Turn Off Auto App Updates in Microsoft Store: Windows 11/10

If you opened this guide looking for the Microsoft Store switch that turns off automatic app updates for good, here is the honest answer up front: that switch no longer exists. In August 2025, Microsoft quietly removed the permanent Off state from the Store's Update apps automatically toggle. Flip it off today and you get a pause of one to five weeks — then updates resume on their own. The off switch you remember is now a snooze button. The only real off switches left are a Group Policy setting and a registry value called AutoDownload, and this guide walks you through both, step by step, for Windows 11 and Windows 10.

What the Store's Off Switch Actually Does Now

For years, the fix for surprise multi-gigabyte downloads was simple: open the Microsoft Store, find the Update apps automatically toggle, switch it off, and forget about it. If you are on a capped connection, a mobile hotspot, or a slow rural line, that one switch was your whole defense. That is why the change stings: in August 2025, Microsoft shipped a Store update on both Windows 11 and Windows 10 that removed the permanent off state entirely.

Here is what happens now. When you turn the toggle off, the Store opens a small dialog asking how long you want to pause updates — the choices run from one week to five weeks. Pick one, and the Store behaves exactly as you would hope for that period. Then, when the pause expires, automatic updates switch themselves back on and the Store downloads everything that queued up in the meantime. Nothing is broken and nothing is wrong with your PC — this is the designed behavior.

It is worth saying plainly: if your Store settings seem to keep "reverting," you did nothing wrong. The setting is doing what it was rebuilt to do. Early reports also found that registry tricks aimed at restoring the old permanent toggle inside the Store app simply do not work, which tells us the removal was deliberate, not a bug awaiting a fix.

Microsoft's reasoning is the same one behind mandatory Windows updates: outdated apps are a common way for attackers to get in, and automatic updates keep security patches flowing. That is a fair argument, and we will come back to it honestly near the end of this guide. But if you pay for every gigabyte, you deserve a switch that stays where you put it — and two of those still exist. They just live outside the Store app.

How to Pause Store App Updates in Windows 11

The pause is still genuinely useful. If you are tethering for a week, traveling, or riding out the last days of a monthly data cap, five quiet weeks may be all you need — and this method requires no admin rights and works on every edition of Windows, including Home. Here is the current path in the Store app:

1. Press the Win key, type Microsoft Store, and open the top result.
2. Click your profile icon (your account picture, near the top of the window next to the search bar).
3. Select Settings from the menu that opens.
4. Find Update apps automatically and switch the toggle to Off.
5. In the dialog that appears, choose how long to pause — 1 to 5 weeks — and confirm.
6. Note the resume date somewhere you will see it. When it arrives, updates turn back on silently.

This does not uninstall anything, does not sign you out, and does not touch Windows Update — you can change your mind at any point by flipping the toggle back on. The one thing it will not do is last. If you need the switch to hold for months, use the Group Policy method or the registry route below.

What Still Works on Windows 10

If you are still on Windows 10, you are far from alone, and nothing in this guide leaves you behind. Windows 10 and Windows 11 run the same modern Microsoft Store client, so the steps are identical: press the Win key, type Store, open the Microsoft Store app, click your profile icon, choose Settings, and turn Update apps automatically off. You will meet the same 1-to-5-week pause dialog, because the August 2025 change shipped to the Store app on Windows 10 too.

The permanent methods below also work the same way on Windows 10: Group Policy on Pro and Enterprise, the registry value on Home. The paths and value names have not changed between the two operating systems.

One piece of genuinely good news for Windows 10 holdouts: although regular support ended on October 14, 2025, Microsoft quietly extended the consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program in June 2026. Enrolled home PCs now keep receiving security updates through October 12, 2027, at no cost, with no action needed if you are already enrolled. If you have not enrolled yet, the option lives in Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update on an up-to-date Windows 10 machine.

That matters for this topic because keeping the operating system patched is what makes it reasonably safe to take manual control of app updates. With ESU covering the OS, turning off Store auto-updates and checking in monthly is a defensible setup, not a reckless one.

What Changed Since We First Wrote This Guide

This post was originally written in 2016, when the Store was younger and the toggle meant what it said. If you have followed our steps before — or anyone else's from that era — here is the honest changelog, because two of those old instructions now lead you somewhere different.

The account menu has also moved around over the years — the profile icon has lived on both sides of the search bar depending on the Store version — but the settings themselves are where we describe them above. If your window looks slightly different, look for your account picture; the Settings entry is always behind it.

