How can you pause Windows Update with Group Policy?

How to pause Windows Update with Group Policy

One way you can pause Windows Update is to open the Group Policy console and navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > Windows Update for Business. This portion of the Group Policy Editor contains a setting called Select when Preview Builds and Feature Updates are received.

This setting can pause Windows Update in three ways. First, you can control which updates Windows 10 installs based on the readiness level of users' devices. As the setting's name implies, you can keep preview builds off users' endpoints if the devices are not ready for the update.

You can also perform an automatic deferral of both preview builds and feature updates. All you have to do is specify the number of days for which you wish to defer these updates. This setting only allows you to pause updates for up to 14 days. Once 14 days pass, Windows will install the updates in the usual manner.

You can pause all preview builds and feature updates starting on a specific date of your choosing.

In addition, you can pause all preview builds and feature updates starting on a specific date of your choosing. You can pause Windows Update for a period of up to 35 days. If you need to pause preview builds or feature updates for a longer period of time, you can periodically adjust the start date.

If you must halt the update process indefinitely, which you would only do in an extreme situation, Windows 10 does not have a function to do so, but it is possible. You can temporarily modify the Group Policy to point Windows Update to a nonexistent update server. That will effectively break the update process until you direct it to an actual update server.