I haven't run windows since 2019. However I need to boot my old drive to grab some data. I really need to make sure this system doesn't update any windows components, but I'll need it to have internet access for a portion of the time.
On a different system, I used to have two reg keys that I would run to disable or enable updates when I found that disabling the services only worked until the watchdog would re enable them. Those resulted in updates saying something was wrong, which is perfect by me.
Now that web searches for stuff like this are all AI-gen'd SEO BS, can anyone tell me or point me to a reliable resource for truly disabling updates on Win 10?
PS - Bonus points if Anyone can link me to the page I used a few years back that had all sorts of privacy enhancing and telemetry disabling option on the left side and would create a reg file for applying those changes on the right. It might have been a purple theme, I forget.
Edit: it may also have been a "services" command that fully disabled services from CLI where the GUI says access denied. I forget.
Edit 2: I got the updates services disabled via registry. Thanks to those who refreshed my old Windows admin memory. I dumped Windows on my personal systems years ago, and haven't had to think about this for a while. It's a shame when the operating system changes to this model of SaaS where they call all the shots. I want security updates, but not bleeding edge drivers, candy crush, "feature enhancements", random unexpected reboots, etc. I miss when the update feature didn't assume nobody in the world could handle manual updates. You know, like sudo apt-get update.
Would plugging a drive with an OS on it into a running computer just show a list of files like normal?
Yes, unless it is encrypted, in which case you need a way to decode that. You can even boot an OS from a USB thumb drive to recover files from a hard drive.