How to Uninstall a Windows Update in Windows 11 and 10

An update landed, and now the printer is gone, or the machine will not sleep, or something that worked on Tuesday does not on Wednesday. Before you open Settings and start uninstalling, run these steps in this order — the first one is the one everybody skips:

Pause updates FIRST. Then uninstall. Open Settings → Windows Update, click Pause updates, then go to Update history → Uninstall updates and remove the one you want gone.

Do it the other way round and you will watch Windows reinstall the exact update you just removed, sometimes within the hour. It is not being stubborn. Nothing told it not to — it simply sees a machine missing a patch and offers it again at the next check.

And a second thing that catches people, including a lot of guides: wusa /uninstall /kb:… — the command in almost every tutorial on this subject — no longer removes most monthly updates. Microsoft now ships the servicing stack and the cumulative update as one combined package, and wusa cannot take it apart. It usually reports the update is not installed, on a machine where it plainly is.

The supported route is DISM, and it is further down this page. So is what to do when Windows will not start at all.

Jake Removed the Same Update Four Times

A customer's laptop stopped seeing her label printer after an update. Jake found the update, uninstalled it, tested the printer, watched it come back to life, and handed the machine over pleased with himself.

She was back the next morning. Printer gone again.

He removed it a second time and asked her to leave the laptop overnight so he could be sure. By the time he opened it in the morning, the update had reinstalled itself and the printer was gone for the third time. Jake, who is not a man who enjoys being outwitted by a laptop, did it a fourth time and sat watching Windows Update like a man guarding a fence.

He called Ethan somewhere around the fourth attempt.

Ethan asked one question: "Did you pause updates before you uninstalled, or after?"

Neither. That option had never crossed Jake's mind, because uninstalling felt like a decision the computer ought to respect. Ethan's reply is the sentence worth taking from this page: "You keep telling it the answer to a question it never asked. Windows Update isn't checking whether you removed that patch on purpose. It's checking whether the machine has it. Pause first and the question stops being asked at all."

Four removals, one checkbox. The whole job takes five minutes when you do the steps in the right order, and most of an afternoon when you do not.

Pause Before You Uninstall, Not After

Windows Update is not a record of your decisions. It is a comparison. It looks at what your machine has against what your machine is entitled to, and offers the difference. Uninstalling an update changes the first half of that comparison and nothing else, so the next check produces the same offer it produced last month.

Pausing is what changes the behavior. While updates are paused Windows stops checking, so the gap you just created is not noticed.

Open Settings, choose Windows Update, and use Pause updates at the top. Windows 11 offers one to five weeks from a dropdown. Windows 10 offers up to thirty-five days. Pick the longest option available — you can always resume early, and you cannot extend past the cap once it starts counting.

The cap is deliberate and it is worth respecting rather than fighting. When the pause expires, Windows installs everything it skipped, in one go, usually at a moment you did not choose. So treat the pause as a deadline rather than a solution: it buys you the weeks until Microsoft ships a corrected update, which for a widely reported fault is normally the following month. Our page on stopping automatic Windows updates covers the longer-term options honestly, including why most of the permanent ones are a worse idea than they look.

Working Out Which Update Did It

Removing the wrong update costs you the security fix and leaves the fault in place, so spend the two minutes.

1. Open Settings, then Windows Update, then Update history.
2. Work out the day the problem started. Not the day you noticed — the last day you know it worked.
3. Find the updates installed on or just before that day. Note the KB number, which looks like KB5121003.
4. If several landed together, start with the one described as a cumulative update for your version of Windows. Definition updates for Defender arrive constantly and are almost never the cause.
5. Search that KB number and your symptom before removing anything. If it is a widespread fault, other people are already describing it, and Microsoft may have published a known issue with a workaround that costs you nothing.

That last step earns its place. A known issue with an official workaround is a much better outcome than removing a security update, and Microsoft's own update history pages list them per KB. Our coverage of the August 2026 update is an example of the format — what changed, what is known to break, and whether a fix is expected.

