Tag: Windows Update

Block Windows 11 Update

The easiest way to block the Windows 11 update on a Windows 10 system is by adding a policy via the Registry.

In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, navigate to SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows

Create a new Key named WindowsUpdate

Add the following items in the WindowsUpdate key:

  • REG_DWORD named TargetReleaseVersion with a value of 1
  • REG_SZ named TargetReleaseVersionInfo with a value of 21H2
  • REG_SZ named ProductVersion with a value of Windows 10

Below is a registry file example. You can also download a copy if you’d like.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
"TargetReleaseVersion"=dword:00000001
"TargetReleaseVersionInfo"="21H2"
"ProductVersion"="Windows 10"

If you are using ManageEngine’s Desktop Central, you can create a configuration to deploy to computers with the Desktop Central agent. Here’s an example of the configuration in the Manage Engine Desktop Central web administration panel.

Get and Install Windows Updates via PowerShell

Using the following package PSWindowsUpdate you can Get-WindowsUpdate and Install-WindowsUpdate.

install-module pswindowsupdate
DESCRIPTION
    Use Get-WindowsUpdate (aka Get-WUList) cmdlet to get list of available or installed updates meeting specific
    criteria.

    Use Download-WindowsUpdate alias to get list of updates and download it. Equivalent Get-WindowsUpdate -Download.

    Use Install-WindowsUpdate (aka Get-WUInstall) alias to get list of updates and install it. Equivalent
    Get-WindowsUpdate -Install.

    Use Hide-WindowsUpdate alias to get list of updates and hide it. Equivalent Get-WindowsUpdate -Hide.

    Use Show-WindowsUpdate (aka UnHide-WindowsUpdate) alias to get list of updates and unhide it. Equivalent
    Get-WindowsUpdate -Hide:$false.

    There are two types of filtering update: Pre search criteria, Post search criteria.

    - Pre search works on server side, like example: (IsInstalled = 0 and IsHidden = 0 and CategoryIds contains
    '0fa1201d-4330-4fa8-8ae9-b877473b6441' )

    - Post search work on client side after get the pre-filtered list of updates, like example $KBArticleID -match
    $Update.KBArticleIDs

    Status info list:\r\n[A|R]DIMHUB\r\nA-IsAccetped\r\nR-IsRejected\r\n D-IsDownloaded\r\n F-DownloadFailed\r\n
    ?-IsInvoked\r\n I-IsInstalled\r\n F-InstallFailed\r\n ?-IsInvoked\r\n R-RebootRequired\r\n M-IsMandatory\r\n
    H-IsHidden\r\n U-IsUninstallable\r\n B-IsBeta

Chrome on Windows 10 Creators Update Hangs

I was plagued with an annoying problem in Chrome 58, beta and Canary for the past month or two. Actually, it dates back to when I was in the Windows Insider Preview for Windows 10 and had already been testing the Windows 10 Creators update. Anyway, Chrome starting ‘hanging’ on me. Meaning, when there should have been a dialog box popup (in most of my experience, this was what was missing), there was nothing. I couldn’t close Chrome, close tabs, etc. I had to hit Escape on the keyboard which would let me click on things, but not actually close the browser.
I decided to search for this issue again on Google to see if anyone had any insight; originally when I searched for this a month or two ago, I wasn’t finding anything useful. All old articles from 2013 etc.
Today was my lucky day. I found a Spiceworks article from April 2017 indicating others had the same problem. I was happy in that it wasn’t just me having the problem! There was a solution to disable Hardware Acceleration (I tried this previously with no luck).  I then saw a comment indicating this was fixed in chromium 60 and could also be worked around by supplying a -disable-dwm-composition flag at Chrome startup.
I grabbed Chrome Canary which is v60 at this time and so far things have been stable!

Windows 7 Convenience Rollup

Before installing the Convenience Rollup, install the two prerequisite updates:  KB3102810 and KB3083710
When installing the Windows 7 Convenience Rollup (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3125574), I had to disable Windows Updates because WUSA kept sitting there spinning for an hour Searching for updates.

net stop wuauserv

That did the trick, restarted the Convenience Rollup installer and it ran right on through it.
So after a reboot, it is checking for updates… going on about 30 minutes at this point (12:35am).