Jake's Data Cap Disaster

Jake runs a mobile phone repair shop, and last month his shop broadband went down for a week, so he tethered the counter PC to his phone. Two days in, his carrier allowance was gone — a queue of game updates and framework packages had drained it in the background while he was processing customer payments. He turned the Store toggle off on the spot and thought he had solved it. Five weeks later, it happened again.

That is where Ethan comes in. Ethan is the veteran technician who works the bench at the back of Jake's shop — twenty years of Windows machines have passed through his hands, and nothing the operating system does surprises him anymore. He slides his chair over and points at Jake's screen.

"Stop fighting the Store app — you can't win inside it," Ethan says. "The toggle answers to a policy key now. Set AutoDownload to 2 under the Policies branch of the registry, or flip the Group Policy if you're on Pro, and the Store stops updating apps until you say otherwise. The toggle in the app will even gray out to show the policy is in charge. Five minutes, one restart, done."

Ethan's fix is exactly what the next two sections walk through — first the Group Policy version for Pro and Enterprise machines, then the registry version for Windows Home, which reaches the same key without needing the policy editor.

The Real Off Switch: Group Policy (Pro, Enterprise, Education)

The Local Group Policy Editor ships with Windows 11 and Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education. It is not included on Home editions — if that is you, skip to the registry method, which does the same thing. This policy is a separate, documented mechanism from the Store's own toggle, which is why it survived the August 2025 change: it is the administrative control Microsoft provides for organizations, and current coverage continues to describe it as the working way to disable automatic Store updates outright.

1. Press Win + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter.
2. In the left pane, navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Store.
3. In the right pane, double-click the policy named Turn off Automatic Download and Install of updates.
4. Select Enabled — yes, Enabled: you are enabling the policy that turns updates off.
5. Click Apply, then OK.
6. Restart the PC, or run gpupdate /force from a command prompt, so the policy takes effect.

After this, the Store's own update toggle grays out and the settings page notes that updates are managed by your organization — that message is the policy working, not a problem. Apps stop updating automatically for every user account on the machine, and they stay that way through Store app updates and Windows feature updates alike, until you set the policy back to Not Configured.

The Registry Route for Windows Home

Windows 11 Home and Windows 10 Home do not include the Group Policy Editor, but the policy itself is just a registry value — and you can set that value directly. This is not a hack or an exploit; it is the exact same setting the policy editor writes, placed by hand. You will need an administrator account, and the change takes a couple of minutes.

Before you start, one reassurance: this edit touches a single value in a single policy key. It cannot delete your apps, your files, or your settings. If you want a safety net, right-click the WindowsStore key once it exists and choose Export — that gives you a one-click undo file.

1. Press Win + R, type regedit, press Enter, and approve the administrator prompt.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsStore — note the Policies branch; there is a similarly named key elsewhere that will not work.
3. If the WindowsStore key does not exist, right-click Microsoft, choose New > Key, and name it WindowsStore exactly.
4. Right-click empty space in the right pane, choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value, and name it AutoDownload.
5. Double-click AutoDownload and set its value data to 2. (For reference: 2 disables automatic updates, 4 enables them.)
6. Click OK, close the Registry Editor, and restart your PC.

To undo it later, either delete the AutoDownload value, set it to 4, or double-click your exported backup file. After a restart, the Store's toggle comes back under your control.

The Bandwidth Guard: Set Your Connection as Metered

If your real problem is data, not updates — a hotspot, a capped plan, a slow shared line — there is a broader tool worth knowing. Marking a connection as metered tells Windows that data on this network costs money, and the system responds by holding back background downloads, including Store app updates and other non-essential sync traffic, while you are on that network.

1. Press Win + I to open Settings.
2. Go to Network & internet and choose Wi-Fi or Ethernet, depending on how this PC connects.
3. Click the name of your active network to open its properties.
4. Turn the Metered connection toggle On.

Two things to understand about this method. First, it is per-network: your hotspot can be metered while your home Wi-Fi is not, which is often exactly what you want. Second, it is a brake, not a lock — it holds back background downloads on that one network rather than turning updates off as a policy. Used together with the registry or Group Policy method, it covers the gap those methods leave: all the other background traffic that is not Store updates.

Can You Stop Just One App From Updating?

The short, honest answer: the Microsoft Store has no per-app auto-update setting. The toggle — and the policy behind it — is all-or-nothing. If one specific app keeps breaking itself with updates, or one game keeps eating your data, you cannot exclude just that one from the automatic queue.

What you can do instead is flip the logic. Turn automatic updates off globally using whichever method fits your edition, then update selectively: the Store's Library page lists every pending update with its own individual Update button, so you can bring your browser and your banking app up to date while leaving the 40 GB game exactly where it is.

