Microsoft forces Windows 10 update on PCs that were set up to block it

Tech Republic ^ | March 9, 2018 | By Conner Forrest

[Swordmaker]

Some users reported being pushed to the Win10 1709 upgrade with no advanced warning.

• Certain Windows 10 users are being forced to upgrade to version 1709, even if they have deferred the Feature Updates.
• All users who have been forced to upgrade to Windows 10 version 1709 seem to have limited the Diagnostic Data that could be collected by Microsoft.

Some Windows 10 users are reportedly being forced to upgrade to version 1709, even if they had chosen to opt out of automatic updates.

As reported by Windows blog AskWoody, Windows 10 users on versions 1607 and 1703 were pushed into the update, even if they had Feature Updates deferred. In a separate Woody on Windows column in Computerworld, it was also noted that the updates were forced on users with no advance warning.

Version 1607 is also known as the Anniversary Update, and version 1703 is called the First Spring Creators Update of Windows 10. The push to version 1709 is an upgrade to what is known as the Fall Creators Update, originally released on October 17, 2017.

SEE: System update policy (Tech Pro Research)

The forced updates are interesting because they seem to bypass a safeguard feature that prevents automatic updates. By deferring feature updates, Windows users can push back certain updates for quite a long time, placing them on a path called "Current Branch for Business." But this surprise upgrade was unavoidable for some users, even with the deferral in place.

[Augie]

We use SCCM to manage Windows patching.

End users don’t have a choice of what patches to take, or when to take them. That is decided for them by central IT.

We get the patches from MS, deploy to test lab, and actually test them before deploying to production systems.

I can’t remember the last time we had trouble due to a bad patch.

[Clutch Martin]

I sure miss my MS flight sim.

Anybody know of a patch?

[rlmorel]

Right. In the enterprise, that is how it should be done.

[butlerweave]

Windows 10 S will be TOTAL CONTROL

[minnesota_bound]

#18 Google: fan filter for computers

Images - keeps spiders and other critters out of the pc.
https://tinyurl.com/y8aqqbdp

[cranked]

So much for user control.....

[Sergio]

Tech bookmark, thanks for the link.

[Wuli]

There is a way to keep the updates at bay, as long as one little trick is maintained.

In network settings you can make ANY network connection gateway to the Internet a “metered connection”, no matter how it is connected, by cable or by WiFi.

With that connection set to “metered”, the Win 10 understanding is you are paying metered costs for your connection, in which longer connection times cost you more. Because of that cost consideration and not knowing just how long a time an update may take, Win 10 ASKS your permission to run any update, and you can say “Remind me later” for as long as you want.

You can even get that question to stay off your screen for long periods of time, by - as soon as your “connection” is live - going to to task manager and shutting down (stopping) a task called Windows 10 Update Assistant (it usually does not show up until the system sees you’ve made your network connection). I try to stave it coming back too soon by also ending the tasks “Update Orchestrator” and “Windows Update”, usually found in the svchost item that has the largest number of items within it (In Win 10 the number of items in a svchost item is shown next to it in parenthesis).

Yes that is a go around, and yes it must be done every time the system is restarted. With that little bit of work is does keep all Win 10 updates at bay.

I learned about it and starting doing after a Win 10 update made a number of programs on my PC inoperable. I reversed that update, went online on my Win 7 PC, and found the procedure to keep Win 10 updates at bay.

As for “security updates”, Microsoft has to find away to make them independent of any other OS update, and allow security updates to be singled out as the only update you want to run.

Microsoft should have an “application inspector”, where you direct it to (a) run [in background] an application as if the last OS update had not been done, (b) try to run it again under the latest update, (c) determine how the latest update makes the application fail, and (d) replace those latest update items that made it fail, with the items that stood in their place before the update.

Nothing is worse than an OS with updates that obsolete perfectly fine already working programs. Yes, an OS update should help facilitate newer programs that need or want some resource arrangement not expected before. It is NOT automatic that doing so MUST invalidate what the OS accommodated before.

[HangThemHigh]

"We had to stop the updates or else trash the computer."

Been there, done that both of the above, even with Never 10.

But Never10 didn't work forever for me. The blockade held several months, but MS decided I really needed to update, no matter what I thought in my ignorance. I was unable to boot the computer or recover after the failed update.

I finally decided I would have to reinstall everything, but I tried to take away some learning from the experience. The machine has been happily running Ubuntu the last year or so. I wasn't about to buy a new computer and then pollute it with a MS-OS.

I'm running Win Vista on this computer, they don't even try to update or even patch this thing.

[Tom Bombadil]

Linux Mint works for me. I got tired of being pushed around.

[dayglored]

Windows 10 Update -- BOHICA ... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: just search on keyword "windowspinglist".

Thanks to Swordmaker for the ping!

---

Dayglored's take:

Seriously, I'm astonished that this is a surprise or shock to anyone. Microsoft has made it quite clear, over and over, that Windows 10 updates WILL BE PUSHED to user systems, and that "deferring" them is only temporary. The Fall Creators Update was released in October 2017, five months ago.

This has been a big item in the tech press for years now. Microsoft's site is completely clear. For example:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026834/windows-10-defer-upgrades

"Some Windows 10 editions let you defer upgrades to your PC. When you defer upgrades, new Windows features won’t be downloaded or installed for several months. Deferring upgrades doesn’t affect security updates, but it does prevent you from getting the latest Windows features as soon as they're available. Note that if your PC is managed by an organization, you may not be able to defer upgrades."

Do people not understand that "for several months" means temporary?

[dayglored]

> ...even if they had chosen to opt out of automatic updates...

There is no such thing as "opting out of automatic updates" with Windows 10. It's only a temporary deferment. Sooner or later YOU WILL GET THE UPDATE, period.

The available mechanisms that actually work for truly blocking updates are pretty draconian themselves.

[Windflier]

Microscum...

[Dalberg-Acton]

If your computer boots into Windows 10, then it isn’t your computer anymore.

[daniel1212]

I set my updates to be delayed, likely as explained here , and am at ver. 16299 . Windows says i am up to date.

[TChad]

As I recently learned, Windows Update also forces 1709 on some computers running 1703, when the Atom CPU in those old computers has been specified by Microsoft as incompatible with 1709. Rather than noticing the Atom processor, avoiding 1709, and installing the appropriate updates to 1703, Windows Update keeps trying and failing to install 1709.

[daniel1212]

I invested 2 days trouble shooting and repairing the motherboard 3 years ago (spider crawled into a card slot and shorted out a munch of stuff).

He must have been trying to get on the Web!

Seriously, that is really something.

[AppyPappy]

Linux or quit whining about the Borg

[miliantnutcase]

gpedit.msc

[miliantnutcase]

We update our machines ourselves with sccm in our own terms. Initially, it was tough to completely shutdown the win10 enterprise client from phoning home for major updates. But with a number of GPO edits it was made possible- even without long term service branch.