How to Cancel Windows 11 update?

Anonymous
2021-12-16T19:58:35+00:00

I'm one of the people who had Windows 11 download itself without me telling it to do so. Now, it is ready for install. I do not want to install Windows 11 at this point. I want to keep my Windows 10.

I've paused it for 7 days, but this is a temporary solution. Can I delete the Windows 11 download somehow? I'm running Windows 10 on a brand new Dell computer.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Install and upgrade

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-01-30T13:14:59+00:00

    First of all thanks to all the people (particularly Jojun and Portland) who replied and also to all the posts which helped to understand in this **** situation (which should never happen: Ford does not change the clutch of your car without your permission after all)

    It works !! I resumed updates and 21H2 was 0% ready to install. There was also a bunch of security updates. Done

    Summing up I did the following

    1. With edith Group policy set 21H2 as target, reboot
    2. the very last day before the planned installation I deleted the content of the dir C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download Maybe this is not necessary but I did this because I was scared to resume and not having the possibility to stop it Maybe it is a good idea to snap a picture of the content of that dir before deleting the content
    3. reboot
    4. I saw that slowly the option to delay the installation increased the possible final day, up to months, which I did
    5. A few days later, because of my worry on security and thanks to the above suggestions I resumed and found that 21H2 was pending, and let it go

    Question to Portland: did you ever change the group policy? If you did you should have now 21H2. Maybe you want rather try win11?

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-01-30T14:16:03+00:00

    I have Windows 10 home version so I do not have the Group Policy Editor like Windows 10 Pro.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-01-30T16:47:33+00:00

    Congratulations @Regressist!

    I wasn't sure if deleting the entire C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\ would cause any problems, so I only deleted the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\29915d28b757d79214ddd971f3fd6134 directory. It was the largest by far, so it was pretty easy to conclude that it was the one containing the Windows 11 files.

    I have Windows 10 home version so I do not have the Group Policy Editor like Windows 10 Pro.

    The Group Policy Editor seems to be just another way to edit the registry keys that Rodrigo Quieroz posted about on December 18 (page 1).

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-01-30T19:11:01+00:00

    Congratulations @Regressist!

    I wasn't sure if deleting the entire C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\ would cause any problems, so I only deleted the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\29915d28b757d79214ddd971f3fd6134 directory. It was the largest by far, so it was pretty easy to conclude that it was the one containing the Windows 11 files.

    Thank you!

    You know what? I did not have 29915d28b757d79214ddd971f3fd6134

    My files had completely different names when 11 was pending

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-01-30T19:43:30+00:00

    Thank you!

    You know what? I did not have 29915d28b757d79214ddd971f3fd6134

    My files had completely different names when 11 was pending

    Interesting. Perhaps the names are different depending on which version of Windows 10 you're updating *from*, and we had different versions.

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