How to get around forced app updates in the Microsoft Store

Why manual app updates can be useful

There are various reasons why it can make sense to disable automatic app updates. If you want to have more control over your installed apps and want to ensure compatibility with other programs, deactivating automatic updates prevents accidentally breaking those compatibilities.

In addition, Microsoft itself is constantly making changes to the availability of features in apps, whether by adding new ones that you may not like or by removing existing features that you depend on. Staying on an older app version can help in these situations, too.

How to get around forced app updates

For the time being, there’s a small workaround you can employ to ensure that automatic app updates aren’t activated. To do this, you need to adjust a group policy in Windows.

To do this, enter the command gpedit.msc in the Windows search bar, then navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Store. There you’ll see a policy titled “Turn off Automatic Download and Install of updates.” Double-click the policy, then change its option to “Disabled” and save.

Once you’ve done that, restart your PC to apply the group policy. Apparently, it was once possible to make this change via the Windows registry, but that no longer seems to be possible.