Prevent Windows 7 from installing a "critical" updates that crashes the system

Question

I am running Windows 7 home premium. Up until yesterday, everything was going just beautifully, until I received a "critical update". As soon as the critical update was installed, the system became extremely unstable and froze up every few minutes requiring me to restart the system several times, with the same results.

I used system restore to roll back the *** update, and everything went back to normal... except that I keep getting a message telling me to restart the computer so that it can install this "critical update". There is no "don't install that crap on my machine" option. Disabling the updates doesn't change anything, turning off the windows update service doesn't change anything either, and being on Home premium, I have no access to the group policies.

Any ideas of what can be done to prevent Windows from installing this update the next time I reboot?

Answer 1

If you go to Windows Update in the Control Panel and view the list of available updates, you can "hide" selected updates by right-clicking on them.

Once an update has been hidden it will not be installed, nor will it appear on the list of available updates until you un-hide it (manually!) in the future.

You might want to see this link for full instructions.

Answer 2

I just realized that my problem was that Windows already considered the update to be installed and so there is no option to prevent the update from being installed (too late for that).

On the other end, I was able to uninstall it and the changes will take effect next time I restart.

After the computer restarted, the update was listed as "failed" and my computer is still working properly.

Answer 3

I have been looking for this as well and so ill post the answer here that helped me from http://geekmontage.com/how-to-uninstall-windows-7-activation-update-kb971033/

For those of you who HAVE installed it and want to uninstall it

1. Go to Windows Update
2. Hit Installed Updates (link at the bottom left corner). If that link isn’t there, hit “view update history” and hit the “installed updates” link at the top.
3. Scroll down to the section titled “Microsoft Windows” and look for update KB971033.
4. Right click it and hit “uninstall”. Hit okay.
5. Reboot
6. Now check for updates again and follow the method to hide it from installing ever again!

To Hide the Windows Update/Disable it From Ever Installing KB971033 or SP1:

1. Go to Windows Update
2. Click to View Your Critical Updates
3. Right Click the one Labeled “Update for Windows 7” with update ID “KB971033” or SP1
4. Click “hide update.”

A picture description of how to do the hide step is here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/24376-windows-update-hide-restore-hidden-updates.html

Answer 4

Windows update (WU) can be turned off [control panel>All control panel items>windows update>change settings] but windows 7 will still continue installing critical updates. These are for microsoft security essentials (MSE). To check for these updates [control panel>All control panel items>windows update>view history]. Only way to control this (apparently) is to uninstall MSE. I have not done this yet and am so fed up with my PC going awry with critical updates and then having to "system restore", I shall switch to MAC.