10. - So apply the group policy and/or modify the registry key, so the upgrade to Windows 10 is blocked. – Ramhound Apr 06 '16 at 13:56
This is killing the project and trust on Microsoft Windows 10. They are putting annoying options and making everything unstable now. – YumYumYum Apr 06 '16 at 13:58
@YumYumYum - You have the same controls you always did. – Ramhound Apr 06 '16 at 13:59
@Ramhound: same controls we do not have anymore. Windows 10 auto update i want to disable, is it available now? – YumYumYum Apr 06 '16 at 14:01
1

@YumYumYum - Here. As for having the ability to edit Group Policy on editions without that capability, there is a solution for that, little research goes a long way. As I suggested you can schedule updates to always be installed on the same day, allowing you configure DeepFreeze, to allow the updates to be installed and automatically update the DeepFreeze image being used. – Ramhound Apr 06 '16 at 14:04
But you had to do that anyways no matter what version of Windows you were on, because a Windows installation without updates, is an insecure installation even if its protected by DeepFreeze. – Ramhound Apr 06 '16 at 14:07

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 13 '18 at 20:13

I have found a permanent solution for disabling all Windows updates forever regardless of whether the service or anything else is running. I have figured out this method with the help of many different sources that had to do with many different things. Overall, I found this method myself with the use of bits and pieces of other information used to do things that were not all related to this, but it works. And it works absolutely beautifully.

Install Acrylic DNS Proxy from here

It is basically a souped up version of the Windows hosts file that allows you to add wildcard names, which is necessary in our case because of the many sources Windows gets its updates from.
Follow the instructions here to make Acrylic start doing its job in Windows 10. Pretty simple stuff.
Go to your Start Menu, and click "Edit Acrylic Hosts File" under All Programs.

Add these lines to the bottom of the hosts file, with no # signs in front.

0.0.0.0 windowsupdate.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 *.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 *.update.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 windowsupdate.com
0.0.0.0 *.windowsupdate.com
0.0.0.0 download.windowsupdate.com
0.0.0.0 download.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 *.download.windowsupdate.com
0.0.0.0 wustat.windows.com
0.0.0.0 ntservicepack.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 stats.microsoft.com

Save and close the file.

Open Task Manager, go to Services tab, click "Open Services" at the bottom, select "Acrylic DNS Proxy" and click this button with the red circle to restart the service.

FINISHED

Now your Acrylic buddy should have your back and constantly keep an keen eye on Microsoft to make sure they can't force you to install updates.

Check to make sure it's working by pinging any one of the websites in the code above. Open cmd and type
```
ping windowsupdate.microsoft.com
```
If your results look like
```
Ping request could not find windowsupdate.microsoft.com. Please check the name and try again
```
you will be golden from now on!!

Note: in my experience, this has not slowed my PC at all. It also does not reroute any Internet traffic besides requests to the sources Windows uses to update or check for updates, so very similar to the hosts file. It also uses basically the same format as the hosts file. This has also successfully disabled the reinstall of junk that Windows keeps placing on my computer.

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 19 '21 at 07:41

1

Go to Date & time settings, and turn off set time automatically
Set the date to as far into the future as possible.
Go to Windows Update settings, then Advanced options and pause updates for as long as possible.
Go back to Date & time settings, and turn set time automatically back on.

Windows Update settings should now look something like this:

edited Jul 19 '21 at 07:41

ZygD

2,497

answered Jul 16 '21 at 20:22

nellapizza

111

I found this Windows Update>Advanced>Pause method to be the safest way to control updates in Deep Freeze. – jpeni Sep 12 '23 at 20:40

Windows 10 - how to disable windows auto update, while using deepfreeze?

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