System Updates keeps claiming I've paused it

macsrwe said:

I cut and pasted your string -- are you sure you spelled it right?

I am not sure. See for yourself: Enable or Disable Pause Updates Feature in Windows 10

After downloading and inspecting the patch files on the "Enable or Disable" page, I suspect that these keys don't even exist in a shipped system until the patch files themselves create them.

As a quality check, I looked at the registry on the machine that is not having this problem. It doesn't even have a WindowsUpdate key folder on it. I double-checked System, and all of the versions of everything were identical, the only difference being the computer name, device ID, date installed, and size of the RAM.

I also noticed that on the VM that has the problem, just the act of going to sleep and waking up will set the update pause on. I can see it change in front of me as the OS is waking itself up.

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Berton said:

Just a comment, the HKLM does indeed have that meaning, it is one of the 5 Hives or text files that make up the Windows Registry. There's really no user setup of it, created when Windows is installed and modified by various means, always by Version Upgrades and sometimes with Build updates. It can be User modified but missteps in editing can be as dangerous as keeping Windows booting or working, require reinstall. It can be backed up [Exported] separate from System Restore.
One other thing that came to mind, could the Metered Connection setting be involved in the pause issue? Or is there an issue in the Microsoft Account being used?

Hi, I didn't see this transaction until just now since it ended up on a previous page, sorry.

I don't have Metered Connection set on either machine, and I use only local PC accounts. I don't even own a "cloud-based" MS account. I do have "Download update from other PCs on my network" on, but that's true on the machine that doesn't have this problem as well (plus, it's very rare that I have both VMs active at the same time).

About five minutes ago, I found the culprit.

As I mentioned in the first post, I run W10 as a VM under Parallels. Parallels has a configuration option called Maintenance that does:



It was checked. So Parallels did some kind of magic to suspend the standard Windows updates unless I invoked them by hand. I had no idea this option was enabled; guess I enabled it long ago and then forgot about it. I never thought of looking at the Parallels configuration options to solve this problem.

Thanks to all who helped with suggestions.