Windows 10 auotmatic updates

[SEngy]

Hello, I am trying out BatchPatch to see if it could work as a WSUS alternative since we don’t have a server we can put WSUS on. We have a very limited internet connection (20Mbit/s) and the majority of our office is running machines with Windows 10 Pro. Right now, unfortunately, Windows checks and downloads updates whenever it wants. It sometimes does it after hours which is fine but the majority of times it does it during business hours and it just kills our internet. I would like to be able to install the updates on a test machine before I send them out too, just to make sure they don’t have a negative effect on the applications that we run. Does enabling cache mode on BatchPatch prevent this on the target computers after the first windows updates check? Do I have to disable the windows update service on the target machines? How will the machines know not to download updates except when I initiate it manually from BatchPatch?

I hope this makes sense,

Thank you very much in advance.

[doug]

To prevent your computers from automatically installing updates you need to use the ‘Configure Automatic Updates’ Group Policy setting. This is described more at the following link. Note, the link talks about configuring BP to use with WSUS, but even if you are not using WSUS the ‘Configure Automatic Updates’ policy is what you would use to prevent your computers from auto-updating. Do *not* disable the Windows Update service.

BatchPatch Integration with WSUS and Group Policy

More here from Microsoft: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc720539(v=ws.10).aspx

[SEngy]

Thank you for the reply Doug. I just want to make sure I understand this. By choosing option 3, like in the page you linked, windows will download updates but wait until I tell them to install, which I can do with BatchPatch. When it downloads updates, it does it directly from windows update, is that correct? Since I don’t have a WSUS server set in group policy. So, to prevent windows from automatically downloading and installing updates until I tell it to, I suppose choosing option 1 (Notify for download and notify for install.) would be best?

Thank You again.

[doug]

If you have not configured the ‘Specify intranet Microsoft update service location’ then the computer will use Windows Update, not a WSUS server. If you do not want computers to download or install updates until you tell them to, then yes you would choose option 1 to notify for download and notify for install. If you want to further reduce internet bandwidth consumption for Windows updates, then you should look at BatchPatch ‘cached mode’ too.

[SEngy]

Excellent. Thank you so much for your time and for the answers.

[Anonymous]

good question

[Author]

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