Microsoft Backs Off Of Forced Updates With Windows 10 Home – But Makes You Work For It

Last week, I wrote about the annoyance with Windows 10’s Home edition that prohibits users from disabling / hiding updates, and it seems the post struck the right chord with people. It’s understandable: a lot of us are power users, and being able to manage mere updates is a big part of being one. Even most mobile devices won’t force updates!

Well, little did I receive at the time, Microsoft actually does offer the ability to hide updates, but not surprisingly, there’s a caveat: you’ll have to go out of your way to do it.

KB3073930 is a mere ~50KB download that will list currently available updates and choose which ones to hide or restore. You can see the process below; upon loading, you’ll have to choose what it is you want to do, and then a simple list is provided to pick and choose from. Since the 10240 build is a recent release, the current list of available updates is modest.

While it’s better to have this tool than to not have it, this is far from being an ideal solution. The ability to hide updates should be built right into Windows Update, like it always has been. It’s also hard to say whether or not this tool would still prevent updates from being automatically installed if you don’t happen to catch them fast enough. This would be easier to manage if it was guaranteed that Microsoft would release updates on a specific day each month, but even then, who wants to plan around that?

It’s worth noting that this tool was last updated on July 7, so it’s not as though the company created it as a result of recent backlash. It’s my hope that the backlash will continue, despite this tool, and a future update will remedy the issue properly.