How to Remove: 'Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready'

Dennis Faas's picture

Infopackets Reader 'Lorraine' writes:

" Dear Dennis,

Not too long ago I reserved my copy of Windows 10, but then I canceled it a few days later. I have followed your guide on how to cancel Windows 10 reservation, but now every two days or so I get an incredibly annoying pop-up window asking me to start the Windows 10 upgrade, or postpone for a later time (which is usually 2-3 days later). When I click on Windows Update I keep seeing a message stating 'Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready' - and I can't download any other updates. It's almost as if Microsoft is keeping my computer hostage! I clicked on the link to 'view installed updates' via Windows Update, and it does not show KB3035583 (which is the 'get windows 10 app') - strangely enough the white Microsoft logo which I used previously to reserve my copy of Windows 10 is not in my tray bar, either! If enter KB3035583 into the Windows Update search box, it states that it is not found. So, how do I get this thing off of my computer for good and stop the Windows 10 pop-ups? "

My response:

I've had quite a few people email me about the 'Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready' problem, and based on what I've read online, it is happening to a lot of folks. This problem seems to only happen if you reserved your copy of Windows 10 and then canceled it shortly after. It also seems as if Microsoft isn't taking 'no' for an answer!

How to Remove Windows 10 / "Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready" Message

Here's what you need to do if your Windows Update reports "Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready" and you don't want Windows 10 installed:

  1. First you will need to open an administrative command prompt as I have prepared a number of automated tasks in Step #2. To open an administrative command prompt, click Start and type in "cmd" (no quotes) and do NOT press Enter on the keyboard. Wait for CMD.EXE or "Command Prompt" to appear in the list; when it does, right click the icon and select "Run as Administrator". If successful, a black command prompt window will appear with the title: "Administrator: Command Prompt" or "Administrator: C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe". If you don't see "Administrator" in the title then please repeat this step. If it still doesn't work, please refer to this article.
     
  2. Next, use your mouse to highlight the commands below with your mouse. Once that is done, right click over the highlighted text and select Copy from the dialogue menu.

    reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v AUOptions /t REG_DWORD /d 3 /f
    wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664 /quiet /norestart
    wusa /uninstall /kb:2976978 /quiet /norestart
    wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583 /quiet /norestart

    Side note: the above commands will: (a) set automatic updates to download but not install; (b) remove the 'get windows 10' app from your computer; (c) remove an additional patch responsible for making your computer windows 10 upgrade-ready. Technically speaking, KB2952664 is for Windows 7 users and KB2976978 is for Windows 8 users; running all of the above commands will work fine on both systems because the resulting KB will or will not be present. Since quiet mode is selected you will not receive any error messages stating otherwise.
     
  3. Next, go to the administrative command prompt you opened in Step #1 and right click on the black area of the window. A dialogue menu should appear; select Paste. The commands you copied from Step #2 should now output onto the command line. IMPORTANT: you will need to press Enter on the keyboard inside the command prompt to ensure that the very last command is executed. IMPORTANT: if you receive an "Access is denied" error when executing the commands, you most likely didn't run the command prompt as an Administrator. In that case, start from Step #1 again.
     
  4. Click the Start button and type in "cleanmgr" (no quotes), then press Enter on the keyboard. The Disk Cleanup window should now appear. Select the hard drive from the pull down menu that contains Windows (it's usually the C: drive). The Disk Cleanup will take a while to scan the drive, so please be patient. When it finishes scanning, click the button at near bottom which says "Clean up system files". This will cause Disk Cleanup to start scanning your system again - this time it will scan for Windows 10 installation files.
     
  5. When the Disk Cleanup finishes scanning the system for the second time, you will now be able to select the Windows 10 installation files for deletion. In the Disk Cleanup window, scroll through the list, then place a checkmark on the option that says "Temporary Installation Files". Press the OK button and Disk Cleanup will remove the Temporary Installation Files; this will probably take a while to complete.
     
  6. When Disk Cleanup finishes, the window will automatically disappear. The next thing to do is reboot the computer (click Start -> Shutdown -> Restart). During shutdown, Windows will most likely state that it is configuring Windows Update (based on the changes you just made). This may take a while to complete.
     
  7. After the computer boots back up, go to Windows Update again. IMPORTANT: don't panic if you see the message 'Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready'. The next step is to click the link on the left of the Windows Update window which says "Check for updates". Most likely Windows Update will have 2 new updates for you to re-download, namely KB2952664 and KB3035583 if you're using Windows 7, and KB2976978 and KB3035583 for Windows 8. Look for these updates in the list, then right click each update (one at a time) and select "Hide Update" - this will prevent the updates from downloading onto your computer again.
     
