Microsoft Sets Stage For Massive Windows 10 Upgrade Strategy

[Mr GRiM]

Well I was pretty sick of the GWX icon in the system tray and tried to remove the updates that installed GWX but in the end I just gave up and decided to live with it.

That was until I found a very nice reg hack and I have not seen the icon or been nagged to install Windows 10 since.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\GWX]
"DisableGwx"=dword:00000001

Edit: This is a more in depth description to disable it, I have not seen this one but the effect is the same.



Copy and paste the text below (and above) the obvious markers into a text file, save it as 'DisableGWX.reg' (<-- changing even the file extension - if you cannot see it, you'll have to change your Windows Explorer view a bit to make this easier) and then use that (right-click on it, MERGE it into your registry) to disable the upgrade 'pushiness' you are seeing. Restart to get the full effect.

---------------- COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE ----------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\GWX]
"DisableGWX"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
"DisableOSUpgrade"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade]
"AllowOSUpgrade"=dword:00000000
"ReservationsAllowed"=dword:00000000
---------------- COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE ----------------

Once that is done, you should be without the notification and your Microsoft Updates should return to it's normal state. If you ever want to upgrade to Windows 10 again (remember, it is a work in progress and if you upgraded already on that system and activated - then there is a license for Windows 10 you will never have to pay for tied to that individual machine for the life of that individual machine) you could likely use the Media Creation Tool to do so *or* reverse the registry values above (all dword:00000001 becomes dword:00000000 and all dword:00000000 becomes dword:00000001) and save that file and MERGE it again. Restart and you are back where you were before.

*TIP* for everyone out there. One thing I have not seen advertised about the 30-day rollback option you have with Windows 10 is that *if* you run the Media Creation Tool at any point in those 30 days, it BREAKS the ability to rollback - even if you did it just to create an ISO image so you would have installation media to keep. This is because that tool recreates the '$Windows.~BT' and '$Windows.~WS' folders on the root of your C drive and those two folders and their original contents after the upgrade along with the 'Windows.OLD' folder (the only 'visible by default' one of the three) are all necessary for the rollback process to work.

This is a little 'reflective', but pictures (animated ones) might be worth at least whatever number of words are above this line . . .

(Animated GIF - should view in a web browser for full effect.)

Source https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...1a6f039?page=2