How to stop W10 from starting updates during gaming?

Rroff · 5 Dec 2017 at 11:20

Haggisman said:
You can set your Ethernet connection to be metered and tell Windows not to download over a metered connection, it requires a registry hack, but it's relatively straightforward.

Doesn't reliably stop updates any more - the description has changed to:

"Available updates will be downloaded and installed automatically, except over metered connections (where charges may apply).
In that case, we'll automatically download only those updates required to keep Windows running smoothly."

In my experience it now downloads upto ~70% of available updates (not sure if it is a bug or intended) since 1706 with a connection set to metered. Makes the ability to set a connection to metered a bit of a joke.

Tute · 5 Dec 2017 at 11:30

In my experience of having this abomination of an OS on the missus’ laptop, there is no concrete way to stop Windows 10 doing whatever the hell it wants.

Most “hacks” are just ignored completely by the OS or are reenabled whenever it does an update.

I mean I went through and blocked all the ports it uses to call home and it just picks another random port to do it on, talk about when NO doesn’t actually mean NO when it’s Microsoft hearing it.

I actually have a Windows 7 partition on mine for games but blocking it’s crap does seem to block it totally.

opethdisciple · 5 Dec 2017 at 11:38

First thing I do is check for updates on login.

EOL for Win 7 is 2020, so it's very much time to move on from Win 7.

Haggisman · 5 Dec 2017 at 11:46

Tute said:
talk about when NO doesn’t actually mean NO when it’s Microsoft hearing it.

#MeToo!

It really is frustrating, especially on a Steam Link, when the update popup shows it freezes the whole screen, so I have to go upstairs to unlock it again.

If it wasn't for the effort involved I'd reinstall 7 in a heartbeat

Haggisman · 5 Dec 2017 at 11:54

opethdisciple said:
First thing I do is check for updates on login.

That's not really practical though. I turn my PC on because I want to use it now, not in 3 hours when Windows has done its thing. I'd like to update when it's convenient for me, e.g. 3am when I'm asleep, not 10pm when I finally have an hour to chill out with a game before bed.

opethdisciple said:
EOL for Win 7 is 2020, so it's very much time to move on from Win 7.

Something EOL which works > something current which doesn't

opethdisciple · 5 Dec 2017 at 13:19

Haggisman said:
That's not really practical though. I turn my PC on because I want to use it now, not in 3 hours when Windows has done its thing. I'd like to update when it's convenient for me, e.g. 3am when I'm asleep, not 10pm when I finally have an hour to chill out with a game before bed.

Something EOL which works > something current which doesn't

You can do this. Win 10 has a scheduler where you can say not between these hours.

Haggisman · 5 Dec 2017 at 13:24

I know you can do that... whether it listens is another matter altogether (at least mine doesn't

)

MoNkeE · 5 Dec 2017 at 13:25

opethdisciple said:
You can do this. Win 10 has a scheduler where you can say not between these hours.

I feel like you haven't read the thread.......

olivier renault · 5 Dec 2017 at 13:36

set it as metered connection. Not sure if that's enough though. There are probably other things you can try like scheduled and manual updates.

EDIT : nevermind....

lurkio · 5 Dec 2017 at 20:29

open DOS window as ADMIN - paste the following (hit enter)

sc config BITS start= disabled
sc failure BITS reset= 86400 actions= //////
net stop BITS

sc config wuauserv start= disabled
sc failure wuauserv reset= 86400 actions= //////
net stop wuauserv

^ this will disable automatic updates

sc config BITS start= demand
sc failure BITS reset= 86400 actions= restart/15000/restart/30000//1000

sc config wuauserv start= delayed-auto
sc failure wuauserv reset= 86400 actions= restart/15000/restart/30000//1000
net start wuauserv

^ this will re-enable them

Rroff · 5 Dec 2017 at 21:58

opethdisciple said:
You can do this. Win 10 has a scheduler where you can say not between these hours.

Hahahahahahahahahahaahhahahahahahaha it is one of the most contemptible features ever - not only does it not reliably work and the OS will ignore it if it feels like it - no one that actually has any kind of life or works many jobs these days has a schedule that defined and **** constantly changing the active hours to try and stop Windows from interfering with what I'm doing.

Personally I'm working in a warehouse supervision role - my hours are highly varied depending on demand - sometimes not finishing until 5am other times working during the day and my weekends are often completely different hours to my week days, etc.

Haggisman said:
It really is frustrating, especially on a Steam Link, when the update popup shows it freezes the whole screen, so I have to go upstairs to unlock it again.

For reasons related to this they binned the idea (after two trial roll outs) of replacing all our systems at work with Windows 10 - even with using LTSB, etc. it just isn't fit for purpose in many business situations due to things like notifications taking over foreground applications, etc. they ended up moving many of our public facing systems from Windows XP/7 to some flavour of Linux for this reason even though it meant putting additional resources into Linux support, etc.

Tute · 5 Dec 2017 at 23:02

opethdisciple said:
EOL for Win 7 is 2020, so it's very much time to move on from Win 7.

Just give me a good Windows to move onto. I'll do it in a heartbeat.

opethdisciple · 5 Dec 2017 at 23:32

Tute said:
Just give me a good Windows to move onto. I'll do it in a heartbeat.

Ubuntu is good if you want an alternative to Windows.

Rroff · 6 Dec 2017 at 06:24

Not really an option for a good bit of gaming on PC purposes and a fair bit of software that doesn't have a Linux version/alternative and so on.

smogsy · 6 Dec 2017 at 07:28

I'm not a huge ms fan. But their nothing wrong with Windows 10 from my experience in regards what has been mentioned here.

Bsods
Window not listening to your choices
Reliability

Currently manage hundreds of installs with varied hardware. Lot of them running on 100% usage

It's far more stable than 7 from my experience

opethdisciple · 6 Dec 2017 at 10:11

Haggisman said:
That's not really practical though. I turn my PC on because I want to use it now, not in 3 hours when Windows has done its thing. I'd like to update when it's convenient for me, e.g. 3am when I'm asleep, not 10pm when I finally have an hour to chill out with a game before bed.

Something EOL which works > something current which doesn't

It doesn't take that long for windows to run updates. Should be done within 10mins.

I do admit it's not great that MS force updates and driver updates upon you and you don't have any way to control it but they want to avoid another XP scenario at all costs.

Ultimately the security baseline of Windows 10 is far stronger because of it.

Windows is a good OS expect for what I mentioned above. I wish they had a simple toggle in settings that allowed you to turn of or on automatic driver updates.

Because I got in to an awful mess in the past installing GPU drivers when windows is installing a driver at the same time I'm installing a driver. Really messed things up.

These days I install GPU drivers with my network port disabled.