Abort pending Windows 11 upgrade

Hi, whatever I've tried I cannot stop my non-Insider PC downloading Win 11.

I'm not now signed up as an Insider- and I've never had an Insider build on my PC. I did sign up as an Insider temporarily just to try to get a copy of Win 11, then had problems deregistering. Several attempts and re-registering, and I managed to escape.

Checking updates manually my non-Insider PC tries to download Win 11.

I've reset windows updates (as per tutorial) so SoftwareDistribution\Download is empty and renamed SoftwareDistribution as well.

There's no pending.xml in C:\Windows\WinSxS

Other than returning to manual Windows Updates, how could I stop Win 11 downloading?

Update checks via WU Minitool or the hide/show update tool from MS do not detect the Win 11 update.

Thanks! (build 21H1)

dalchina said:

Hi, whatever I've tried I cannot stop my non-Insider PC downloading Win 11.

I'm not now signed up as an Insider- and I've never had an Insider build on my PC. I did sign up as an Insider temporarily just to try to get a copy of Win 11, then had problems deregistering. Several attempts and re-registering, and I managed to escape.

Checking updates manually my non-Insider PC tries to download Win 11.

I've reset windows updates (as per tutorial) so SoftwareDistribution\Download is empty and renamed SoftwareDistribution as well.

There's no pending.xml in C:\Windows\WinSxS

Other than returning to manual Windows Updates, how could I stop Win 11 downloading?

Update checks via WU Minitool or the hide/show update tool from MS do not detect the Win 11 update.

Thanks! (build 21H1)

How to Block Windows 11 From Installing - MajorGeeks

Thanks, I've set that as a group policy.

That also led me to inspect a related group policy setting- despite having opted out of the Insider program, I found one set to enable preview builds. It's likely it's that that was allowing Win 11.

Also had to reset my group policy to defer feature upgrades for 365 days.

Also this time round I tried Windows Update Minitool- this time a scan did list Win 11, which I've hidden.

I had also tried a System Restore point created before the first attempt to download it occurred- that didn't help.

I'll now wait until the next automatic check for updates, and see what that shows, rather than checking manually ('seeker' check).

dalchina said:

Thanks, I've set that as a group policy.

That also led me to inspect a related group policy setting- despite having opted out of the Insider program, I found one set to enable preview builds. It's likely it's that that was allowing Win 11.

Also had to reset my group policy to defer feature upgrades for 365 days.

Also this time round I tried Windows Update Minitool- this time a scan did list Win 11, which I've hidden.

I had also tried a System Restore point created before the first attempt to download it occurred- that didn't help.

I'll now wait until the next automatic check for updates, and see what that shows, rather than checking manually ('seeker' check).

Did you try with that registry hack ?

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
"TargetReleaseVersion"=dword:00000001
"TargetReleaseVersionInfo"=dword:00002212

No need- I have Pro.. so did it the posh way...

No need to thanks...

I think the problem is solved, thanks. The root cause was group policies not being reset correctly when leaving the Insider program. I'd tried to do that before and failed, because although Windows Update in Settings said I was registered for it, when I tried to unregister, it said I wasn't. Hmm. Recently I tried again.. and despite being 'registered' had to 're-register' before being able to leave.

As I said after CountMike's post, when I looked at the group policies in that area, I found one where preview builds were enabled.

I've
- hidden the upgrade
- set group policies so as NOT to accept preview updates
- deferred feature upgrades by 365 days
- set target build 21H2

dalchina said:

... I did sign up as an Insider temporarily just to try to get a copy of Win 11, then had problems deregistering. Several attempts and re-registering, and I managed to escape.

Glad to hear you've now extricated yourself from that black hole.

As an aside, I am not now, nor have I ever been an Insider. But that didn't stop me getting and testing Windows 11, I now have it running on 1 virtual and 2 physical machines. Any non-insider can get the ISO using UUPDump and use it to clean install or in-place upgrade on a Win10 machine.