  8. Next, go back to the main Windows Update main screen (if you don't know how to do that, close the Windows Update window and then open it up again). Windows Update will most likely still report that 'Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready' and there should be a button that says 'Install now' or a button asking you to Reboot to begin the installation. Click this button and it will force the computer to reboot again - but don't worry, Windows 10 won't install because you've deleted it. If you don't see the option to start / reboot in Windows Update, then simply reboot normally by clicking on Start -> Shutdown -> Reboot.
     
  9. After the computer reboots you can open Windows Update and check for updates again. The 'Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready' message should now be gone. If it is not then you can safely repeat the all of the steps above and it should hopefully remove the stubborn message from appearing in your Windows Update.

Please note that these are the steps I took when repairing Lorraine's computer. Your mileage may vary but the steps should be pretty much the same.

Additional Support: From Dennis

If all of this is over your head and/or you still cannot remove Windows 10 from your computer, you may contact me for remote desktop support and we'll set up a time to meet online.

Got a Computer Question or Problem? Ask Dennis!

I need more computer questions. If you have a computer question -- or even a computer problem that needs fixing -- please email me with your question so that I can write more articles like this one. I can't promise I'll respond to all the messages I receive (depending on the volume), but I'll do my best.

About the author: Dennis Faas is the owner and operator of Infopackets.com. With over 30 years of computing experience, Dennis' areas of expertise are a broad range and include PC hardware, Microsoft Windows, Linux, network administration, and virtualization. Dennis holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science (1999) and has authored 6 books on the topics of MS Windows and PC Security. If you like the advice you received on this page, please up-vote / Like this page and share it with friends. For technical support inquiries, Dennis can be reached via Live chat online this site using the Zopim Chat service (currently located at the bottom left of the screen); optionally, you can contact Dennis through the website contact form.

Rate this article: 
Average: 5 (12 votes)

Comments

clay_3833's picture

Dennis, if these steps are followed, would the user be able to get the free copy of Windows 10 later. While in my experience it is not quite ready for prime time now (too many bugs) there is a lot I like about it and will probably install in 6 months or so when it has settled down.

Dennis Faas's picture

You would have to unhide the two updates that were previously hidden. Everything else should work fine. Or, you can use the windows 10 media tool to download and install Windows 10 whenever you please, so long as you meet the requirements.

tnsfender_5314's picture

Hello Dennis, I followed steps in this article but ran into one snag that will not let it work completely on my system. When I run disk cleaner in admin I do not have the clean system files button at bottom. I can only see that button when I run disk cleaner as non admin. Unless that button is applied the fix does not work. I am running Win 7 SP1 Home Premium. Is there a work around for this? Google searches have not been helpful so far. Thanks

Dennis Faas's picture

Thank you for noting this - I have made amendments in the article.

tnsfender_5314's picture

Ran again but something is still amiss. I never saw the temporary install files selection in disk cleaner list, but I went ahead and ran it, rebooted and then when I go to windows update and click on check for updates, still get the message that windows cannot check for updates because of an install that needs to be finished or some such thing. This is starting to feel like "whack-a-mole"....

UPDATE-
I did another reboot and then went back to windows update and then it would let me check for updates. After checking for updates finished, looked at available updates and found KB3035583 under optional updates. I clicked on it and selected hide update. Then found KB2952664 under installed updates. I clicked on it and selected uninstall. Rebooted again. Went back to windows update and checked for updates again. KB2952664 came back as an important update. Clicked on it and selected hide. Upgrade to Windows 10 is under optional updates with a check already by it. Unchecked, but I see every time I go back to updates it will have a check automatically by it. So, until I am ready to install it, I must uncheck it before installing any updates.
Wow! this is almost as hard as removing malware. Doing things like this just reinforces peoples mistrust of MS and viewing it as the "Evil Empire". Jeez!

sigrossman's picture

Relate to tnsfender's comment I could not successfully follow these instruction to "hide" the updates. I only had an option to delete them not hide and then, of course, when I reinstalled they came back again. I tried three times and each time it failed. I decided to look at my update setting in control panel and it was set to " install updates automatically (recommended)". I reset it to "download updates but let me choose whether to install them". That worked and let me hide the updates. Since the
install updates automatically" seems to be the default setting If there is any way you can edit what you wrote to alert people to this potential glitch, please do.

Dennis Faas's picture

The commands mentioned in Step #2 - specifically, the line that says:

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v AUOptions /t REG_DWORD /d 3 /f

... should have changed the Automatic Updates to "let me choose". If it does not then you will have to set it manually.

Asok Asus's picture

How to Fix Infinite Windows 10 Reinstalls After Rollback From a W7/W8 W10 "Upgrade"

I just had a client who unwittingly allowed W10 to "upgrade" her W7 system. She asked me to roll W10 back to W7 because W10 was so fundamentally broken and slow it was unusable. Here's my story of that rollback.

