Avoiding Windows 10 Creator, but not other updates

Question

I have a brand new, unopened laptop with Windows 10 Home that, due to a standardized test that my spouse will have to take on it in late July, I cannot put Windows 10 Creator on. I understand that this will leave the laptop less secure, and I am rather mad about it, but I have no control over the testing software. They made it very clear that Windows 10 Creator is not supported, and that it should not be installed prior to the exam.

When I open this laptop up, I would like to make my laptop as secure as I can by getting as many updates as possible without installing Windows 10 Creator. However, updates rarely identify themselves clearly, so I am not sure how to know when I have even encountered the Windows 10 Creator update. Can anyone tell me how to know which update to avoid?

Also, (and this is not strictly part of the question), any further advice about how to secure this thing without being up to date on Windows updates would also be appreciated.

Answer 1

You should use the 3rd party tool called Windows Update MiniTool which allows to select which updates can be installed and allows to block updates like you could in former Windows versions.

An alternative to the standard Windows Update What you can do:
• Check for updates
• Download updates
• Installing Updates
• Deleting installed updates
• Hiding unwanted updates
• Get direct links to the *.cab / *.Exe / *.Psf update files • View update history
• Configure Automatic Updates
• This tool is like the external powershell module PSWindowsUpdate, but much more advanced and user-friendly features
• The tool relies and use same WU infrastructure, all downloading are through WU it's not a downloader

Here you can change the checking mode to only notify about updates. Here you can select the Feature Update v1703 and click on hide like any other updates.

(I only have this picture for hiding v1607 on 1511 VM, because I was not offered v1703 but it should be the same for 1703).