Windows 10 has been on the market for less than six months, and Microsoft has done (almost) everything in its power to bring as many people as possible to the new platform, including a free upgrade offer during the first year. Unfortunately, this strategy angered many users who prefer to stay on Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, and who had to use various tools to block the “suggestions.” The technical information to do this manually has been available since last August, but given the negative feedback, it is worth revisiting.
We discussed this recently: Microsoft's main goal with Windows 10 is to reduce (or ideally eliminate) fragmentation of its platform. The development advantages are too significant to ignore, but Microsoft's problems are not technical—they are political. Its current strategy involves offering Windows 10 to the point of exhaustion, angering more than one user. Besides privacy concerns, the truth is that the idea of “Windows as a service” has met more resistance than Microsoft initially calculated. This could have been compensated with modularity (in other words, making many of the “services” optional during operating system installation), but reality shows otherwise.
The Tool Users Are Turning To
The main tool users are employing to block the upgrade offers is GWX Control Panel, formerly known as GWX Stopper. With a couple of clicks, the GWX module goes silent… but we must not forget that Microsoft has the ability to modify its state and bring it back, which according to many users on the Web has already happened.
Microsoft's Official Methods
The official documentation explaining how to disable the Windows 10 upgrade was published in August 2015; however, Microsoft decided not to make much noise about this information. The main methods are two: Group Policy and Registry editing.
Method 1: Group Policy
The first method requires running the module “gpedit.msc” and following the path Computer Configuration – Administrative Templates – Windows Components – Windows Update. There we look for the option to disable upgrades to new versions of Windows via Windows Update, and change its configuration to “Enabled.”
Method 2: Registry
If the Group Policy editor is not available (for example, in Home and Starter editions of Windows 7), you need to edit the Registry. After running “regedit.exe” with elevated privileges, navigate to HKLM – SOFTWARE – Policies – Microsoft – Windows – WindowsUpdate, to change the DWORD value called “DisableOSUpdgrade” to 1 (if it doesn’t exist, create it as a DWORD). The second path is HKLM – Software – Microsoft – Windows – CurrentVersion – WindowsUpdate – OSUpgrade, and the parameter to modify is “ReservationsAllowed,” whose value must be set to 0.
With this, it should be enough for Microsoft to stop bothering you with Windows 10… for now.
