Microsoft is generously offering Windows 7 and up users a free upgrade to Windows 10. Great, but do you need to annoy us about it in our system tray? On every computer we own or have access to? If you’d like to prevent dinnertime discussions about Windows 10, here are all the ways to disable the annoying upgrade notification.

Uninstall Update for Windows KB3035583

Thank you, Microsoft, for including ads along with this update. I kid. We already mentioned how to uninstall the update in our Windows 10 overview. And if you want to avoid Windows installing this update again, you’ll want to hide the update. Go to Windows Update and click on Important. Then right-click on the KB3035583 and then Hide Update. Keep in mind, though, that Microsoft could be sneaky and include the notification of other updates. Microsoft really wants you to try Windows 10 and get as many people to upgrade as possible, so expect the company to continue to push it hard. Update:  The I Don’t Want Windows 10 app does this for you.

Disable the Windows 10 Notification

The GWX – Get Windows 10 process is just like any process in the Taskbar system tray. You can customize the notifications for this app without disabling it. We’ve covered modifying notifications before. Just right-click near the time/date in the Taskbar system tray and pick Customize Notification icons. Then look for the GWX entry and change it to Hide icon and notifications. Update:  Microsoft won’t take no for an answer and this notification reappears.  You may have to disable it in Task Scheduler. Go to Library\Microsoft\Windows\Setup\gwx and disable gwxlaunchtryprocess and refreshgwxconfig.

Temporarily Stop the Process

If you want to make your reservation, but just not now, you can kill the process. Bring up the Task Manager using your preferred method (I right-click on the Taskbar) and then end the GWX.exe process. It will start again once you reboot the computer, but there’s a way to fix that.

Delete the GWX Program

You’ll need to end the GWX process first, but then you can delete just the program. It’s located in the following systems for 64 bit systems. Delete the entire GWX folder.

