Disable Automatic Updates on Server 2016

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I’m sure we’ve all been in the spot, where a Windows Server for some reason or another decided to run windows updates and now needs a reboot. Or more specifically now with Server 2016 and Windows 10, your computer starts checking and applying updates based on the loosely defined schedule of “active hours”. In either case what usually happens is that Windows applies these updates during that day and then the server starts acting a little strangely based on what update was applied until the server is rebooted. Or even on a more annoying note sometimes automatic updates interferes with your 3rd party managed patching solution. Either way while working on a different project I found a solution to this issue it’s sconfig. I didn’t think about sconfig earlier because all the platforms I support don’t support the core edition of Windows Server and I avoid Hyper-V like the plague since VMWare is infinitely more superior.

How to disable automatic updates on Server 2016.

  1. Open an elevated command prompt window or PowerShell session
  2. Type sconfig and press enter.
  3. Select option 5
  4. Now select “A” for automatically download and install updates, “D” for download only or “M” for Manual updates.

Here are the screen shots for reference”

 

Unfortunately this doesn’t work with Windows 10 though 🙁

-T