Microsoft no longer honoring don’t download over metered connections?

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[alejr]

My uncle’s laptop has Windows 10 Home 20H2 install with all the recommended setting from here to prevent updates from being automatically installed, including setting his WiFi connection as metered and turning “download updates over metered connections” off.

When he booted up this morning, he noticed it was finishing the installation of KB5003637 even though he had not clicked the button on the Windows update screen to initiate the download/install over the metered connection.

So…

Did I miss setting something to prevent automatic updates over metered connections or has Microsoft suddenly decided it’ll no longer honor Windows 10’s don’t automatically download/install updates over metered connections settings??

• This topic was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by alejr.

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Had he also used Pause and the Pause period expired?

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Nope!

Other than simply looking at the Windows update screen once a week or so to see if any new updates have shown up, he doesn’t attempt to do anything with them until I give him the all-clear to install them.

Last major item involving updates was when we upgraded all 6 of his PC’s (3 Windows Home, 3 Windows Pro) from 1909 to 20H2 last month.

His 3 Windows Pro PC’s show KB5003637 as pending download

His 3 Windows Home PC’s have all “automatically” downloaded and installed it even though all 3 have metered connections set.

BTW, the 3 Home PC’s have been using metered connections for quite a while and never “auto-installed” any updates while they were still on 1909.

And yes, I did check all 3 PC’s this morning and verified the connection settings were still set as expected (metered connection = ON, download updates over metered connections = OFF)

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Offering following link as possible help, note date 2018, but maybe reading the information at Bleeping Computer Forum might be helpful:

Using Metered Connection to stop auto updates not working
Bleeping Computer Forum – 27 March 2018

A Quote from Bleeping Computer Forum member britechguy:

“Are you certain that the laptop is connected only to the metered connection at  all times? That’s the only way you can make that trick work. If the laptop is mobile and you connect to other WiFi or ethernet connections that are not marked as metered the updates will immediately download on the next check. Also, if you’re only using the laptop at home go in to your WiFi connections and make sure to “forget” everything except the metered connection. This will prevent any accidental connecting to another WiFi network (like a neighbor’s open network if your own flakes out).”

There are more posts in that thread that might help, worth a review.

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b

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Thanks for the link.

Checked all those things and found nothing that would explain why his Home PC’s ignored the metered connection settings.

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Greetings i hope your problems were already solved inwould like to recommend you wushowhide an app made by microsoft to block certain updates   so if you dont trust  in metered connection use that t9 make sure everything is fine

Just someone who don't want Windows to mess with its computer.

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Since this month’s updates auto-installed, we won’t know if the problem’s been fixed until next month’s updates get released.

BTW…

It’s impossible to block an update until after Windows updates detects it (i.e. wushowhide can’t see it until it shows up on the Windows update screen in settings.)

The problem with trying to hide an update in this situation is, if Windows automatically downloads/installs updates, it’s already too late to hide it once it’s been detected.

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alejr wrote:

wushowhide can’t see it until it shows up on the Windows update screen in settings.

Not entirely true

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PKCano

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WU and wushowhide both use the Windows Update Service to scam for updates.

The results of the WU scan is stored in a cache until the next time WU scans. So the list you see in WU does not change between scans, it is static.
When you run wushowhide, what it shows is current, dynamic. If you hide updates, the hiding won’t be reflected in the WU queue cached list until the next time WU scans.
The two lists are often different for that reason.

If an update has been released after WU scans, it won’t show up in the WU queue until the next WU scan. But it could be seen by a wushowhide scan at that time.

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Coldheart9020, Matador

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Are these systems now working as intended? Why has he left it so late to upgrade?

I’m inclined to suspect that as these HOME editions were 1909, now end of service, microsoft has forced this upgrade to protect their operating system and end-user data.

If it were the other way around, where microsoft did not upgrade the systems and were somehow compromised, then what? all hell would break loose.

Considering the options of an upgrade path 2004, 20H2 and 21H1 all share the same system core, I’d just move on with wumgr or wushowhide and metered connections set in place going forward.

illegitimi Non Carborundum

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All his PC’s were successfully upgrade to 20H2 last month and have been working just fine.

The updates that automatically installed themselves (despite all the metered connection settings being in place) were this month’s 20H2 updates.

BTW, the reason he made me waited until May (when 1909 reached EOL) to upgrade his PC’s from 1909 to 20H2 is because he writes/installs/supports special parts/orders tracking software for various manufacturers and required all his PC’s to remain in a “known stable condition.”

 

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Bob1515

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https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/kb5003637-unrequested-update-and-display-fail/

KB5003637 rolled right over both metered and pause and caused me monitor problems. See my above topic to see what I had to go through to get rid of that error prone update.

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Bob1515

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Hi

Don’t know if this will shed some light on the matter. I’m the anonymous poster from:

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/june-updates-bring-news/#post-2370803

I can confirm that AFTER resuming Windows Update, CU 2021-06 KB5003637 did download and install over “metered connection” automatically together with the .Net CU KB5003254.

I have observed that .NET CUs have already been doing this in the past. Previous Patch Tuesday CUs would instead set itself under the status “Pending Download” with “Download” button below for manual trigger and a remark along the line:

“Updates are available. We’ll download them when you are not using metered connection, or you can download xx.xx MB using your current data connection (charges might apply). You might still need to connect to unmetered WIFI for some updates.”

The status “Pending Download” would also include both Security Intelligence Update for Microsoft Defender Antivirus and Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool.

In so far as setting the date for “Pause” for Windows Update, I would do it through Update & Security>Windows Update>Advance Options>Pause Updates Until. Haven’t encountered any auto Windows Update getting pass the “Pause” feature though, UNLESS manually hitting “Resumes Update”.

Hope this helps.

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