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Block an Automatic Update from being Installed

Last time, I reported on Microsoft’s plans to increase their snooping operations on users of Windows 8.1/8/7 and how you could remove the update Microsoft was using to do this.

A number of readers have written to me since to say that they’ve removed the update, only to have it automatically reinstalled by Windows Update.

If this has happened to you, you can block the update permanently as follows:

  1. First, remove the update you’d like to get rid of and re-boot your system.
  2. In Windows 8.1/8, press [Windows Key] + [X] and click Control Panel, or in Windows 7, click Start > Control Panel.
  3. Click on Windows Update.
  4. Click on the link showing X important updates are available, where X is a number, or Show all available updates. If one of these links isn’t shown, click Check for updates.
  5. Right-click on the update that you don’t want to have installed, then select Hide from the pop-up menu.
  6. Click OK. You can now allow Windows Update to install updates as normal but the one you hid will not be installed.