First, the W10 All Settings menu was broken right from the get go after the W10 "upgrade", so until I fixed that, it was impossible to access Update and Security to perform the rollback.

Looking at Event Viewer, every time I tried to open All Settings, SynTPEnh.exe, one of the Synaptics touchpad driver helper programs, crashed.

Figuring that was causing the problem, I removed the Synaptics touchpad item from add/remove. For good measure, while I was at it, I removed Norton, figuring that might be problematic, as well as a few other applications like icloud, quicktime, and itunes, figuring they would be restored during the rollback anyway. Turns out that was a HUGE mistake though the rollback would have been impossible without removing at least the Synaptics software.

At any rate, after rebooting after removing all of this stuff, All Settings started functioning for the first time, and I could perform the rollback with Update and Security.

And then the nightmare began.

First, rolling back did not undo the original W10 reservation, so no matter what I did, I could not keep W10 from redownloading and reattempting to reinstall. Searching the web, I found no solution, but did find MANY people nearly in tears with the same problem. Looking at how all this works, it looks to me like probably everyone who rolled back from W10 is going to find that their reservation does not get cancelled and that W10 is going to attempt to reinstall forever.

But I finally came up with a solution that I think should work to solve this problem for everyone.

1. Make a Restore Point for insurance.

2. From the Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories, start a cmd window in Administrative mode by right clicking Command Prompt to expose the context sensitive drop down menu and left click on "Run as Administrator". Leave the cmd window open for subsequent commands, and after each reboot, immediately reopen cmd in Administrator mode like this for subsequent commands.

3. Set automatic updates to Never check for updates: cut & paste into the open cmd window:

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v AUOptions /t REG_DWORD /d 00000001 /f

4. Disable and stop the Windows Update service (wuauserv): cut & paste into the open cmd window:

sc config wuauserv start= disabled

(note that the space after "=" is critical)

When that's done, cut and paste into the open cmd window:

net stop wuauserv

5. Now remove KB3035583: cut & paste into the open cmd window::

wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583 /norestart

Note, at this time, if you wish to go ahead and remove the recent plethora of W10 spyware that Microsoft has installed on your W7/W8 systems, you can repeat the above command as follows:

wusa /uninstall /kb:3022345 /norestart

wusa /uninstall /kb:3068708 /norestart

wusa /uninstall /kb:3075249 /norestart

wusa /uninstall /kb:3080149 /norestart

wusa /uninstall /kb:2990214 /norestart

wusa /uninstall /kb:3012973 /norestart

wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664 /norestart

wusa /uninstall /kb:2976978 /norestart

(Note that not all of these will be on all systems.)

6. Restart the system. Note that sometimes after removing the above updates, the restart can take a LONG time, sometimes even hours; be patient, it should eventually complete.

7. Now delete C:\$WINDOWS.~BT via cleanmgr ("cleanmgr" cut and pasted into the cmd window), using its Clean Up System Files option which appears after cleanmgr makes its initial (lengthy) scan. After the second (lengthy) scan from using the Clean Up System Files option, you'll see one or two of the categories showing +GB sizes, though you can pretty much safely check all the categories for deletion if you wish (though I tend to leave the setup logs and error categories alone so you can see these in Event Viewer). Good instructions for doing this can be found at http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/what-is-the-windows-bt-folder-on-my-hard-drive/

8. Delete the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution folder, which btw can't be deleted without first doing Step 4. Also, don't worry: when you eventually restart Updates, SoftwareDistribution will be recreated.

Cut & paste into the cmd window:

rmdir /s /q "%SystemRoot%\SoftwareDistribution"

9. Fire up regedit from the cmd window, and search for and remove all keys named GWX (and gwx). An easy way to do this is to use the match whole string option of regedit's search box. Also the search is case insensitive so all GWX/gwx will be found in one search no matter which way you type it. There will be 4-6 instances of this key in the registry.

10. Still in regedit, clear out all keys and values from HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate EXCEPT what's shown below. If the optional ElevateNonAdmins or NoAUAsDefaultShutdownOption don't exist, ignore. If DisableOSUpgrade doesn't exist (and it probably won't) create it as a DWORD with value 1.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
"ElevateNonAdmins"=dword:00000001
"DisableOSUpgrade"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"NoAUAsDefaultShutdownOption"=dword:00000001

11. Still in regedit, clear out all keys and values from HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade except what's shown below. If DWORD values AllowOSUpgrade or ReservationsAllowed don't exist or have values of "1", create them and/or set to "0". Set DWORD OSUpgradeState to "1". Don't worry about OSUpgradeStateTimeStamp.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade]
"AllowOSUpgrade"=dword:00000000
"ReservationsAllowed"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade\State]
"OSUpgradeState"=dword:00000001
"OSUpgradeStateTimeStamp"="2015-09-10 05:15:58"

