Take control of Windows updating and upgrading with InControl

Martin Brinkmann
Feb 16, 2022
Windows software
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53

InControl is a new free application for the Microsoft operating systems Windows 10 and Windows 11 that gives users control over updating and upgrading.

incontrol windows updates upgrades

InControl is developed by Gibson Research and the successor of the free application Never10. Never10 was designed to prevent upgrades to Windows 10 from earlier versions of Windows.

InControl brings updating and upgrading controls to Microsoft's Windows 10 and 11 operating systems. Users who want to stay on a specific version of Windows 10 or Windows 11 can do so using the app. While there are other means of achieving this, they do require making changes to the Windows Registry or using the Group Policy editor. With InControl, all of that comes at the press of the mouse button.

The process is straightforward. Use a web browser to open the InControl page on the Gibson Research website and select the "download now" button. Once downloaded, run the application with administrative rights to display the basic interface. InControl does not need to be installed, it is a portable application.

The program displays the current state of operating system upgrades when you launch it. On first run, you will likely see the state "OS upgrades are not under your control on this system"; this means, that updates and upgrades will be installed without permission of administrators.

A click on the "take control" button changes the message to "You are in control of OS upgrades on this system". New feature updates won't be installed on the system, even if the installed version runs out of support according to InControl's description. Regular updates, cumulative updates, will install on the system as they include security updates.

You may also change the target version that you would like to move to in the interface. Just replace the Version and Release fields with the desired version, e.g. from 10 / 21H1 to 10 / 21H2, to do so. The fields can only be edited if the "take control" option is not active.

A click on "release control" unblocks the ability to install system upgrades to newer versions of Windows 10 or Windows 11.

Closing Words

InControl is a useful applications for Windows 10 and 11 administrators who want to keep the installed version of Windows and block upgrades to newer versions of the operating system.

Now You: do you control updates on your devices? (via Deskmodder)

Summary
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Author Rating
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4.5 based on 7 votes
Software Name
InControl
Operating System
Windows
Software Category
Administration
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Comments

  1. NotInControlAtAll said on March 2, 2022 at 4:21 am
    Reply

    @Martin. Today windows installed KB4023057. I checked InControl, which said “YOU are in control”. ‘Upgrades’ may be covered. Do not rely on it for updates. I am going back to control via Windows update advanced settings, choosing a date late in the month and doing research after using Belarc Advisor to check what is available.

  2. ding ding said on February 18, 2022 at 2:55 am
    Reply

    @ John G.:

    “[…] Weird dependency between packages or broken packages versions or other similar issues with circular dependencies where it is impossible to fix are a common and a big annoyance also when updating sometimes. You should know. :[”

    I use Debian Sid and have never experienced this problem or really any other problem aside from 1 or 2 annoyances in many years. You’re thinking 90’ies early 2000’s or you use Arch or some RPM based distro. I notice mention of Ubuntu, well some of us prefer to drink directly from the fresh spring water (Debian) rather than use a cousin’s wacky well water (Ubuntu and so many other distros coming from Debian).

  3. Mystique said on February 17, 2022 at 1:53 pm
    Reply

    Another similar tool other than the ones mentioned here is

    https://github.com/WereDev/Wu10Man

    New layout isn’t great but as long as we are able to disable it then that’s fine. What really annoys me about websites these days is the idiotic trend of having stupid bars and elements follow you around as you scroll. The best solution I found for that was a userscript but the name escapes me right now. Some days I feel I miss the wild days of old with such websites hosted on geocities, xoom, tripod angelfire, fortunecity and the likes. lol

    I blame tablet idiots.

  4. nicolaasjan said on February 17, 2022 at 11:34 am
    Reply

    @John G
    I see what you mean.
    That’s why Snaps, Flatpaks and AppImages were invented. :)

    I stay away from Snaps. See:
    https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3906

    1. John G. said on February 17, 2022 at 11:54 am
      Reply

      @nicolaasjan very interesting advance! :]

  5. oh noes another update! LOLz said on February 17, 2022 at 4:14 am
    Reply

    Most Windows users are hilariously dull.

    I can update/upgrade my Linux box with “Synaptic” all packages, one and done.

    I don’t need to protect myself from my own Operating Systems and it’s failures because I refuse to bend a knee to a convicted monopoly.

