We have relatively small network & upgraded all possible candidates to Windows 10 professional edition during the free upgrade period, to realize that our 15MBPS (Okay stop mocking us) fiber optic connection was choked & almost no browsing was possible as almost all the machines started downloading the updates. Our WSUS server cannot handle the Windows 10 unless upgraded and we were frantically searching for a method to stop the client machines directly downloading the updates & came across many beautiful blog posts those systematically explained how we could use group policies to control how the clients download updates.

One of the best posts we adopted for our network is available here

We tried the group policy workaround with few of the laptops in the IT and we were able to stop those automatic download of end number of updates those Microsoft pushed everyday to address the numerous issues they were not even able to fix with the anniversary update!

As a user with administrator privileges, start the local group policy editor.

 

Navigation –> Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->Windows Components->Windows Update

Find “Configure Automatic Updates” and open it.

Here you can choose, suitable for your situation. For me, notifications are fine & then I decide when I should download the updates.

Close the Group policy update MSC (Microsoft System Console) and you are all set. From next reboot, you will be given notifications about the downloads, rather than automatically start downloading and clogging your internet connection.

(If you are always connected to WIFI, you can use the “Metered” connection trick to avoid downloading updates automatically. As this trick is not applicable for Ethernet connections, I am not getting into detailed how to this time)

Important Note: You may forget to download and apply the much needed updates, so make sure you will never stop looking at the notification panel for update related.

Regards,

rajesh