Not from Windows itself, but it’s possible and with one of the tweaking utilities I mentioned it’s a only a checkbox away. Some people disable Windows Update and download and install selected patches manually. I’ll do this if the next update ruins my settings.
I customize not just to remove bloatware, but to increase my productivity. And with Win10 my privacy.
The moment you stop fighting is the moment you give up ownership and control of the device. This is the reason I use Android instead of iOS – the walled garden of Apple is for plebs. You’ll pry my root access from my cold dead hands. Maybe not even then. I recently revived a not-that-old and still very powerful Samsung Galaxy S4, stuck on Samsung’s version of Android 4.4.x, by installing an open source build of Android 7.1.I don’t think you can do that with an old Apple phone… because you don’t really own it.
As you can see I hate the built-in obsolescence with a passion and fight it as much as I can.
Do you know if that works with the latest Windows 10 updates? I had read that the latest update forces updates even in an enterprise environment. I don’t recall the update # but it is the same one they previously pulled back because it was eating installed software (whoops!)
I have Enterprise, 1809, so I can’t speak for other editions. And I’m experimenting in a VM so I don’t buck up my main OS. It seems to work, maybe even too well – the Settings app crashes when I try to open the Windows Update section. I think all it does is disable two services – Windows Update (which apparently can be started even when disabled) and Windows Update Medic Service (which can’t be disabled from the management console). I read that disabling updates may affect Windows Defender (probably just the antivirus), as it won’t get new definitions.
A firewall should work too (except I wouldn’t trust Windows Firewall for this). Comodo Firewall has a listing for “Windows Update Applications”, so it can be blocked easily. It doesn’t say exactly what it is, so this may require some experimentation.
