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Wanna go all Gandalf – YOU SHALL NOT PASS – on Windows 10?

You can stop the auto-installs, save your LAN, stay out of court and get home in time for dinner

From 29 July, as we've reported, Windows 10 downloads will start to become available.

But of course you don't want that: what sysadmin in their right mind wants to pollute their carefully-tended standard operating environments? Or have users flood the network with OS updates? With the first-day release of an operating system? From Microsoft, which doesn't exactly have a rep for sterling security?

Breathe easy, readers, help is at hand.

Microsoft gets that letting Windows 10 in on 29 July may not be what every business wants, or can tolerate. It's therefore emitted advice on how to stop machines auto-installing its latest OS. Long story short, you need to kneecap a process called GWX.exe (Get Windows X, geddit?), which fetches Windows 10.

One way to get the job done is to see if your Windows machines installed update KB3035583, which emerged in April. That update installed GWX.exe. Remove the update, and GWX.exe should go with it.

Microsoft explains other ways to set the sledgehammer swinging in the link above.

Others are having a go, too, and offering some automatio. VMware, for example, has created a “Blocker for 'Get Windows 10' application” compliance template for its vRealize Configuration Manager. Once you apply the template, vRealize and Windows will together do the YOU SHALL NOT PASS thang to Windows 10.

Windows 7 and 8.x handle this stuff a little differently, but Microsoft's instructions should see you right. ®

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