So you figure that you wouldn’t see this issue anymore since it’s 2019, but apparently Microsoft really wants everyone to move to Win 10. Now this is a move in the right direction for most, but not for everyone as some smaller software companies haven’t updated their software to properly function with Win 10, while others like Microsoft’s Office 2019 will ONLY install on Win 10. If you have this issue, below is how to
Stop Windows 7 or 8 or 8.1 from Downloading Windows 10 Automatically
There are several ways to do this:
- Edit your local group policy
- edit the domain group policy if your machine is connected to a Domain instead of a workgroup
- Registry
To edit your local group policy open the group policy editor and under the Computer configuration expand the following items:
Administrative Templates –> Windows Components –> Windows Update
Then find and double click on “Turn off the upgrade to the latest version of Windows through Windows Update” and enable it.
Next reboot or from DOS as admin run:
gpupdate /force
This process can also be applied in the same manner to the entire Windows domain by editing the GPO from the domain controller in the same way.
Lastly is the Registry hack if it still proceeds to occur.
Open the Registry editor to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
DWORD value: DisableOSUpgrade = 1