Wednesday, September 11, 2013

How to pause download of Windows Update

Since many years, I have set Windows 7 to automatically download and install any available updates. This way I know I run the most recent version of the OS and its security patches. Today, while being connected to the internet via my cell phone, Windows started a huge download bringing my already slow connection to a virtual halt.

It turns out that there is not direct way to pause an already started Windows Update download. However, if you have admin rights you can force the Windows Update service to stop. Simply launch a command prompt (cmd.exe) with admin rights and run

net stop wuauserv

REFERENCES:
[1] 'Start or stop Windows update service', Windows Command Line on 2010-08-21.