How did I manage to shut off Windows Updates?

I finally upgraded my Windows 8.1 Pro desktop to Windows 10. The install went quickly and well. As I was wandering through some of the numerous settings I had done on my other Win 10 computers that I wanted to also apply to this one, I noticed that the desktop had the "Advanced options" > "Choose how updates are installed" under the Windows Update settings set to "Never check for updates". That is how I had Windows 8.1 configured but I did not think that this option was available for Windows 10. I have no idea how Windows 10 kept this setting but it might be a good thing. I opened Group Policy Editor and looked at the "Configure Automatic Updates" setting and it was not configured so where this is set, I don't know.

JohnD

If you have Windows 10 Pro, go the group policy editor: Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Group policy editor -> Software parameter -> Administration model -> Windows components -> Windows update (I have the French version, the menu might not say exactly this). You will find that parameters are by default not configured; meaning they are not managed by the group policy editor. You can configure them by double clicking on them. I think the parameter you want is named something like "Configuration of the automatic updates". You will have an intuitive dialog box if you double click on them.

There is nothing configured in there. What I don't understand is how Windows Update got set to "Never check for updates". This is what I had for Windows 8, but with the other systems I upgraded, everything defaulted to "Automatic" after the initial install.

JohnD

Microsoft has made more difficult to disable updates, this is why you don't have the settings in the usual place. You can still configure this in the Group policy editor via the method I have described if you have the Pro version. It is normal that nothing is configured by default. You can configure them if you double click on them. There is no other place where you can configure them if that is your question.

Updated: Sorry, I misread your post. You actually have the update disabled... interesting. That's not normally possible via a clean install. Could it be that Windows have retained the setting you had on Windows 8? Can you try to configure them as enabled in the group policy editor, reboot and see what happen. Normally the group policy editor will override other settings. So you may also use that to force enable the update.