Unlike the previous versions of Windows, Microsoft made it a lot harder to manage the updates in all Windows 10 systems. In fact, there are no built-in options to easily hide the unwanted updates. That being said, I’ve already covered how you can manage and disable automatic updates in Windows 10. One way is to use the official troubleshooting app to temporarily hide the updates you don’t want to install.
Alternatively, you can also use Windows PowerShell to hide the unwanted Windows updates. Let me show you how.
Hide Updates Using PowerShell in Windows 10
Before you can use Windows PowerShell to hide the updates, you first need to install the Windows Update PowerShell Module. To do that, head over to the official site and download it.
Once you’ve downloaded the module, open the downloaded zip file, and copy the “PSWindowsUpdate” folder to the following location:
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules
Once you’ve installed the PowerShell module, search for PowerShell in the Start menu, right-click on it and select the option “Run as Administrator.”
By default, your user account will have restricted access, and you won’t be able to run any external scripts in PowerShell. To run external scripts, you need to set the execution policy to Unrestricted. To do that, enter the below command and press the Enter button.
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
As soon as you execute the command, you will be asked for the confirmation. Simply press the A key and then the Enter button on your keyboard. From this point onward, your user account will have unrestricted access.
If you want to, you can check the current execution policy of your user account using the below command. As you can see, I have unrestricted access.
Get-ExecutionPolicy
After changing the execution policy, you are free to use the PowerShell however you want. To start, use the below command to get a list of all the available Windows updates.
Get-WUList
Once you have the list of all the available updates, find the update you want to hide and note the title of the update. Enter the following command, and press the Enter button to hide the update. Don’t forget to replace Chicony* with the actual title.
Hide-WUUpdate -Title "Chicony*"
We can use the wildcard (*) before and after the title as long as part of the title is correct and unique. If you don’t want to bother with the wildcards, just enter the full update title.
Now PowerShell wants you to confirm your action. Simply press the A key on your keyboard and press the Enter button.
This action will hide the target Windows Update. You can confirm that by looking at the letter H under “Status.” In case you are wondering, the letter H stands for Hidden.
Alternatively, you can also hide a Windows update using its KB Article ID. To hide a Windows update using its KB Article ID, simply use the command below. Don’t forget to replace the KB Article ID in the below command with the ID of the update you want to hide.
Hide-WUUpdate -KBArticleID KB2267602
Again, PowerShell will ask you for the confirmation. Enter the letter “A” and press the Enter button.
You’ve successfully hidden the update.
In the future, if you ever want to unhide the update, get the list of all the available updates using Get-WUList and copy the KB Article ID of the update you want to unhide. Use the below command while replacing the KB Article ID with your own and press the Enter button.
Hide-WUUpdate -KBArticleID KB2267602 -hidestatus:$false
The above action will again ask you for the confirmation; simply confirm the action, and you will have your update back.
To wrap it up, change your execution policy back to Restricted using the below command. Having your user account run the scripts with unrestricted access is not good.
Set-ExecutionPolicy RestrictedDo comment below sharing your thoughts and experiences about using PowerShell to hide updates in Windows 10.