How can I stop Windows 10 Pro from using up all my bandwidth randomly?

Every once in a while since the Anniversary Update, Windows 10 decides it's time to download, well, I don't know what. I'm on a mobile connection, so not only makes this the internet completely unusable (sites will barely load, videos not at all, online gaming - forget it), it also costs me a fortune if I don't notice it. It usually takes like 30-60 minutes, where the only thing I can do is disable the ethernet connection / shut the computer down, because the process that's doing the downloading is svchost.exe, so there's absolutely no way to cancel it any other way. And not only that, if I start the computer or enable the connection again, the downloading just re-starts. So essentially the system cannot be used until the weekend when I have a non-metered connection, and I have to switch to Debian during that time. WTF, Microsoft?

Now, just to be clear, I understand that Microsoft made the Home versions of Windows not usable because you cannot disable automatic updates. But I'm not running a home version of Windows, I'm running Pro. I have automatic updates disabled completely in the group policy editor, and that worked completely fine for me before the Anniversary Update. Every weekend I'd check for available updates and that's it. I also can't make Windows understand that I'm on a metered connection because I'm connected to a mobile router through ethernet. (Who thought that'd be a good idea?)

So, is there any way to solve this, i.e. stop Windows downloading huge amounts of data randomly, or do I have to switch to Linux completely? Screenshot in case anyone wants to see: https://i.imgur.com/CESPyHs.png

mikohana said:

I also can't make Windows understand that I'm on a metered connection because I'm connected to a mobile router through ethernet.

You can, but it is a registry fix that's needed. There's a Tutorial for that...

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html

The "Automatic App Update" task was indeed enabled, so I disabled it, thanks. Not sure which Windows-Apps it would have updated (I don't really have any installed except for the ones you can't remove), but I guess it can't hurt.

@Bree I found the tutorial, Jesus that was annoying but yeah I hope it worked. I still can't see why they wouldn't just provide a setting for it, people with mobile routers can't be that rare.

Well, now I'm hoping that at least one of those settings worked. I'll see if the issues are gone if it doesn't happen again in the next 1-2 weeks I guess.

Edit: Oh I just noticed, I had a new notification. "We've added some new features" or something like that. I clicked on it, and it shows a hole bunch of things ranging from 1.5 MB to 360 MB, like "retail demo content", "handwriting", "speech recognition", "graphic tools" etc. - Could that have been it?

mikohana said:

the process that's doing the downloading is svchost.exe, so there's absolutely no way to cancel it

You can check what service svchost is hosting by going in the task manager, right-click the process an choose "go to services" or something like that (I have a non-english version of W10), which should show you what service it is. I'm controlling Windows Update by policy too, and it still works with the anniversary update, so maybe it's another service.

You need to set that Wi-Fi connection as a Metered Connection. This will solve all the problems. Go to Settings / Network & Internet / Wi-Fi / Manage known networks. Select the Wi-Fi connection then Properties. Under Metered Connections, slide the switch to ON.

Hansa said:

You need to set that Wi-Fi connection as a Metered Connection

Too bad the OP uses an Ethernet connection, heh. Luckily, a registry hack to define the Ethernet connection as a metered one has already been posted...