How to Cancel Windows 11 update?

I guess there is no way around this. Everyone is forced at one point to have Windows 11 regardless of what you do.

I did this then I did a clean install and Win 11 Experience Version was loaded instead of my factory Win 10.

I am so happy for you! I'm saving your instructions and soon will give it a try. I guess you are braver than me.

The registry editing instructions in this thread (page 1 and again on page 5) really have worked for me! I left my computer on with updates not paused, and while I was gone, it checked for updates and found me up to date -- absolutely no hint of a Windows 11 download!

Yes, I hope one of the experts will jump in here, as I am not one. But I can tell you that I also had a pending download of Windows 11 that I had to keep pausing and then deleting from that download folder specified in step 2 below. Every time I unpaused, it would start all over again at 0% downloading and continue the % download until I could hit pause again and then go back to that download folder and delete whatever had just landed there. I also did the stopping of the wuaserv and bits, as indicated in one of JoJun's earlier posts in this thread. I have copied and pasted it in here for you and I have saved it for myself in a doc I have compiled for future reference. I did both steps 1 and 2 below and then did the registry edit. I re-started my computer after doing these things but before re-visiting the Updates page in Settings. When the computer restarted, then I dared to look at the Updates page in Settings. It still showed the paused updates and looked just as it had when I left it, but this time when I unpaused it, it started doing the cumulative update for Windows 10. So even though I had also deleted Windows 10 pending updates when I emptied the download folder, any updates that applied to my version of Windows 10 were what showed up, downloaded, installed when I unpaused. I watched anxiously the whole time with my finger poised over the pause button, but Windows 11 never reared its ugly head. My updates are no longer paused, and there seems no threat of Windows 11 sneaking up on me.

If it indicates that it is updating to Windows 11, and it displays 'downloading' or even 'reboot to install', then:

1. You need to stop wuauserv and bits, so they don't immediately recreate the directory you're going to delete in step 2.

To stop them, you either need to go to control panel, services, and locate the services by name, and stop them (do not change their startup mode!).

Or, you can open a command prompt with administrative privileges and type in the commands 'net stop wuauserv' and 'net stop bits', respectively. It should look something like this;

C:\WINDOWS\system32> net stop wuauserv

C:\WINDOWS\system32> net stop bits

Things that can go awry with this step:

If you see an error message, or 'The Windows Update Service is not started', you either don't have Administrative Privileges, or you have the Windows Update Window open. Opening the 'Windows Update' window to check what happens, actually restarts the services, so don't do that!

2. You need to delete the directory where it's downloaded the Windows 11 files.

It is the catalog 'C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\29915d28b757d79214ddd971f3fd6134'

Now you have reset the progress on the Windows 11 patch. However, this is just a temporary solution. As soon as you go to the 'Windows Update' window, it will restart the services (wuauserv and bits), and start downloading Windows 11 again.

To make it last a bit longer, you need to do the registry hack that Rodrigo.Quieroz posted about on December 18 (the first page in this thread), so that Windows Update thinks that it should target a later version of Windows 10 instead of Windows 11.