A few installs live outside this system entirely. Games installed through the Xbox app follow that app's own update preference in its settings rather than the Store toggle, and classic desktop programs you downloaded from the web update themselves through their own mechanisms — the Store's settings never applied to them in the first place.

And if one app is truly the whole problem, the bluntest fix still works: uninstall it from the machine that has the data cap, and use it on your phone or another PC instead. That is not elegant, but it is sometimes the right answer for a shop machine or a work laptop.

How to Update Apps Manually When You Are Ready

Turning off automatic updates does not freeze your apps forever — it hands you the schedule. When you are back on fast, unlimited Wi-Fi, checking for updates takes under a minute:

1. Open the Microsoft Store.
2. Click Library (the icon near the bottom of the left rail; on some versions it is under Downloads).
3. Click Get updates. The Store lists everything with a pending update.
4. Click Update all, or the Update button next to only the apps you choose.

A monthly rhythm works well for most people: pick a day, connect to an unmetered network, run Get updates, and let it finish. Apps you rely on for security — your browser above all — deserve to be first in that line every time.

Which Method Should You Use?

Every method in this guide is free and reversible, but they solve different problems. The Store's pause is quick and unprivileged; the policy methods are permanent; the metered flag guards a specific network. Here is the whole picture in one place:

The pairing most people want: registry or Group Policy for the permanent off, metered connection on the expensive network, and a monthly manual Get updates. That combination survives Store app updates, Windows feature updates, and — unlike the pause — the passage of five weeks.

Edition Limits at a Glance

Which tools you have depends on your Windows edition, and this is where a lot of guides quietly waste your time by sending Home users to a policy editor they do not have. Here is what each edition can actually do:

On a work or school PC managed by an IT department, expect domain policy to win: anything you set locally can be reverted at the next policy refresh, and the Store may already show "managed by your organization." That message on a work machine means the decision belongs to your IT team — ask them rather than working around it, since bypassing management on a company device can breach policy you are accountable to.

Updates Came Back Anyway — Here's Why

You followed the steps, the downloads stopped, and then one morning the Store is pulling gigabytes again. Before you assume you broke something — you almost certainly did not. Each symptom below has one usual cause, and every one of them has a clean fix:

On that last row: you may run into guides suggesting you edit a value called AutoUpdatePauseEndTime under the Store's InstallService state key to push the pause date decades out. It is a clever idea, but it edits the Store's own bookkeeping rather than a policy, and readers have reported the Store reverting it. The Policies branch exists precisely to outrank the app's internal state — which is why the AutoDownload method is the one we recommend you build on.

If the Store itself misbehaves — endless spinners, downloads stuck at zero, settings that will not load — press Win + R, type wsreset.exe, and press Enter. A blank window appears for a few seconds while the cache clears, then the Store reopens on its own. Your installed apps, games, and settings are untouched by this; it clears temporary data only.

The Case for Leaving Updates On

We owe you the other side, without lecturing. Microsoft removed the permanent toggle for a reason that is not silly: out-of-date apps are one of the most common ways malware gets a foothold, because attackers study each patch to find the hole it closed, then hunt for machines that have not installed it. Automatic updates close that window without you having to think about it. For most people on unlimited broadband, leaving them on is genuinely the better default.

Turning them off is the right call in specific situations — capped or expensive data, a fragile line, a machine where one app must not change mid-project, or a shop counter PC like Jake's where a surprise download at the wrong moment has a real cost. If that is you, take the control this guide gives you and pair it with the discipline it asks of you.

That discipline is small: a recurring reminder, once a month, to open the Store's Library on a good connection and run Get updates. Prioritize anything that touches the internet or your money — browsers, mail, banking, messaging. Keep Windows Update itself running normally; nothing in this guide touches it, and it is carrying your operating system security patches, including ESU patches on Windows 10 through October 12, 2027.

Do that, and you get the best of both: no surprise gigabytes, no app changing under you mid-week, and no slowly rotting software either. Control, not neglect.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will turning off Store app updates stop Windows security updates too?

No. The Store settings, the Group Policy, and the AutoDownload registry value only affect apps delivered through the Microsoft Store. Windows Update — which carries your operating system security patches — runs on a completely separate system and is not touched by anything in this guide.

Does this work the same way on Windows 10?

Yes. Windows 10 and Windows 11 run the same modern Microsoft Store client, so the pause steps, the Group Policy path, and the registry value are identical on both. The August 2025 change that limited the toggle to a 1-to-5-week pause applies to Windows 10 as well.

Can I use Group Policy on Windows Home?

No — the Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) is only included with Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions. On Windows Home, use the registry method instead: the AutoDownload value set to 2 writes the exact same policy setting and has the same permanent effect.

