Is a Win10 1607 cumulative update re-enabling a disabled Windows Update service?

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Intriguing question posed by Günter Born. He’s in contact with a Win10 1607 user (yes, Anniversary Update, not Creators Update) who had manually turne
[See the full post at: Is a Win10 1607 cumulative update re-enabling a disabled Windows Update service?]

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I would suspect that the culprit was an update to Windows Update itself.  There was one close to that interval (Aug to Oct).  They don’t show up in the installed updates log.  One of the things these updates do is repair WU . . . .

We’ve seen this several times over the last 18 months on a few stand alone systems where the WU service is disabled for testing or rendering.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

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woody

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Whwever WUA is updated within cumulative update, it will restore original settings

also, the remediation shell update KB4023057 resets update components/services

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Noel Carboni

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@ abbodi86

Does “Whenever WUA is updated within cumulative update, it will restore original settings” also happen to Win 7/8.1.?

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Updates regularly reset windows components to settings other than those defined by the user before the update.

It is prudent to keep a list of service changes made and other important system behavior settings (group policy) that you have been changed. Users need to routinely verify that these settings remain static – especially after updating or installing something dependent on a particular service or windows feature (Location as an example).

 

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Elly, BobbyB, Noel Carboni, PKCano, abbodi86

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Yes

it’s a design behavior of updates

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PKCano

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Thank for the information, I remedied their remediation shell by hiding the “update”.

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I have seen Windows Update re-enabled even as a result of the simple act of installing new software (for example, I had a TurboTax installation, of all things, start Windows Update – even though I purposefully keep the service disabled).

Completing a Windows Update seems to re-enable the several Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > WindowsUpdate jobs in the Task Scheduler (depending on what version of Windows you’re running). Those jobs could very well be re-enabling the Disabled status. Always check these after finishing a Windows Update:

These are reasons I personally have several additional means for preventing unwanted / ill-timed updates, including for example having to reconfigure my (3rd party) firewall temporarily to a special zone I’ve set up to allow updates.

I have published a script that can be scheduled to run nightly, and you can occasionally check the results against those from an earlier run to see what’s been changed in your system. If you install SysInternals AutoRuns it provides even more information.

https://askwoody.com/forums/topic/a-tool-for-keeping-track-of-system-changes/

If you NEED your computing resources, retention of control over them matters!

It’s a subtle yet significant thing that Microsoft no longer treats ALL your configuration choices with respect. This alone is a key difference between “Windows as an Operating System” and “Windows as a Service”, and is what has many of us becoming so negative about Microsoft’s business direction.

-Noel

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NetDef

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Mind if i ask which version of windows 7 you’re running that task scheduler from? The microsoft > windows > windowsupdate entry doesn’t appear to exist in home premium. I’m using the 64-bit version by the way.

-T

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Methods for stopping Windows 10 updates that work on all editions and builds

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Elly

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Is a Win10 1607 cumulative update re-enabling a disabled Windows Update service?

There are some scheduled tasks specifically designed to resurrect disabled WU service and friends from time to time, why shouldn’t it on any update

I wrote this script specifically to fully and eternally enable/disable Windows Update without worries because after updating Windows it’s the wild wild west again and again.

 

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MrBrian

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Thanks Noel! Hopefully now that I disabled the task scheduler tasks, the windows update will stay disabled.

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