New background process added to its upgrade arsenal

Jan 11, 2016 06:19 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has already announced that starting early 2016 the Windows 10 upgrade push would become a little bit more aggressive, and now we already see changes in this regard.

Josh Mayfield, the creator of GWX Control Panel, an application that helps block the upgrade to Windows 10, told InfoWorld that Microsoft has recently made some changes to the KB3035583 update that silently create a new background task that automatically re-enables the upgrade twice a day.

KB3035583 is the update responsible for installing the Get Windows 10 app and “forcing” the upgrade on a Windows 7 and 8.1 computer and its full removal is said to help block the switch to the new operating system.

Automatic checks performed twice a day

But if you only disable the Get Windows 10 app and keep this update on your computer, it automatically re-activates the app in the background thanks to checks that are performed two times a day.

“Beginning about a month ago the KB3035583 update started installing a new background task -- beyond the ones previous versions already installed -- that resets the AllowOSUpgrade value to 1 (enabled) twice a day. Not all users have this background task -- I don't know how Microsoft decides how these things get distributed -- but for those who do, changing this value like suggests will only help you for 12 hours or less,” Mayfield explained.

At this point, the best way to avoid the Windows 10 upgrade is to remove the aforementioned patch and use these registry tweaks to disable the Get Windows 10 app. Or you can simply turn to GWX Control Panel and let the app do everything for you, but keep in mind that changes that Microsoft makes to its OS updates could always bring new ways to get past these methods.

So make sure you double-check every single update you plan to install in order to continue using Windows 7 or 8.1 without even downloading the Windows 10 setup files.