During an unattended setup, how can I skip the check for updates?

hsehestedt · 2025-03-19T20:13:13-0400

@garlin, this might be one that you have some insight into...

During Windows setup, setup now checks for updates. For unattended setup of Windows, is there an entry I can add to my autounattend.xml to bypass that check? I know that I could simply ensure that networking is not available, but was curious if I can control this in my answer file.

dacrone · 2025-03-19T20:43:48-0400

In your Unattend.xml, in the section where it applies the registry commands for MDT, the administrator account and so on, I have added the following set of commands.

<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">

<Description>Stop Windows Update Service</Description>

<Order>98</Order>

<Path>sc stop wuauserv</Path>

</RunSynchronousCommand>

<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">

<Description>Disable Windows Update Service</Description>

<Order>99</Order>

<Path>sc config WUAUSERV start= disabled</Path>

</RunSynchronousCommand>

This uses the SC command line to stop the service if it is running and then disable it.

would that work?

.https://www.reddit.com/r/MDT/comments/tk5t0b/how_to_prevent_updates_at_mdt_iso_installation/

hsehestedt · 2025-03-19T20:50:59-0400

dacrone said:
would that work?

.https://www.reddit.com/r/MDT/comments/tk5t0b/how_to_prevent_updates_at_mdt_iso_installation/

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll take a look at this and see if I can make this work. I don't use MDT - I'm just a guy with a small network at home

but I may still be able to get this to work.

Thanks for taking the time to post this!

dacrone · 2025-03-19T21:02:59-0400

keep me posted if/what does end up working. i'm no @garlin or @pseymour but i try lol

^ i bet those 2 are getting tired me of tagging them :lmao:

garlin · 2025-03-19T21:17:59-0400

hsehestedt said:
@garlin, this might be one that you have some insight into...

During Windows setup, setup now checks for updates. For unattended setup of Windows, is there an entry I can add to my autounattend.xml to bypass that check? I know that I could simply ensure that networking is not available, but was curious if I can control this in my answer file.

Someone who's very bright shared an unexpected tip with me.

Normally this GPO is designed to block cloud content like Spotlight wallpapers, pinned Suggested Apps (think "English (World)" but done right), and turns off News & Interests (widgets).

But strangely, it skips over 24H2's forced OOBE Updates...

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CloudContent]
"DisableCloudOptimizedContent"=dword:00000001

If you want to re-enable cloud content after you're past OOBE, that can be done from a FirstLogon reg change. With this trick, you don't have to disable WU for all the other OOBE-related tasks it's doing in the background.

garlin · 2025-03-19T21:33:48-0400

MS docs explain the GPO doesn't work on Pro (EDU or Enterprise only), but I've been using this trick for a few months.

Haven't tried on Home, but I'm going to guess it doesn't work since Home isn't allowed to do GPO's.

hsehestedt · 2025-03-19T23:15:49-0400

@dacrone and @garlin,

Thank you both for your help. I'm going to try these things tomorrow.

Garlin, it's funny that you mention "English (World)" because that happened to be my other project today. I had found that trick no longer worked in unattended setup on 24H2. Finally figured it out this evening. It turned out to be as simple as removing <UILanguageFallback>en-US</UILanguageFallback> from the answer file. Why that has such an effect I have no idea, but there have been a number of such oddities with unattended setup for me.

garlin · 2025-03-20T00:17:34-0400

Windows has three "generic" locales for English:

en_001 - World

en_150 - Europe

en_US_POSIX - for programming reasons

All three are valid for unattended mode, but none of them specify a narrow market region. So it's impossible to provide "local content", and you won't get suggested apps because of this (does Amazon or Netflix exist in this "country"?).

I imagine if you revisited 23H2, English (Europe) gives the same results as English (World).

hsehestedt · 2025-03-20T01:33:16-0400

garlin said:
So it's impossible to provide "local content", and you won't get suggested apps because of this

Just for clarification for anyone else following this:

Say you set the locale to English (world). You complete Windows installation. Once networking is enabled (if not already enabled), it is at that point where the icons shown on the lock screen are "locked in" for lack of any better terminology. As you noted, the current setting has no market region associated with it, so you end up with a nice clean Start. But at this point I change the locale back to standard English (United States) and now the Windows Store app will present all my apps for the US market but Start remains clean.

EDIT: One thing I feel that I should point out. On a system configured like this, when you create a new user account, it will initially have the locale set to English (world). The good part of this is that any new users will also get a clean Start, but you need to remember to change the locale to English (United States) after logging in the first time with that user account.

During an unattended setup, how can I skip the check for updates?

hsehestedt

Well-known member

My Computers

System One System Two

dacrone

Well-known member

My Computer

System One

hsehestedt

Well-known member

My Computers

System One System Two

dacrone

Well-known member

My Computer

System One

garlin

Well-known member

My Computer

System One

garlin

Well-known member

My Computer

System One

hsehestedt

Well-known member

My Computers

System One System Two

garlin

Well-known member

My Computer

System One

hsehestedt

Well-known member

My Computers

System One System Two

Similar threads

Latest Support Threads

Latest Tutorials