    1. John G. said on February 17, 2022 at 9:27 am
      Reply

      Linux has its own problems too. Weird dependency between packages or broken packages versions or other similar issues with circular dependencies where it is impossible to fix are a common and a big annoyance also when updating sometimes. You should know. :[

      1. nicolaasjan said on February 17, 2022 at 10:00 am
        Reply

        @John G
        I never encounter that when using the official repositories though.

      2. John G. said on February 17, 2022 at 11:04 am
        Reply

        @nicolaasjan I meant that sometimes upgrading some software (i.e., java, libreoffice, wine or playonlinux) to the latest version (that obviously is not included in the main repository) in Ubuntu distro is some kind or risky business for the user: broken dependencies often appears to bring us the other side of the great Linux experience. Anyway, Linux is useful for stability purposes, a cousin of mine has Ubuntu 20.04 since the first release in main pandemic situation and it still works with none problem at all. Just start and work, simpliest thing ever. In W11 I have spent hours and hours just to be able to use the taskbar, thank god thay I have found Valinet Explorer Patcher, a must have for all W11 users. If I could get back I would install Ubuntu 20.04 as my cousin. :[

  6. leland said on February 17, 2022 at 12:22 am
    Reply

    Thanks for the nice find. I found Windows Update Blocker recently by Sordum (https://www.sordum.org/9470/windows-update-blocker-v1-7/) which will also do the job. To bad Microsoft forces us to find ways to take back control.

    PS I hate this new system for accessing comments and having a stream of articles. Please bring back the old method.

  7. Q said on February 16, 2022 at 9:52 pm
    Reply

    I rather dislike that a different article is loading and appending to the webpage with the original article. The behavior is rather annoying, confusing at times, and a time and resource waster.

  8. John G. said on February 16, 2022 at 6:23 pm
    Reply

    Old way to comment here was easier than now, by the way. :[

  9. John G. said on February 16, 2022 at 6:21 pm
    Reply

    Good software. Thanks @Martin! :]

  10. TelV said on February 16, 2022 at 6:18 pm
    Reply

    I’m still running Never10 on my Windows 8.1 system :)

    As regards the new layout, I’ve no complaints. In fact, it’s better because I don’t see the ASCII characters anymore which use to appear at the start of every sentence.

  11. Tom Hawack said on February 16, 2022 at 6:08 pm
    Reply

    @Mikhoul, it works but because disabling Javascript for a given Website is radical it may include “worthy” scripts (in this case those which don’t concern the new layout) such as, but not sure, the layout of reply comments : if the first comment is in the first column (itself being a “new” comment), then replies appear normally underneath with a left margin. It seems to me that my comment above (“So do I […]”) was posted as a reply to ShintoPlasm, yet it appeared all the way down, first column. If my reply to you, Mikhoul, isn’t left-margined then the culprit is Javascript being disabled as a whole. Whatever there may be other incidences I haven’t yet observed. I don’t like radical solutions, truth and efficiency are most of the time in fine tuning, which is why i’ll have to open an article page with uBO’s logger activated in order to determine exactly what script(s) initiate(s) the new layout and block it(them) only. Ghacks is a nice place, I went to a fast/easy/dirty workaround just to recover the old articles’ layout but, call me idiot if you wish, doesn’t make me feel good because I consider Martin as a friend and blocking Javascript as somewhat aggressive… again, the only purpose is to recover a classical article’s page, but I’ll digg with the logger later on (no time up to now) and select only those which pose the problem, mine, yours but perhaps only for a few others.

    1. ShintoPlasm said on February 16, 2022 at 9:01 pm
      Reply

      @Tom: please let us know when you’ve pinpointed the scripts :)

      1. Tom Hawack said on February 16, 2022 at 10:56 pm
        Reply

        @ShintoPlasm, I did find it and posted it here, but I guess it was too late and the reviewer was off-duty. Reviewed because the comment included a url and I noticed that such comments take longer to be published, most of the time.

        The rule is, in uBO / Dashboard / My rules :
        [ghacks.net https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/themes/new-ghacks-preview/infinite-scroll.js script block]

        Without the brackets of course. I have to put the brackets here because the url could get ‘damaged’ once published … I don’t know exactly the cooking, but with brackets what you write is what you see once published :=)

        Better with this simple rule, no need to disable all of Javascript ; avoid losing the baby with the water (or whatever is the correct English wording ;=)

      2. Martin P. said on February 17, 2022 at 1:25 pm
        Reply

        @Tom Hawack

        Tom,

        Thanks for this nice find. Works perfectly.