The Easy Route, and Why the List Looks Empty

With updates paused, go to Settings → Windows Update → Update history and scroll to Uninstall updates. Select the KB number and choose Uninstall. Restart when asked. On many machines this is the whole job.

The complaint people arrive with is that the list is short, or empty, or missing the update they can plainly see in their history. That is not a bug, and it is worth understanding because it tells you which method you need next.

That screen only shows updates Windows considers individually removable. Three common things are absent from it. Combined cumulative packages, which are the monthly ones most people want gone. Driver updates delivered through Windows Update, which are removed through Device Manager by choosing the device, Properties, Driver, then Roll Back Driver. And anything whose removal would leave the servicing stack in a state Windows cannot support.

So an empty list means the easy route is closed, not that you imagined the update. Take the DISM route below.

Why the Command From Every Other Guide Fails

Search this topic and you will be told to run wusa /uninstall /kb:5121003. It is in hundreds of tutorials. On a current machine it usually answers that the update is not installed, which reads like the tool is broken or you typed the number wrong.

Neither. Monthly updates now ship as a combined package: a servicing stack update bundled with the cumulative update. wusa was built for the era of separate, individually removable patches and cannot split that bundle, so it declines the whole thing. Microsoft has moved away from it for this purpose.

Method	Use it when	Reality check
Settings	The update appears in Uninstall updates	Easiest. Try it first, but the list is often shorter than you expect.
wusa	Older standalone patches only	Fails on modern combined packages. Not the tool for a monthly update.
DISM	The update is not in the list	The supported route. Removes the cumulative half; the servicing stack half stays.
Recovery environment	Windows will not start	Removes the latest quality or feature update. No KB number needed.
System Restore	You are not certain the update is to blame	Undoes unrelated changes too. Files are safe either way.
Go back	A feature update, within ten days	For version upgrades, not monthly patches. Expires.

Removing a Cumulative Update With DISM

This is the route that works when the Settings list does not have your update. It looks intimidating and is mostly copying and pasting one long string.

1. Press the Windows key, type cmd, and choose Run as administrator.
2. List what is installed:

   dism /online /get-packages /format:table

3. Read the table. You want an entry beginning Package_for_RollupFix whose Install Time matches the day your trouble started. That is the cumulative update.
4. Copy the entire package identity, which is long and ends in a version number. Select it in the console and press Enter to copy.
5. Remove it, pasting your package name in place of the example:

   dism /online /remove-package /packagename:Package_for_RollupFix~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~26100.0.0.0

6. Let it finish and restart when prompted. It can sit at a percentage for several minutes, which is normal.

Two things that save trouble. The package name must be exact, including the tildes, and typing it by hand is how people end up chasing errors that are really typing mistakes. And if DISM reports the package cannot be removed, you have almost certainly selected the servicing stack rather than the cumulative update — look for the RollupFix entry specifically.

If DISM itself fails rather than refusing, that is a different problem: the component store may be damaged, and repairing corrupted Windows files with SFC and DISM is where to go before trying again.

When Windows Will Not Start At All

An update that stops the machine booting is the frightening version of this problem, and it is also the one with the most direct fix. Windows has a dedicated button for exactly this, and you do not need to know any KB numbers to use it.

1. Get into the recovery environment. If Windows fails to start three times in a row it goes there on its own. To force it, hold Shift while clicking Restart, or interrupt the boot with the power button twice and let the third attempt fail through.
2. Choose Troubleshoot, then Advanced options, then Uninstall Updates.
3. Pick Uninstall latest quality update for a monthly patch, or Uninstall latest feature update if the trouble began after a version upgrade.
4. Let it work and restart. Once you are back in Windows, pause updates immediately, before the machine has a chance to reinstall what you just removed.

Step 4 is the one people forget in the relief of having a working computer again, and it is how a boot failure repeats itself two days later.

Going Back After a Version Upgrade

A feature update is a different animal from a monthly patch. Moving from one Windows version to the next replaces the operating system rather than patching it, and it has its own reversal route with its own deadline.

Go to Settings, System, Recovery, and look for Go back. It reverses the version upgrade and keeps your files. The catch is the clock: you have ten days by default, after which Windows deletes the previous installation to reclaim the considerable disk space it occupies, and the button becomes unavailable.

Ten days is short, and it is the reason to test the things you care about in the first week after a version upgrade rather than discovering a problem in week three. If you know in advance that you want longer, the window can be extended with DISM before it expires. There is no way to extend it afterwards, and no supported way to bring the deleted files back.

After that window closes, going back means a clean install of the older version, which is a different afternoon entirely. At that point, staying put and waiting for a fix is usually the better call.

The Updates You Cannot Remove

Some of what Windows installs is genuinely permanent, and no tool or registry edit changes that. Knowing which is which stops you spending an evening on something that was never going to work.

Type	Removable?	Notes
Cumulative update (LCU)	Yes	The monthly fixes. DISM removes it when Settings will not.
Servicing stack update (SSU)	No	Permanent by design. It upgrades the machinery that installs updates.
Defender definitions	Not usefully	Arrive several times a day. Almost never the cause of anything.
Driver update	Yes, elsewhere	Device Manager → the device → Properties → Driver → Roll Back Driver.
Feature update	For ten days	Settings → System → Recovery → Go back. Then it is gone.

The servicing stack row is the one worth internalizing. Since SSUs began shipping combined with cumulative updates, removing the monthly update leaves the servicing stack upgrade behind permanently. That is intentional — a machine that could roll back its own update machinery could end up unable to update at all — but it means "uninstalling the update" never quite returns you to where you were. In practice this affects almost nobody, and it is worth knowing before somebody tells you your removal did not work properly.

What This Page Said in 2016

The original version of this post went up in December 2016 and gave eight steps: Settings, Update & Security, Update History, Uninstall Updates, pick your update, click Uninstall. Those steps were right, and a version of them is still right — they are the easy route above.

What has changed underneath them is everything about how updates are packaged. In 2016 individual patches installed and uninstalled individually, the Settings list was long, and wusa worked as advertised. Since then Microsoft moved to cumulative updates, then to combining the servicing stack with them, and each of those changes quietly removed something the old instructions relied on. The buttons are in almost the same place. What sits behind them is not the same product.

The 2016 version also never mentioned pausing, and that is the omission that mattered most. A reader who followed it exactly would have removed the update successfully and then watched it come back, with nothing on the page to explain why. Jake's four attempts are that gap, lived out.

Your Questions, Answered Straight

How do I uninstall a Windows update?

Pause updates first, or Windows will reinstall it. Then open Settings, go to Windows Update, choose Update history, and click Uninstall updates. Pick the update by its KB number and choose Uninstall. If the update you want is not listed there, it is a cumulative update and needs the DISM method instead.

Why does Windows reinstall the update I just removed?

Because nothing told it not to. Windows Update sees a machine missing a patch it is entitled to and offers it again at the next check, which can be within hours. Uninstalling without pausing first is the single most common wasted afternoon on this topic. Pause updates before you uninstall, not after.

Why doesn't wusa /uninstall work any more?

Because modern monthly updates ship as a combined package containing both a servicing stack update and a cumulative update, and wusa cannot take that apart. Microsoft moved away from wusa for this purpose. The command often reports that the update is not installed even when it plainly is. DISM is the supported route now.

How do I remove a cumulative update with DISM?

Open Command Prompt as administrator and run dism /online /get-packages /format:table to list installed packages. Find the Package_for_RollupFix entry whose install date matches the update you want gone, copy its full package identity, then run dism /online /remove-package /packagename:THE_PACKAGE_NAME. Restart when it asks.

What is the difference between an SSU and an LCU?

The LCU is the latest cumulative update, which carries the month's fixes and can be removed. The SSU is the servicing stack update, which upgrades the machinery that installs updates. Since they began shipping combined, the SSU part is permanent. You can remove the LCU half and the SSU half stays, by design, and there is no supported way to reverse it.

