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Comment by grepfru_it | Hacker News Reader

>Windows Updates

If you want to stop windows updates, make your internet connection a metered connection. Updates will only be allowed on-demand.

The more you know!

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If you have a Pro edition license most things Windows does are a registry key away. The entire policy branch of the registry is designed to have configuration pushed down from the network like when and how to update, but you can also set all of those keys manually.

(Also, no hacking is necessary to set up a Windows Pro install with a local account, just tell it you're going to domain join it.)

The local account tip is a good one. I used it when setting up Windows 11 Pro on my desktop PC.

Regarding updates: you might not even need to think about registry keys! I found these Windows 10 group policy settings to work well for many years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18157968 - and I'm still using them with Windows 11, near enough, though it seems you now need to go to "Windows Update\Manage end user experience" to find the Configure Automatic Updates setting I mention.

(I've also switched to using option 2 (Notify for download and auto install) rather than 3 (Auto download and notify for install), on the basis that it sounds safer, and I've had no problems from doing that. Not to say that I actually remember having any problems from letting Windows download the updates ahead of time! - but I'm comfortable living dangerously.)

One hint for the wary: Don't delay feature updates for the maximum allowed in the group policy editor. I couldn't figure out why I was getting forced reboots for updates despite other policies requiring it to ask permission. Turns out that if the update hits the group policy maximum, it forces an update immediately, other policies be damned.

So set it to the max - 14 days if you want some time to apply updates at your leisure, and you are wary of non-critical updates.

You could also use an OS that doesn't tend to have dodgy updates that brick your system, such as most Linux distro. Nor force you to update if you don't want to.

Funny how a large company like Microsoft can't figure out QA, but volunteer Linux distros with much less resources can.

(A lot of Windows specific software works in wine these days, Valve's investment into improving it for games have helped for applications too. Not everything, and if you are stuck with such software, yeah that sucks.)

> You could also use an OS that doesn't tend to have dodgy updates that brick your system, such as most Linux distro.

I haven't done it recently but back when I was learning Linux, I definitely bricked my fair share of installations updating and installing things.

It was probably fixable to a more experienced person but it wasn't to me.

Linux is a lot of things but brick-proof for novice users isn't one of them.

It has gotten a lot better from what I can tell, though that is just based on what I see others struggle with (or not struggle with as may be the case).

I can't judge this directly (I'm in way too deep, running Arch etc), I first started using Linux seriously in 2004, stopped using Windows except for gaming by 2006, and touched it less and less over the years. I have not used Windows 11 at all.

> if you are stuck with such software

kvm-qemu, windows image, block network access to the windows update servers, problem solved?

I never managed to get Fusion 360 running reasonably on Linux, in the end I switched CAD software. It really needs some sort of reasonable OpenGL support (or maybe DirectX, I forget which it was). And it doesn't work under wine, it did at some point but then it stopped. Cloud connected software, so you can't just run an old version.

Maybe if you had a second GPU and forwarded it to the VM? Not willing to spend that extra money, and it would only work on my desktop, not my laptop.

If you don't want feature updates, go Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC. It's a comparative breath of fresh air and what Windows should have been all along. No ads, no new unwanted bloat shoved down your throat, no mandatory TPM, and pretty much the longest security patch commitment of anything out of Microsoft. It works great as a daily driver.

Yeah it still has some annoyances though. Still telemetry crap, still forced updates (you can turn them off with a GP just like on regular but still, I didn't expect it on LTSC). It even tries to get you to sign in with a Microsoft account. It's an improvement but not as I expected.

I'm pretty sure I read that at some point they started still allowing updates on metered connections, just slower or more critical or something.

For a nuclear option, delete C:\windows\system32\wua* or move these files somewhere else.

The nuclear option is linux

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