      3. ShintoPlasm said on February 17, 2022 at 11:10 am
        Reply

        Cheers Tom. Until the next breakage… ;)

      4. nicolaasjan said on February 17, 2022 at 9:39 am
        Reply

        Or in “My filters”:
        [||www.ghacks.net/wp-content/themes/new-ghacks-preview/infinite-scroll.js$script]
        (without the brackets) ?

      5. Tom Hawack said on February 17, 2022 at 2:15 pm
        Reply

        @nicolaasjan, what you propose is indeed a uBO filter when my workaround is a uBO rule.

        Rules are radical and allow no exception whilst filters allow exceptions.
        For instance if I wish to block Javascript for a site but allow exceptions then i’d have to set a filter to block Javascript globally for that site then add Javascript exceptions for that site, i.e. :

        ||www.example.com^$script,1p
        @@||www.example.com/example1/example2.js$script,1p
        @@||www.examplecom/example3/example4/example4/example5/*$script,1p

        Maybe you know all that but considering the ? at the end of your comment I assumed this might interest you.

      6. nicolaasjan said on February 18, 2022 at 3:58 pm
        Reply

        @Tom Hawack
        Haha, the “?” at the end of my comment was supposed to be a smile emoji.
        But this site apparently doesn’t accept emoji’s.

    2. Commentator gone bonkers said on February 16, 2022 at 7:43 pm
      Reply

      Adding the following line to uBlock? (My filters) restored the previous behaviour for me:

      https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/themes/new-ghacks-preview/infinite-scroll.js

      This will probably break soon, considering the ‘new-ghacks-preview’ part.

    3. Tom Hawack said on February 16, 2022 at 6:40 pm
      Reply

      Just found the new script which initiates the new layout, For those who are interested and if they use the uBlock Origin extension the rule to add is (without the brackets of course) :

      uBO / Dashboard / My rules :

      [ghacks.net https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/themes/new-ghacks-preview/infinite-scroll.js script block]

      So NO need to disable all of Javascript.

      @Martin, don’t take it personally, hence, bad. I don’t know who decided this new article layout, may not even be yourself, but, frankly, two articles within a page is, IMO, a true bother, requiring a Comments display button for each of course and, at the end, something personally I just cannot stand for. Some of us may like it, I’m aware of that of course.

      1. Hary said on February 17, 2022 at 3:56 pm
        Reply

        It works well, thank you.

  12. Max Karl said on February 16, 2022 at 4:58 pm
    Reply

    Why? Why are you suggesting people to run a dumb program you don’t know what is doing because “take control of your blablala”

    Seriously, all you need to do is to use your firewall and block svchost, how hard is that? there are lists of IPs you can block if you want to allow or disallow updates and still, those won’t work because they never include the port 80 IPs only the 443. So it will check updates, try to download them but won’t happen.

    In fact, there is Fort Firewall that got a new feature to filter svchost processes, which as far as I know is the ONLY one who have achieved that, so it is even more easy to Block downloading of apps and allow only windows update checking or none.
    All you need to allow is wuauserv and dosvc, and that’s it, maybe BITS is needed in the case of an upgrade, but if you don’t allow it you won’t see anything downloading so you can enable it and test. but for normal updates wuauserv and dosvc is enough.
    You can put them in an “app group” both services and you can enable and disable the group at your will, or even schedule their connection and if you want you can even set a download or upload speed limit to make it whatever you want with it.

    So you can enable other svchost services like dnscache or ssdp or dhcp without having to check any other svchost process or you whitelisting each IP or Port to make your internet even have connection and an IP from your gateway/router/modem. You don’t need IP lists to block stuff anymore, but if you want, you can add them to Zones and do exactly the same Simplewall does but better.

    This programs are just dumb to suggest, it is not like windows update will try to connect every second to see if you have internet connection, in fact, it barely updates because I can update Windows Defender (too lazy to completely disable it) in the morning and more than 36h after I checked updates (my computer usually stays on 24/7), and I still haven’t got any other updates. So Windows update is not checking all the time, I still disable the service and enable it when I want to.

    The logic about Fort Firewall is simple, it will use any svchost process that has the -s %nameofservice%, that’s all it needs. Most svchost processes are shared though, but since few win10 versions Microsoft made it so Windows automatically will run svchost as ‘own processes’ if you have more than 3.5GB memory ram or something, that’s why Windows is using more memory after that BUT it made it more stable one process won’t take down the others. It can be disabled but thanks to that the svchost processes have the -s without you not having to do anything, so it is good for for Fort Firewall.
    For example, the only process I found to not offer the -s and name of service is DNScache, and Fort has an option to make the process ‘Trackable’, which modifies the service registry to add the -s to the path, also modifies the value from shared to own (dnscache already has the 16 value) and then stores the original values so the firewall can revert them back.

