How to disable the Windows 11 Upgrade prompt

This week some clients reached out about why this Upgrade to Windows 11 is ready – and it’s free window was appearing on some of their workstations.

Around the same time, Microsoft announced on the Windows Experience Blog:

“Today, we’re excited to share that the upgrade offer to Windows 11 is beginning to enter its final phase of availability putting us ahead of our initial plan of mid-2022″

This affected only environments where Windows 10 Professional was in use – and despite having managed windows updates (and NOT approving a Windows 11 Upgrade) this prompt still occurs.

Here are 3 options you can use to stop this prompt and keep your devices on your supported Win10 platform.

1. Group Policy

Set the following policy:
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > Windows Updates for Business

Policy Name: Select the target Feature Update version

Policy Settings:

Which Windows product version would you like to receive feature updates for? = Windows 10
Target Version for Feature Updates = 21H2

2. Registry

This solution will apply the above policy settings directly as local policy.

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
ProductVersion = Windows 10 (REG_SZ)
TargetReleaseVersion = 1 (REG_DWORD)
TargetReleaseVersionInfo = 21H2 (REG_SZ)

3. Microsoft Endpoint Manager Update Rings

For MEM / Intune environments, there are Update Rings for Windows 10 and later policies available that include options for controlling the Windows 11 upgrade. Check your Windows Update Servicing configuration to ensure your Update Ring Settings include:

Upgrade Windows 10 devices to Latest Windows 11 release = No

If you have policies enabled under Feature Updates for Windows 10 and later, then take a look to ensure these are limited to Windows 10 releases.

Here’s an example of the Update Ring policy applied: