How to Cancel Windows 11 update?

Dear Geek Goddess, :-)

My initial thought about the manual download on your "painfully slow desktp computer" was: couldn't you have used one of your other household computers to download 21H2 (to CD/DVD/USB Stick), and thus bypass the space issue? However, reading on, you have obviously freed up valuable space by removing the 'junk' from the softwaredownload folder.

Portland MT,

I haven't dived into the Registry yet, but the About information shows 21H2 as the version.

My fingers are crossed that my PC will no longer prompt to update to Windoze 11. If it does, my next and final course of action will be to do a full factory reset. As my live files are on a network drive, I would only need to reinstall the layered products, to get the machine fully up and running.

Has MS finally buckled under the weight of comments about version 11, by releasing 21H2 for 10? Just curious.

Hi, Martin. I am so glad the ongoing conversation on this thread has helped you. I am indebted to Rodrigo.Queirez and JoJun, whose patient reiteration of the steps and reassurances about emptying that download folder, etc. gave me the detailed info I needed to get out of the mess I was in. I only stopped the wuauserv and emptied the software download folder one final time when I did the successful registry edit and nothing more has been necessary since. This is on my main computer, which is a Surface Pro that is capable of running Windows 11 but is not forcing it on me.

When I was trying to get my old, painfully slow desktop computer to update to 21H2, a manual download of the update kept stalling (bc the computer was SO slow) and ultimately failing, so I remembered about the software download folder, emptied it of all the files from the failed attempts, and voila! Next thing I knew, 21H2 appeared in available updates and downloaded/installed without a hitch. I have since used the Windows registry scan tool to find and repair broken registry items (nothing I caused, just an old, slow computer that was limping along for unknown reasons) and to my delight it found and fixed things a ton of things in the registry so that the computer is running at an acceptable pace again! I had tried all kinds of disk cleanup and defragging utilities to no avail. My husband is calling me the Geek Goddess. :-) That computer tells me on the update page that it is not capable of running Windows 11, so no danger there.

Hello Martin,

I'm glad that you have followed my experience and what Lynn went through. Sounds like you are on the right track finally.

I never did stop the wuauserv process as I was told that is not necessary. The key was changing the registry to the target version of Windows 10 that you want; delete the files in the download folder and then restart your computer.

I'm not an expert, but you should not have to do that any longer. You are positive you have the new version of Windows 10 which is 21H2 and that is set as the target version in your registry? If so, you should be all set as your computer would not be able to load Windows 11 on you. The registry dictates that it won't.

Thank you Lynn and PortlandMT, etc) for your on-going conversation and information.

Over the past several months (following instructions back on Page 10 of this thread) I have been continually stopping the wuauserv process (Task Manager, Services), deleteing the files in C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution, and emptying the Wastebasket (Recycle Bin!).

Reading the latest entries (Page 16-17 of this thread), I have just checked my version of Windows -> 21H2. I cannot remember if/when I updated (if that is the right word) to 21H2!

I also checked the Windows Update process (Settings, Update & Security, and Activation), and low and behold, it asks if I want to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro - no longer any mention of Windows 11 [except that my PC meets the minimum specification for Windows 11, on the Windows Update page].

So my question is: Am I correct in thinking that I no longer need to keep stopping the wuauserv process (Services, Task Manager) and deleting the files in the SoftwareDistribution directory?

Thanks, Martin.

That is so funny! I just noticed the installation date. It should say 4/15/2022.

How strange!