There’s no promise another update won’t reinstall this helpful(?) program, though. The notification seems the best way to tell Microsoft “thanks but no thanks.” (at least at this time). Updated with software tools and additional steps. So Windows 10, and Office 365 will make me become a Apple, or a Linux user… A note people when you click “Hide icon and notification” You are still going to get MS to still download to your computer. Shut down the updater altogether that mean to all software/program updated even to your antivirus and click thru your antivirus to update. Do this until MS get the hint? or til they work out all the bug and quit bugging you and than decides? Then reboot back into Win7 and the notification is gone. I ran the updater just to make sure nothing else would detect this, and sure enough nothing was upset in the system. Also, any way to automate killing this thing? I have a bunch of them to eradicate. Thanks! Many of us have work critical workstations that we cannot risk upgrading and having to deal with all sorts of bugs. Many people just want one rock solid platform that they can work on for around 3-5 years and only upgrade when they get a new machine. Is this too much to ask? Guest 47, EVERYONE has a right to express their opinion about any company they want. If we don’t express our displeasure with a company then they get the false feedback that they are doing things right. Windows 10 warrants HATE. It’s the worst bit of software and the icing on the sucky cake is we are being FORCED to try it and FORCED to deal with the pop-up ad every single day! I can tell you what my husband and myself thought of Windows 10. WE HATED IT! HATE is not a strong enough word! We finally went back to Windows 7. Windows 10 is in my opinion, the WORST product Microsoft has come out with thus far. I wonder if this is why they are FORCING people to adapt to their horrid piece of crap product?! Currently I’m still using 8.1 and I can tell virtually no difference between it and Windows 7. I’ve installed Windows 10 on a second machine and found it a little different from Win 8.1 but I can still make it look and feel like Win 7 so I have no concerns about upgrading. Obviously, there’s a big difference somewhere between what you see in Win 10 and what I see. Please give me a couple of the real show stoppers that you see. Microsoft is so generous for offering unlimited free chances to be early guinea pigs. Who knows– maybe paying customers will want it after the 501st notification! “Early Adopter”: ˈər-lē ə-ˈdäpt-ər defn. A flattering euphemism crafted to recruit volunteers to pay for the miserable, masochistic experience of donating time to find bugs, errors, and failures in an untested technology (my definition). Thanks Microsoft for leveraging your OS to cram ads down our throats! The desperation eeks of…. RUN AWAY!!!! – Bart These Lucifarians now have the money, technology, the infiltration in high power positions, and we know that they’ve already had the agenda for a long time. So what’s to stop them now? Beware of GMOs which now are laced with bacterial dna meant to cause disease. These people have also ramped up the concentration of GMO’s since April/May of 2013 and also U.H.T. dairy (ultra heat treated)…. just 2 ways to slow-kill us. Pharmaceuticals are the other, as well as sterilization and bacterial/viral pandemics they currently have people working on in Helsinki. They are some sick sick people who worship Lucifer. Bilderbergers, Illuminati, and free masons have been wanting the Hadrian Gate completed also so they can ascend to heaven. How crazy is that? Yet it’s documented by many who’ve left these groups. After the culling, they’re next plan is hybridization of the human body. Satan doesn’t like that we are made in Elohim’s image and wants to create his own race of hybridized earth dwellers. Yes, I know it sounds crazy and they count on us discounting them because of how crazy this sounds. But it is their agenda. What a sad state that we’ve allowed these people to run our world like this. As for WINDOWS 10. Holy Hannah! I uninstalled it 15 minutes after the update. Now this damn notification keeps popping up. I ran the I Don’t want Windows 10 tool, didn’t work for more than 2 weeks. Now I’m manually uninstalling updates 3035583 and 2976978. AMEN to THAT! Upgrades totally destroyed a 20-year scientific study. We could not prove the data were processed the same way at the end of 10 years as they were in the beginning. Leave things alone, so we can use expensive scientific equipment more than 3 years without having to replace it. Upgrades render such equipment useless. Scientists do NOT need or want the latest crazes in technology. We need things to stay the same for long periods of time. We need a stable platform to do our work on. Microsoft is too greedy for money to let any science be done properly. Most users would not be able to do this. This is an abuse and deserves an anti-trust response. I intend to write to my member of the European parliament asking for this to be investigated and for Microsoft to be fined for this. It’s not just a “free update” delivered robustly. Windows 10 is nothing less than spyware in many ways. Microsoft forcing me to have to go through this rigmarole is THE END. I already run Linux Mint some of the time and will now accelerate my move to it. It gives me FULL CONTROL of my computer. The software is free and updates to all software happen with updates to the operating system. Backup is easy. I will run a few things in a virtual machine for as long as I need to. Can you please provide information in LAYMAN’s Terms of what I’d ask for when walking into a computer store? We’d be able to spend about $700 to $800 each (depending on my husband’s mood). NOTE: I want the ability to play games, write documents, save pictures, access facebook, and check emails. Thanks in advance if someone answers this. :D There is another fix. Downgrade to XP. It’s better. I wrote a script using AutoIt; you can find it on the web. This can be used to close any unwanted process assuming you have the premission to do so. Copy and paste the text into the coding window of AutoIt, save, then compile it. Place the executable file the compiler creates in your Start Up Folder. While 1 Sleep(100) If ProcessExists(“GWX.exe”) Then ProcessClose ( “GWX.exe” ) ProcessClose ( “GWXUX.exe” ) EndIf WEnd This way you can just stop running KillWindows10Popup.exe, log off and back on and everything’s as it was. :) ** disclaimer – I wrote this tool maybe they DO care what we think? i know. i’m being overly optimistic. :) Linux? There isn’t enough market for equipment makers to sell Linux devices, or we would be using them. They make Windows-based equipment, and then hope that Microsoft’s latest upgrade doesn’t make their hardware interfaces stop working. And look at all the tax money us goofs who lay the golden eggs have to shell out whenever government has to upgrade all of its computers. Microsoft is stealing our tax dollars. Adrian Monk I hate Microsoft with a passion, but cannot afford an Apple or would switch immediately. Linux is good but trying to send document to other PC users is useless unless you install word, as no one can open the things. Personally I think Microsoft has got too blasted big for it’s own boots and doesn’t care a damn about it’s users, or we all would not be having the same problem trying to permanently remove this rubbish from our computers. Why do they insist on trying to fix something that isn’t broken? I will never buy another PC with Windows on after this one dies. I would rather not have one! http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/ MS treating the world like this shows one thing – they are at the top of the food chain & there is nothing that anyone or any government can do about it (unless you want to pay a factor of 3 more & go with Apple). this seems to be the same path with Windows 10. I know Win7 will lose MS support eventually, but stop forcing an unpolished product like Win10 on me. :( @echo off @echo remove KB3035583, KB2952664, and KB3021917 silently please wait…. @echo kb2952664… wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664 /norestart /quiet @echo kb3035583… wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583 /norestart /quiet @echo kb3021917… wusa /uninstall /kb:3021917 /norestart /quiet @echo Kill the GWX task… taskkill.exe /F /IM “gwx.exe” @echo take ownership of gwx… takeown /a /r /d Y /f “%windir%System32GWX” && icacls “%windir%System32GWX” /grant administrators:F @echo make backup of System32GWX to System32GWX_backup … robocopy “%windir%System32GWX” “%windir%System32GWX_backup” /E rmdir /s /q “%windir%System32GWX” @echo take ownership of GWXTriggers takeown /a /r /d Y /f “%windir%System32TasksMicrosoftWindowsSetupGWXTriggers” && icacls “%windir%System32TasksMicrosoftWindowsSetupGWXTriggers” /grant administrators:F @echo remove GWXTriggers rmdir /s /q “%windir%System32TasksMicrosoftWindowsSetupGWXTriggers” pause exit Comment Name * Email *

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