WIndows Update is blocked by already cancelled upgrade to Windows 10

Question

This is travesty! I cannot get rid of this bloody "Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready". I have Windows 7 64bit Home Premium installed.

I reserved a free upgrade to Windows 10 a couple of weeks (or even months now) ago. I was waiting to the stage when it happened that the Windows Update donwloaded required files and was ready to begin. I was almost ready to begin but in the last minute I realised there might be complications with software I've got. Therefore I decided to cancel my reservation.

Even after cancelling, windows upgrade has not stopped harassing me to restart my computer. After restarting, nothing happens. Windows update still asks to restart. Also, I used to have this annoying advert to reserv Windows 10 which I manage to get rid of.

I have visitted a couple of websites and realised there are massive no of people having the same issue.

I tried the following.

Visited this website: How to get rid of the 'Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready' lock and manage to get rid of GWX process. Apparently, unstalling two updates was required: KB2952664 (likely on Win7 systems) and KB 2976978 (likely on Win 8.1) - GWX, and KB3035583 Windows 10 update itself. It did not help. So I was digging further. I found another website: Stop Windows 10 upgrade install after files already dowloaded and uninstalled a couple of other patches such as:

KB3035583 - Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1
KB2952664 - Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7
KB2976978 - Compatibility update for Windows 8.1 and Windows 8
KB3021917 - Update to Windows 7 SP1 for performance improvements
KB3044374 - Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10
KB2990214 - Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows

Another answer suggests to chnage one of the registery keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE> SOFTWARE> Microsoft> Windows> CurrentVersion> WindowsUpdate> OSUpgrade
Look for the KEY  : AllowOSUpgrade then change to 0

I have have littlke knowledge on what patches correspond to. Unfortunately, having done all this did not help. I still have got Windows Update nagging me to restart the system. I found very long post here: “Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready” How to cancel it?. There's a very long answer. I tried to follow the instructions but somehwere in the middle, I did not find provided registery HKEYs but I have also uninstalled a bunch of other patches:

KB3022345 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
KB3068708 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
KB3075249 - Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
KB3080149 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
KB2990214 - Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows
KB3012973 - << did not found anything on that >>
KB2952664 - Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7
KB2976978 - Compatibility update for Windows 8.1 and Windows 8

Unfortunately, as soon as I switched Windows Update, the message came back.

I feel completely lost. I have no idea what to do. I will be really grateful if someone could provide some working solution to this!

Thanks

PS> The last desparate move will be simply installing the system from DVD. I could do it but first I would like to know if I am going to exoerience the same problems after installing a fresh copy of the system.

Answer 1

(The solution to your problem is the reg hack listed further below, but I've included the broader description of this whole issue anyway.)

KB3035583 showed up on AGAIN on a plethora of my client's systems a few days (10/10/15) ago after I had already removed it, unchecked it and hid it weeks earlier. The reason is that Microsoft keeps re-releasing these updates as if they are new.

Furthermore, it appears that the update option, "check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them", has somehow been ignored with one of these re-released updates as I've found systems magically reset to "Install Updates Automatically", even on systems where the users don't even know how to access an administrator account.

On 10/10/2015 ago I found KB3035583 installed AGAIN on several systems I support and had to uninstall it AGAIN. I then had Update find it again, unchecked it and hid it, and lo and behold, the Windows 10 installer itself was STILL pending as the only available update!

Looking at "view other updates", I found the Windows 10 installer itself included, and then unchecked and hid it, and that actually BROKE Microsoft updates! After I did the above, update would immediately fail with an error (I think 0x80240019: "WU_E_EXCLUSIVE_INSTALL_CONFLICT An exclusive update cannot be installed with other updates at the same time").

This happened on ALL the systems at one business I support!

Fortunately I had encountered this problem before when I had had to roll back to Windows 8.1 from Windows 10 for a client who was tricked into installing Windows 10, so I knew what to do, namely apply the following .reg hack (it will solve the above problems on both Windows 10 and Windows 8):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade]
"AllowOSUpgrade"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade\State]
"OSUpgradeState"=dword:00000001

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

[Note: copy the above in a file with .reg type, and execute the reg file by right-clicking and selecting "Merge".]

This reg hack can be applied at any time when removing, unchecking and hiding KB3035583 and the Windows 10 installer update itself, but the simplest way to use the reg hack is to first uninstall KB3035583, and then apply the above reg hack BEFORE rebooting, namely first use:

wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664 /norestart /quiet

then apply the .reg reghack, and then reboot. I've found that if the reg hack is applied that way, the Windows 10 update installer itself will not come back, though you still have to recheck for updates after the boot, to find KB3035583 AGAIN and then uncheck and hide it.

Note KB2952664 comes back too, and if you want to make sure you've removed ALL the telemetry put the following in a .bat file:

@echo on
wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:3022345 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:3068708 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:3075249 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:3080149 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:2990214 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:3012973 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:2976978 /norestart /quiet
pause

and run the above batch file, THEN do the .reg hack, and then reboot, and as I said before, you will then have to have update check for new updates, find KB3035583 and KB2952664 and uncheck and hide them.

At this point in the game, because of what Microsoft is doing to my clients with their outrageous, repeated attempts to force Windows 10 onto my client's computers and thereby completely wreck their businesses if they succeed, my only choice is to turn automatic updates off altogether with "Never check for updates" and manually check once or twice a year and see if there's anything worth allowing to install.