Einstein's Definition of Insanity

Einstein is widely credited with a definition of insanity which says that it is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

If the nightmare 1709 windows update does not work on a machine for whatever reason then why does Win 10 Automatic Update immediately try and do the update again after spending an hour rolling back to the old version of the operating system after the failed update?

Microsoft, if you are reading this:- There is no point in blindly charging ahead and repeating an update attempt in an endless and inescapable loop. If it did not work the first time because a driver is not supported any-more then it will still not work until a driver update solution is found.

These inescapable update loops burn a lot of down-time and achieve nothing.

The Update process should stop trying to update if a driver version problem is causing the update to fail and roll-back.

Yeah, but look at all of the billable work that gets generated for the tech. support folks.

I read somewhere that there is a way to allow updates but selectively block a specific update that is failing so Windows will keep other stuff up to date but will avoid the problem update.

I have burned 45 hours trying to get the 1709 update to work on a Lenovo X230.

I would like to block just the 1709 update.

Hi @mojorising,

If you have Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise editions then check this Tutorial by Shawn Brink. See Option One or Option Two.

How to Enable or Disable Automatic Updates for Windows Update in Windows 10

There is also a third party tool called WUMT (Windows Update Minitool) which you can set to Notification and then pick and choose or even hide specific updates. However, please note that lately I have not had any luck hiding Feature Updates (such as 1709 or 1803). Well I can hide them but Windows Update still finds them but at least it does not automatically try to install the updates when you are in Notification mode. Some choice is better than no choice.

^Thanks
I only have Home edition.
But I will check out that WUMT

Good luck. It has been a long time since I used WUMT on Windows 10 Home edition. You results may be hit or miss. It is not because of WUMT but because in Windows 10 Home edition certain registry keys are ignored even thought they are there and set correctly.

Hey @Bree,

I have had mixed results with that tool as well, especially in Window 10 Home edition.