Do I need administrator rights for any of these methods?

The Store's own pause toggle needs no special rights — any user can set it. The Group Policy and registry methods change machine-wide settings, so they require an administrator account. On a company-managed PC, IT policy may block them regardless of your local rights.

Will the registry change delete my apps or files?

No. Setting AutoDownload to 2 adds one value in one policy key and changes nothing else — your installed apps, documents, and settings are untouched. The only effect is that Store apps stop updating themselves until you update them manually or reverse the change.

How do I undo the Group Policy or registry change?

In gpedit, set Turn off Automatic Download and Install of updates back to Not Configured, then restart or run gpupdate /force. In the registry, delete the AutoDownload value or set it to 4, then restart. Either way, the Store's toggle returns to your control.

Why did my apps start updating again after a few weeks?

Because the Store's toggle is now a timed pause, not an off switch. Since August 2025, turning it off only holds for the 1 to 5 weeks you choose, and updates resume automatically when the pause expires. Nothing reset your settings — that is the designed behavior. Use the Group Policy or registry method if you need it to hold indefinitely.

I set AutoDownload to 2 but apps still update — what did I miss?

Check three things: the value must live under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsStore (the Policies branch — a similar key exists outside it and does nothing), the name must be exactly AutoDownload as a DWORD, and the PC needs a restart before the policy applies. One of those three explains nearly every failure.

Why does the Store say my settings are managed by my organization?

That message appears whenever the update policy is set — including when you set it yourself through gpedit or the registry. On your own PC, it is confirmation the method worked. On a work or school PC, it means your IT department controls the setting, and the right move is to ask them rather than work around it.

Is it safe to leave Store updates off permanently?

It is safe for your files and your system's stability — nothing breaks. The real cost is security: apps stop receiving their patches until you update them by hand. If you keep a monthly habit of opening the Store's Library and running Get updates, and you keep Windows Update running normally, the risk stays modest and the control is yours.

Is editing the registry dangerous?

Random registry edits can cause problems, which is why the fear exists — but this one touches a single value in a single policy key, and both the value and the key are documented. Follow the path exactly, change nothing else, and export the WindowsStore key first if you want a one-click undo. Done that way, it is a routine change.

Does any of this cost money?

No. Every method in this guide — the pause, Group Policy, the registry value, metered connections, and manual updates — is built into Windows and free. On Windows 10, the consumer Extended Security Updates program is also free and now runs through October 12, 2027, so staying secure while you manage updates manually costs nothing either.

How long does this take, and do I need to restart?

The Store pause takes under a minute and needs no restart. The Group Policy method takes about two minutes plus a restart or a gpupdate /force. The registry method takes about five minutes plus one restart. You can stop at any point before the final step without leaving anything half-changed.

Can I stop just one app from updating instead of all of them?

Not directly — the Store has no per-app auto-update setting; the toggle and the policy are global. The practical workaround is to turn automatic updates off globally, then update selectively from the Store's Library, where every app has its own individual Update button. For a single troublesome app, uninstalling it from the capped machine is the bluntest reliable fix.

Does setting a metered connection stop Store updates completely?

It holds back background downloads, including Store app updates, while you are connected to that specific network — but it is per-network, not a system-wide policy. Connect to a different, unmetered network and updates can flow again. Use it as a data guard alongside the policy methods, not instead of them.

What happens if I sign out of my Microsoft account in the Store?

Less than you might fear. On current Store versions, most free apps can be downloaded without signing in at all, though some free apps and all paid or licensed content still require your account. Signing out does not uninstall anything you already have — it mainly limits access to purchases and your cross-device library.

Does running wsreset.exe delete my installed apps?

No. wsreset.exe clears the Microsoft Store's temporary cache to fix frozen downloads, error codes, and unresponsive settings. Your installed apps, games, purchases, and personal settings all stay exactly as they are. A blank window flashes for a few seconds, then the Store reopens fresh.

How do I update my apps manually once automatic updates are off?

Open the Microsoft Store, click Library in the left rail (labeled Downloads on some versions), and click Get updates. You can then click Update all, or update only the apps you choose using each one's individual button. A monthly pass on an unmetered connection keeps everything reasonably current.

Revision note. Originally published September 23, 2016. Rewritten August 17, 2026 for Windows 11 and Windows 10. The biggest correction: the Store's "Update apps automatically" switch no longer turns updates off permanently — since August 2025 it only pauses them for up to five weeks — so this guide now centers on the Group Policy and registry methods that actually hold. If you followed our older steps and felt like your settings kept undoing themselves, it was never your mistake, and we hope this version gives you back the control you were looking for.