How do I find out which update broke my computer?

Open Settings, Windows Update, Update history, and compare install dates against the day the trouble started. The most recent entry on or just before that day is your suspect. Note its KB number. If several landed the same day, start with the one described as a cumulative update for your version of Windows.

How long do I have to go back after a feature update?

Ten days by default, after which Windows deletes the old installation files to reclaim space and the Go back button becomes unavailable. This applies to version upgrades such as moving to 24H2, not to monthly patches. The window can be extended with DISM before it expires, but not after.

Can I uninstall an update if Windows will not start?

Yes. Boot to the recovery environment, then choose Troubleshoot, Advanced options, and Uninstall Updates. It offers to remove either the latest quality update or the latest feature update. If Windows fails to start three times in a row it drops into recovery on its own, and you can force it by holding Shift while clicking Restart.

Should I use System Restore instead of uninstalling the update?

It is a reasonable alternative when you are not sure the update is to blame, because it rolls back drivers and program installations at the same time. It is worse when you are sure, because it undoes unrelated changes too. Your documents are untouched either way. Use System Restore when the cause is unclear, and uninstall the update when it is not.

Will uninstalling an update delete my files?

No. Removing an update changes system files only, and your documents, photos and installed programs are left alone. The realistic risk is different: you are removing security fixes, so the machine is more exposed for as long as the update is off. Treat it as a temporary state with an end date rather than a permanent fix.

How long should I keep the update paused?

Long enough for Microsoft to publish a fix, which is usually the following month's update. Pausing is capped at five weeks on Windows 11 and thirty-five days on Windows 10, and the cap is deliberate. When the pause runs out Windows installs everything it skipped, so plan to check the Microsoft update history page before that happens rather than being surprised by it.

Why is Uninstall updates empty or missing my update?

That list only shows updates Windows considers individually removable. Combined cumulative packages frequently do not appear, and neither do driver updates delivered through Windows Update, which are removed through Device Manager instead. An empty list does not mean nothing is installed, it means nothing there can be removed the easy way.

Can I block one specific update from returning?

Not cleanly on Home. Pausing stops everything for a limited time rather than blocking one item. Windows 11 Pro can defer quality updates through Group Policy, and driver updates specifically can be stopped from reinstalling through the device installation settings. For a single bad patch on Home, pause, wait for the replacement, then update normally.

Is it safe to remove a Windows update at all?

It is safe to the machine and it is a supported action. What it is not is free: you are giving back security fixes, sometimes for flaws already being exploited. Removing a patch that broke printing for a fortnight is a sensible trade. Removing updates as a habit, because a guide suggested it makes Windows faster, is not.

What if removing the update did not fix the problem?

Then the update was not the cause, and the honest move is to put it back. Resume updates and let it reinstall, because you now have an unpatched machine and the same fault. Look at drivers installed around the same date, at anything your antivirus changed, and at a System Restore point from before the trouble started.

Does uninstalling an update affect Windows activation?

No. Activation is tied to your hardware and your license entitlement, not to which monthly patches are installed. Removing a cumulative update does not deactivate Windows and does not prompt you to re-enter a key. If activation problems appear at the same time, they are coincidental and worth investigating separately.

Worth Reading Next

Revision note. Originally published December 25, 2016, when updates installed one at a time and removing one was eight clicks. Rewritten August 22, 2026 for Windows 11 and Windows 10. What changed: pausing now comes before uninstalling, because the 2016 version never mentioned it and that omission is why the update kept coming back; there is a new section on why wusa no longer removes monthly updates and what to use instead; the DISM route, the recovery-environment route and the ten-day feature-update window are all new; and there is an honest table of what genuinely cannot be removed. If your update is not behaving like anything described here, please write in with the KB number and what you saw — that is how this page has stayed useful for ten years. And if you are reading this with a machine that broke overnight through no fault of your own: it is fixable, your files are fine, and you have not done anything wrong.