12. Reboot

13. Set automatic updates to: Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them: cut & paste into the open cmd window:

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v AUOptions /t REG_DWORD /d 00000002 /f

14. Re-enable and start the Windows Update service (wuauserv): cut & paste into the open cmd window:

sc config wuauserv start= auto

(note that the space after "=" is critical)

When that's done, cut and paste into the open cmd window:

net start wuauserv

15. Now check for updates via Windows Update in Control Panel, and you should no longer see Windows 10 try to download and install, but instead normal W7/W8 updates should be working again. Be sure to uncheck KB3035583 (and any of the others you remove in Step 5), and then right click on them and select Hide, so they will never come back.

However, for me, the REAL nightmare began!

As it turns out, when you roll back from W10, the old W7/W8 registry is restored but NOT any modified and/or deleted Program files. Thus, there's a complete mismatch between the restored W7/W8 registry and any programs altered or deleted when in W10.

In my case, after the rollback to W7, icloud, Norton 360, Quicktime, iturns, Citrix and others had registry entries as if installed, but all of the installation files were missing.

Naturally, none of these would reinstall because of the (corrupted) apparent pre-existing installation, and of course they couldn't be uninstalled since the uninstaller files were missing.

So I used several tools such as zuninstaller and Windows Cleanup Utility to remove the Add/Remove objects, and manually removed other entries from HKLM/SOFTWARE. ccleaner might have been very helpful here, but I don't really trust it.

But worse, thousands of the "restored" registry entries had been corrupted in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components by having no ownership! Thus they could not be overwritten when reinstalling the programs.

I spent hours using powerful features in Registrar Registry Manager (RRM) Home Edition to find these keys and remove them in bulk. RRM was particularly vital because it could remove the no-owner keys, whereas regedit could not. Basically, once I found a bad key in Components, I did a search for all instances of that key in Components and then did a bulk delete with RRM.

Eventually, I was able to reinstall the programs I had uninstalled in W10.

Bottom line, Windows 10 itself is an absolute and total travesty, and rolling it back is likely to be a complete nightmare. Windows 10 is BY FAR the worst OS ever made by Microsoft, much worse than even W8.x, because W8.x can be made to behave pretty decently with Classic Shell and a few other tweaks, and does not have half the programs moved into the dumbed-down app mode and half the controls split beteen Control Panel and half in the dumbed-down app mode All Settings.

skaw26's picture

Thanks a lot :-)
Your tips and trix made the trick.
My stubborn "half way" Win 10 upgrade is gone.

gbruce40_3626's picture

I followed your advice to the letter and it worked on my laptop......for a month.

Then last Tuesday, Oct 13 2015, I got a notification of nine critical updates and one optional update. I looked at them and they were all security updates for Windows 7, so I allowed them. When I restarted the computer the nag screen asking me to install Windows 10 was back and everything was ready and the Windows 10 icon was back in my task-bar.

My conclusion is that you cannot stop Microsoft by any method other than to refrain from touching that damned windows 10 icon in the task-bar as Microsoft are using dishonest methods to re-download the windows 10 files under the guise they are doing you a favor, but are really hiding the real purpose of the downloads as security updates for Windows 7. They are guilty of implanting the equivalent of a virus or a Trojan and are using malware methods to do so.

The annoying thing is that I really like Windows 10, I think it is a big improvement over previous versions of Windows. I have installed it on my desktop and love it (with a few very small quibbles that may be fixed later) but I do not want to loose the Microsoft Money program on my laptop. It has all my financial transactions back to 2001 and continues to work on Windows 7. My laptop is a top end product and would run Windows 10 without problem, but Windows 7 is better for my laptop as it will run Microsoft Money. Running Microsoft Money in compatibility mode does not work.

fossilmail_6996's picture

First of all thank you so much for this!
It took a long time, especially from someone who is really bad at IT stuff, but I have now sucessfully uninstalled the threatning Windows 10 update from my comp.

THANK YOU!

On the other hand when I go to Windows update and try to check the Important Updates (only when I want) I cannot do this. The Install Updates Automatically is permanently selected and does not allow for any changes.

Above there is a message saying "some settings are managed by your system administrator", but i am the system administrator.

What to do????

hobbabobbabooh_7188's picture

Followed the instructions as given in the article, but could not perform Step 7 an onward, since Windows Update won't let me 'Check for updates' as long as 'Your upgrade to Windows 10 is ready' is queuing for a reboot. Instead, I get error message:
"Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because you must first restart the computer so that a previous installation can be completed"

I thought that this article would give a workaround for this problem, but apparently not. Does anyone know what to do?

Kindly
Rasmus