Microsoft is finally handing Windows 11 users something they’ve wanted for years: the ability to delay updates on their own terms, indefinitely. The company announced this week that users can now pause Windows updates and keep resetting that pause as many times as they want — in 35-day windows, back to back, with no hard limit. Previously, 35 days was the ceiling, full stop.
Once it expired, the update ran whether you liked it or not.
Shutting down your PC won’t trigger an update anymore
Microsoft’s Aria Hanson, who authored the official blog post, mentioned personally reading over 7,621 user feedback submissions in recent months. Two complaints kept surfacing: updates interrupting people at the worst possible time, and not having enough say in when they happen. New device setup gets a small upgrade too. Out-of-the-box, users can now skip updates entirely and head straight to the desktop—something that wasn’t officially possible before.
The new pause feature addresses both. Users can now pick a specific calendar date to pause until—handy for planning around a conference, exam week, or a particularly hectic stretch of deadlines.