Fourth dimension to turn off Windows Automated Update and brace for impact

Patch Tuesday hits tomorrow. Maybe it'll be benign, equally information technology was in August. Maybe, as in July, the rolled out offal will suspension everything in sight. You've got to ask yourself ane question: 'Exercise I experience lucky?'

August 2018 was a relatively innocuous patching calendar month, although the last resolution to the August problems didn't appear until late Fri nighttime just as the month was coming to a close  — on a three-twenty-four hour period weekend in the Us.

Nosotros've seen the aforementioned pattern echo itself almost every month since the beginning of the twelvemonth: The first round of Microsoft security patches (notably including Win10 patches) innovate bugs, while subsequent rounds of patches each calendar month squash most of them. If we're lucky.

Sometimes the fixes come in second or third cumulative updates. Sometimes they come in Monthly Rollup Previews — a heinous practice. In either case, a pregnant group of beginning-circular patchers go hit. Their more cautious brethren sit and watch, listen to the screams of pain, and look for the all-articulate.

If you remain resolute in your belief that Microsoft'south style is the all-time manner, then by all ways, I urge yous to install all of the updates every bit soon equally they're available. That way you can tell us what went wrong. Utilise your telephone.

If you're just a tad skittish — those who learn from the past aren't doomed to echo it, eh? — I recommend y'all plough off Automatic Updating, just for a while.

How to block Windows Update

The methods for blocking Windows Update are pretty straightforward.

If you're using Windows seven or 8.ane , click Start > Control Panel > System and Security. Under Windows Update, click the "Turn automatic updating on or off" link. Click the "Change Settings" link on the left. Verify that y'all have Of import Updates fix to "Never check for updates (non recommended)" and click OK.

If you lot're using Windows ten Pro version 1703, 1709, or 1803, and Microsoft doesn't change its heed again, you can use Windows' built-in tools to hold off on the looming patches — simply follow Steps 7 and 8 in viii steps to install Windows 10 patches like a pro . Other Windows 10 users, including all Win10 Domicile owners, aren't quite so lucky, but the general "metered connection" approach is detailed in Woody's Win10Tip: Block forced Windows updates .

If y'all're a Paranoid Pro, information technology'd exist wise to utilize both the Update avant-garde options approach and the metered connectedness arroyo. You tin can never have too much protection.

To proceed your motorcar on 1703 or 1709 — and avoid 1803 , for the meantime — follow the detailed steps in How to cake the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, version 1803, from installing . Yes, Microsoft has ignored those settings on some machines, merely using all of the tricks — even setting Pro machines to metered connectedness — seems to block the forced march.

Microsoft has vowed that information technology volition finish dishing out security patches for Win10 1703 next month — although it isn't clear if the flow volition stop with the showtime (buggy?) round of cumulative updates, or if the bugs will be bad plenty that Microsoft will be shamed into releasing a 2nd or third round of 1703 cumulative updates in October.

Those of us who are however using 1703 will have to decide next month whether we're going to bound to 1709, 1803, or maybe fifty-fifty 1809. But that'southward a decision for another day.

We're at MS-DEFCON 2 on the AskWoody Lounge .

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