Widows "pause updates" is defaulting to one week pause every day. I can not stop the pause

Question

Widows "pause updates" is defaulting to one week pause every day. I can not stop the pause

Tim Gleason 0

I can not turn off the "pause updates" feature in Windows. It defaults to pausing 1 week every day.

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2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to the Microsoft Windows Community.

Good afternoon. I understand you are unable to disable the Windows Update pause—is that correct? If so, press Win+X -> Command Prompt (Admin) or Terminal (Admin) and paste the commands below, one by one, pressing Enter after each:

net stop wuauserv

net stop bits

net start bits

net start wuauserv

Restart your computer and check if the issue is resolved. If not, press Win+X -> Terminal (Admin) and paste the commands below, one by one, pressing Enter after each:

Set-Service -Name wuauserv -StartupType Manual

Start-Service -Name wuauserv

Set-Service -Name BITS -StartupType Automatic

Start-Service -Name BITS

Restart your computer again and let us know the result.

Answer 2

In Windows 11, updates cannot be turned off permanently, but a pause can be resumed manually.

Try this first:

Open Start > Settings > Windows Update.
Look for Resume updates and select it.
After resuming, Windows will check for updates again and download/install the latest available updates.

If the pause does not clear, the Windows Update service may not be running correctly. A Microsoft Q&A accepted answer suggests starting the Windows Update service:

Open an elevated Command Prompt or Terminal and run:
- Net Start wuauserv

Or in elevated PowerShell:

Set-Service -Name wuauserv -StartupType Automatic
Start-Service -Name wuauserv

If the Pause updates option is missing or keeps reappearing, a policy can remove or control access to that feature. On supported editions, the policy Remove access to "Pause updates" feature maps to SetDisablePauseUXAccess.

References: