Disable Win Update also deactivate the windows license

Question

Hi,
Via this link i found suggestions and instructions on how to disable and/or control windows update via group policy or the registry.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/iot-ent-configure-policy-settings?view=windows-11#windows-update-summary

I followed the steps under the headline "Windows Update Summery", meaning we disabled win update via the Group Policy Editor.

To provide some context, the reason we are comfortable to completely turn of windows update on our clients machines is that majority of them do not have them connected to the internet. This however seem to have created a secondary problem for us.

When we follow the fix above to turn of windows update this also deactivate the computers win10 license when the computer is not connected to the internet. If we connect the computer to the internet again windows is activated. At this point im unsure how long it takes before the "activate windows" message comes up in the lower right corner of the screen. But we are testing that as we speak.

As highlighted above, a lot our clients do not connect these computers to the internet at all. Can you please advise how to solve this issue? Its offcourse of big concern as this creates a huge problem and looks very unprofessional.

Thank you,
Joakim

Answer 1

Do you connect them to internet before giving them to the clients? If a device is activated and you turn of the updates that shouldn't give you a licenses issue.