Windows update, gun to my head situation?

Also I just checked the updates he received but seem to find no mention of others losing internet until they updated. I cant seem find anyone online exhibiting the same exact issue with my google fu either.


Sorry for spam, just documenting what I find as I find it.

It would seem that the updates he got have been available for some time and were just not downloaded due to my aggressive update policies in GPO. It could be that these updates are critical and so microsoft is treating them differently.

I know we have had our 2012 R2 server reboot during business hours for an update when we specifically told it not to update during those hours. I wonder if this is indeed a tactic to force “required” updates.

@Novasty have you had anything similar happen on your end?

So far its only one user and once for me but its the exact symptom described in the OP. No pudding until you eat your meat internet until you update.


Perhaps thats better than just forcing the update as it gives you a chance to gracefully close what you were doing.

I could see that for one of my cases all right. It was way past due but the second and more effected time was on and updated regularly but I will grant that the update was a big one when it hit, few restarts screen on and off a few times during that sort of update.

The odd part was that the first time it happened, the updates were only available, not downloaded or ready to install. That time it only kicked my keyboard off, left the WiFi alone and it then downloaded and installed the updates.
The second time it had them ready the moment it booted up so I turned the PC on just to restart it, unknown to me till I did, just for the update. If that makes sense.

I dont know how you have yours setup nor can I realistically speculate 100% to your problems being related entirely to windows update but I have at least seen it happen first hand now.

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One instance I can think off, but there are too many variables at play to make a decent conclusion.


A possibility is some of these updates affect the way radio works in windows which the updates that have been “partially” installed may be interfering with it. This is just an assumption and should be taken with a grain of salt.

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Or the network stack in general, because it happened on wired for me.

Yeap, except it was updates that destroyed it outright for me.

Well this seems to be updates breaking networking until you reboot to finish the update.

A workaround that might work is using something called WSUS offline, I don’t encourage outright breaking the Windows update service, but for certain machines that don’t reboot often, and you don’t want windows update to interfere with it’s operation, it might be handy to use WSUS Offline.

It is a useful tool for update when you want, I find it especially useful for machines that are mostly in offline environments at work for me.

So if you still want to get updates, but you want full control over it, I’d block the update domain via firewall and have wsusoffline obtain the update files via a 2nd computer. That way you are only rebooting when you want to.

All in all, I don’t encourage this method if you regularly shutdown your computer, but I would rather you work around how windows update works to reduce as much downtime as possible.

This may provide more insight on how Windows updates works for you:
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/12/10/windows-monthly-security-and-quality-updates-overview/

I’ve had pretty good luck with just configuring windows to use a wsus server that doesnt exist, then switching back to non wsus updating for when you want to update but wsus offline sounds good too.

I am in the process of getting my own WSUS server in my home, my issue is how do get those updates out to the Windows 10 home PCs, so the ones that belong to my family members.

:thinking: wonder if it could be configured in registry

Which is why I found it so odd. It did not disable or destroy the capabilities of either, just specifically my device and network. Others worked and functioned perfectly like you would expect.

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