Manually install Windows 10 updates

Manually install Windows 10 updates

Windows 10 leaves little room for choosing when updates are installed. On Home and Pro editions we get updates whenever Microsoft wants to send them our way. Obviously, not everyone is happy about this (including us) which is why we’ll show you a way to manually install Windows 10 updates.
The method we’ll explain below will stop Windows 10 from automatically downloading and installing updates. Instead, whenever you want to update the OS you will have to do it manually.

How to manually install Windows 10 updates

The first thing you need to do is to open an elevated command prompt. To do this, click the Start button and perform a system search for “command prompt”. Right-click on the desktop app shown in the results and select “Run as administrator” (note that you do need to be logged into an administrator account).

Then, copy and paste the command below in the console then hit Enter to run it:

takeown /f "%windir%\System32\UsoClient.exe" /a

After that, run the following command as well:

icacls "%windir%\System32\UsoClient.exe" /inheritance:r /remove "Administrators" "Authenticated Users" "Users" "System"

That’s it! From now on, automatic updates will be disabled in all recent Windows 10 builds.
Whenever you want to update Windows 10, you’ll need to do it manually from Settings -> Update & Security -> Windows Update
If you’re wondering what these commands do, you should know UsoClient.exe is a system file that performs the update in the background and restarts the OS when needed. It’s run via the Windows Task Scheduler. The takeown command has been used to change the file system ownership of the UsoClient.exe file from Trusted Installer to the Administrators group.

The second command ensures UsoClient.exe can’t be run by any user or system group.

How to restore Windows 10 automated updates

In case you ever change your mind and want to re-enabled Windows 10 automated updates, open an elevated command prompt again.
Copy and paste the command below into the console:

icacls "%windir%\System32\UsoClient.exe"  /reset

This will restore automated Windows 10 updates. However, keep in mind this method might not work forever. In fact, any Windows 10 update might render it unfunctional. Even so, it’s good to know we can do something, even though it could very well be temporary.
Perhaps at some point, Microsoft will give us more freedom regarding the system update installation – I’m sure many people would appreciate it.

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