The Windows 11 updates that Microsoft sends to your system regularly are meant to keep your operating system up to date. But as longtime Windows users know, sometimes an update can go wrong, which is why some prefer to delay updates for a week or two to make sure there aren’t any issues delivered with the update.
You can’t stop updates completely, but you can pause them. There is also a way to disable updates, but it’s also not permanent. If you want to hold off in case of any potential glitch or prefer to delay it as long as possible, here’s how to adjust your settings.
If you have any pending updates, you will find them listed at the top. You can also click the “Check for Updates” button to see if you have any updates waiting for you, otherwise you will be told that you are up to date as reported by The verege.
You will find the option to pause updates, on the right there is a button called Pause for 1 week that allows you to do this.
If you want to pause for more than one week, click this button again, and you can extend the pause for up to three weeks.
If you want to restart updates, you will see that the button you used to check for updates now reads Resume Updates, click that.
Unfortunately unlike in Windows 10, where you can pause updates for up to 35 days, in Windows 11, you can only get those three weeks.
Set restart times
Windows will usually need to restart to finish installing updates—and since an update can take your PC out of service for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, you might want to adjust restart times when appropriate.
On the Windows Update screen, select Advanced options
Find my notification when a restart is needed to finish the update and toggle it off. This way you will know if the restart is coming, and if you want you can reschedule the restart.
Just below that click Active Hours. Find the drop-down menu to the right of Set active hours and select either Manual or Automatic.
If you choose the first option, you can specify the hours during which it does not restart (eg if this is your work computer, you can choose not to restart between 9 AM and 5 PM).
If you choose the latter option, the system will restart when not in use.
Disable updates
If you want to stop updates from happening for longer than that, there is a way to disable updates that worked – to some extent – with Windows 10 and should also work with Windows 11.
However even with Windows 10, this was not always the case; Most sites have mentioned that eventually (especially with a reboot), updates did resume, however this might give you some breathing room.
Use Win + R to open the Run box and type services.msc. Click OK.
Scroll down to Windows Update and double-click it.
In the Startup type drop-down list, select Disabled.
Click OK and restart your computer.
If you change your mind, you can follow these steps to re-enable it.
You can notice that you can choose Manual or Automatic. (Most Windows PCs are set to manual, which simply means that the update is triggered by an event and does not happen automatically on restart.)