Windows 11 updates, which Microsoft sends to your system regularly, are meant to keep your operating system current. They are, for the most part, a good thing. But as long-time Windows users know, occasionally, an update can go wrong, and so some prefer to postpone updates for a week or two to make sure that there aren’t any problems being delivered with the update. In addition, sometimes updates come at an inconvenient time — for example, when you’re in the middle of a project with a tight deadline.
You can’t stop updates altogether, but you can pause them.
There is also a way to disable updates, but it, too, is not permanent. If you
want to hold off in case of any potential glitches or would rather put them off
as long as possible, here is how to adjust your settings.
PAUSE UPDATES
- Click
the Start icon and select Settings
- Open Windows Update
If you want to restart updates, you’ll see that the button that you used to check for updates now reads Resume updates. Click on that.
- Unfortunately,
unlike with Windows 10, where you could pause updates for up to 35 days,
in Windows 11, you only get up to those three weeks.
DISABLE UPDATES
If you want to stop updates from happening for
longer than that, there is a way to disable updates that worked — somewhat —
with Windows 10 and should also work with Windows 11. However, even using
Windows 10, this was not permanent; most sites reported that eventually
(especially with a reboot), updates did resume. This may give you some
breathing space, however.
- Use Win+R to open the Run box and type in services.msc. Hit OK.
Scroll down to Windows Update and double-click on it.
In the Startup type drop-down menu, select Disabled.
Click Okay and restart your PC.
If you change your mind, you can follow these
steps to re-enable it. You may note that you can choose Manual or Automatic.
(Most Windows PCs come set to Manual, which simply means that the update is
triggered by an event and doesn’t happen automatically when you reboot.)
