[Windows 10 Tip] Change Maximum Days Limit to Pause Windows Updates Installation

Recently we discussed about a weird problem found in some Windows 10 machines. Suddenly the days limit to pause Windows updates installation changed from 35 days to 7 days only:

Pause Updates Option Changed from 35 Days to 7 Days in Windows 10

You can use pause updates feature using Settings app -> Update & security -> Windows Update page and click on “Advanced Options” link given at the bottom in right-side pane. Alternatively, You can also directly launch the advanced options page of Windows Update settings using “ms-settings:windowsupdate-options” command in RUN dialog box as mentioned here.

It was strange to see that some machines were allowing users to pause updates for 35 days without any problem but some other machines were showing that updates can be paused up to 7 days only. All machines were up to date and having same build numbers.

After investigating the issue for two days, finally I was able to find out the culprit. Actually the maximum number of days to pause updates are defined by a DWORD present in Windows registry and this DWORD is labeled as “FlightSettingsMaxPauseDays“.

The Windows 10 machines which are showing 7 days limit to pause updates, contain this DWORD in registry with a value of 7 and the machines which are showing previous 35 days limit, don’t contain this DWORD. So basically this DWORD decides the maximum number of days to pause updates in Windows 10. It seems to me that Windows 10 automatically creates this DWORD in registry after diagnosing recent updates status on user’s machine.

If your Windows 10 device is restricting the days limit to pause updates to 7 days only, you can reset the days limit to 35 days by simply deleting this DWORD from registry.

The interesting thing is that you can change the value of this DWORD to any desired number and it’ll reflect the days limit to pause updates in Windows Update settings. So you can pause updates in Windows 10 up to any desired number of days.

Check out following steps to reset or change days limit to pause updates installation in Windows 10:

1. Press “WIN+R” key combination to launch RUN dialog box then type regedit and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

3. In right-side pane, look for following DWORD:

To Reset Days Limit to 35 Days:

If your Windows 10 machine is showing 7 days limit, delete the FlightSettingsMaxPauseDays DWORD from registry. Now check Windows Update advanced options page and it’ll start showing 35 days limit to pause updates.

To Customize Days Limit to Desired Number:

Double-click on FlightSettingsMaxPauseDays DWORD and change its value to any desired number. For example you can set its value to 100. While changing the value set the Base as Decimal and then enter the value. In following screenshot, we have set the value to 365:

If you don’t see this DWORD in registry, you’ll need to create it manually.

And when we checked Windows Update advanced options page, it started showing days limit to 365 days as shown in following screenshot:

Similarly we changed the value of DWORD to 99999999 using Hexadecimal base and it changed the days limit to pause updates in Windows Update advanced options page to 2576980377 days as shown in following screenshot:

It is unclear to me whether this tweak to change days limit will work forever or not as I don’t use pause updates feature in Windows 10.