How to Pause Windows Updates for up to 35 Days

How to Pause Windows Updates for up to 35 Days

We are proponents of keeping Windows updated, and we would never advise anyone to not install updates. But sometimes you might want or need to pause Windows updates. If you do, you should know you can pause updates for a maximum of 35 days. 

Here’s how to pause Windows updates…

1.) Right-click on the Start button and click “Settings”

2.) In “Settings” click on “Update & Security”

3.) In “Update & Security”, under “Windows Update” click on “Pause updates for 7 days”. This will pause updates for 7 days.  And the end of the 7 days you can click “Pause updates for 7 days” again to pause Windows updates for another 7 days. You can do this five times for a total of 35 days.

In this example, I clicked “Pause updates for 7 days” on January 14, 2021, and as you can see (below), my updates are paused until January 21, 2021.

And a couple more things…

While you in “Windows Update” click on “Advanced options” and save yourself some aggravation by turning the switch under “Restart this device as soon as possible…” to “Off”. And under “Update notifications” make sure the switch is turned on so that Windows will notify you when a restart is pending to finish installing an update or updates.