Block Windows 10 Upgrade on Domains

The “Get Windows 10” app sits patiently in the Windows 7 system tray, waiting patiently for it’s next victim.

Last week Microsoft started  pushing their Windows 10 upgrade on Corporate users whose computers are connected to domains. The easy upgrade path is nice, but there are a lot of reasons you wouldn’t want to upgrade. Fortunately, they made it pretty easy to block the upgrade on domains if you have a Group Policy setup.

1. Go to Group Policy Management and find the domain policy that your users use.
2. Right-click on the policy and choose “Edit”
3. 

   Group Policy Management Editor

   Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update.
4. Set “Turn off the upgrade to the latest version Windows through Windows Update” to “Enabled.”

When your computers reset or receive an updated Group Policy by running “gpupdate /force” the Upgrade to Windows 10 app should tell you that the administrator has blocked upgrades.

I had some trouble getting this to work as a local policy on non-domain computers, so I took the alternate route of installing GWX Control Panel.