Tech Friday: Annoying Microsoft Windows Automatic updates
Posted By RichC on December 13, 2013
As the big tech companies look for ways to push the use of their products, some of us are looking for ways to keep them from taking over our computers. I welcome having the option (easy option) to disregard the intrusions, but often spend too much time ignoring, opting out or disabling something that should be an “opt in” choice.
A perfect example is in using Microsoft’s Windows Update. It is relatively easy to turn the entire service off, but that’s not necessarily prudent or something I wanted to do. So I set the service to “pop-up” and let me know when “important updates” are available and then choose to install on my time. Unfortunately the nag seem to be way too often and requires regular reboots even on Windows 7 (something I thought was improved?) 
BUT more than that, I am frustrated in seeing the same couple of “updates available” for features I don’t want. ie. Bing bar and Bing Desktop.
If you choose not to download and install an update, it frustratingly remains “available for you the next time you visit Windows Update …and the next time, and the time after that as well.” I my mind, there’s no reason to see this over and over again in list of available updates. Of course, there isn’t an obvious way to remove the item from the list barring installing it (no thank you). Thankfully there is a less than obvious way to hide the update from appearing … and it is somewhat hidden and is easy to overlooked.
In the list of available updates, right-click any update that you don’t want to see again, and choose Hide Update. If you later change your mind—or if you just want to see a list of the updates you’ve chosen to hide—on the main Windows Update page, click Restore Hidden Updates.
Comments