From next Tuesday, Microsoft will begin pushing the Fall Creators Update to PCs worldwide. But what if you don’t want to update your Windows 10 PC with these new features?

While it is always sensible to keep PCs up to date, there are various reasons why you might not want to put off installing the Fall Creators Update. For instance, bugs in an earlier major feature update, Windows 10’s Anniversary Update, triggered complaints about frozen systems and broken webcams. That said the rollout of the Creators Update in April this year seemingly caused far fewer problems.

If you want to defer the Fall Creators Update, then there are a couple of options available, depending on which version of Windows 10 you are running. And if you want to refresh your memory as to what’s in the Fall Creators Update, then check out our comprehensive guide.

How businesses can defer the update

If you’re running the Pro, Enterprise or Education versions of Windows 10 you can put off the upgrade for at least four months.

  1. Go to Settings > Update & security.
  2. Under ‘Update settings’, click the text ‘Advanced options’.
  3. Under ‘Choose when updates are installed’ choose ‘Current Branch for Business’ from the dropdown menu.
  4. Changing this setting from the ‘Current Branch’ to ‘Current Branch for Business’ typically defers feature updates like the Fall Creators Update for about four months.
  5. To delay the update for longer than four months, click the dropdown menu under the text ‘A feature update includes new capabilities and improvements’.
  6. In this dropdown menu select the number of additional days you would like to defer the update for, up to a maximum of 365.

SEE: Toolkit: 21 useful Active Directory scripts for Windows (Tech Pro Research)

How home users can defer the update

Windows 10 Home users, meanwhile, can configure their network as a ‘Metered connection’, which should block the system from downloading large Feature updates like the Fall Creators Update. Instead, the machine will only download what Microsoft deems to be ‘priority’ updates, such as critical security fixes.

However, be warned this broad brush approach is somewhat of a measure of last resort, and could have negative side-effects, due to Windows no longer downloading most Windows updates or Windows Store app updates.

  1. Ensure the Windows 10 PC is connected to the internet, then go to the Start menu, then to Settings > Network & Internet > Status.
  2. Left click on ‘Change connection properties’. On this page is an option to set the network link as a Metered connection, toggle this option on.

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