    But Windows update, the delivery, and all the important services will automatically be filtered by the Firewall easy.

    So there is NO excuse to suggest a program that you don’t know what it really is doing, when you can simple use a FIREWALL, even own windows firewall to control svchost connection, that’s all people need, even if it is not a nice 3rd party firewall, it is not hard to block IPs or use hosts or just about anything to block exactly what you want.
    For example Fort Firewall uses its own driver, and if you don’t trust it, it is open source, but some people won’t be able to install it in their computers but still it is not an excuse to accept these programs as a better alternative.

    And suggesting this is good for admins, it is even worst than me suggesting to use a 3rd party firewall with its own driver to do the job, because I don’t even think about admins when I read these articles, you make it sound like Admins are dumb enough that they can’t do their job properly which is what they are paid to do anyway, so they should already be able to deal with upgrades, the way any admin has to.
    If an admin is running these type of apps that means the person is incompetent and lazy or both , so, should be fired.

    I mean, people make so much drama about upgrading to windows. Windows 11 is fine, and if you are not meeting their requirements, it is not going to do crap.
    Windows 10 was fine too, and honestly people do weird crap with their computers that an upgrade will actually fix some issues people might have, like when people format their computers and maybe all they had to do was an in-place upgrade.

    if people don’t want to upgrade that means they don’t want to update either, so using the firewall and do the proper registry entries or GPO modifications to make sure you don’t get one version over the other is the best way. In fact, that’s why forums like tenforums or elevenforums do actually proper instructions about it, from GPO to registry to some bat that is needed, but they never suggest these stupid softwares like these that you have no idea what they are exactly doing which are NOT needed anyway, just installing and adding more toxic waste to the already swamp.

    1. Spikeman said on June 26, 2022 at 7:51 pm
      Reply

      Max…..you clearly miss the point entirely. Most people have a life they would like to live away from the keyboard. *This* is the point of what steve gibson provided….the average non-nerdy-human doesn’t want to subscribe to 15 forums to learn what the “latest list” is for IPs, ports, services, etc to block *today*.

      In any case, Max unwittingly confirmed to the masses that his approach makes most people shut off their brain after reading the first paragraphy.

      Max gave us a hint that most people likely missed…my brother taught it to me about the hint….whenever someone says, “All you gotta do….”, they are likely going to lead you into a pain in the ass nightmare of a disaster.

      Steve’s tiny app for the win.

    2. Frankel said on February 17, 2022 at 11:48 am
      Reply

      Consider:
      A skilled person would use this tool or the Group Policy Editor, as they should be.

    3. Trey said on February 17, 2022 at 11:39 am
      Reply

      Damn, Max is ranting wildly about svchost and FIREWALLS! again.

    4. Anonymous said on February 17, 2022 at 4:33 am
      Reply

      That firewall actually looks good. Going to keep an eye on it to see if it remains supported, then maybe I can get rid of Comodo (latest versions phone home unless tasks are disabled through task scheduler hack, PITA) after like 10 years.

    5. Bindere Dundat said on February 16, 2022 at 11:56 pm
      Reply

      Holy sh!t.
      You obviously have waaayyyy too much time on your hands.
      Do this, do that, firewall this ip, block that ip, disallow this, edit the registry, control svchost……

      or

      Download a little (portable) program.
      Run it as administrator.
      Click Take Control / Release Control and Exit.

    6. Jason said on February 16, 2022 at 10:59 pm
      Reply

      I thought you were joking at first until I realized Fort Firewall was real.

      First, the program was made by Steve Gibson, someone who is highly respected in the security community. It’s not some rando posting something to github.

      Second, the entire program is only 80k in size, which is fewer bytes than you just wasted ranting about some other BS.

      1. Martin P. said on February 17, 2022 at 1:16 pm
        Reply

        @Jason

        In fact, on its github page the program is listed as having been created by Nodir Temirkhodjaev.

  13. Software tester said on February 16, 2022 at 4:54 pm
    Reply

    I use Windows Update Blocker by Sordum
    https://www.sordum.org/9470/windows-update-blocker-v1-7/
    Thanks for the alternative.

  14. Mikhoul said on February 16, 2022 at 4:40 pm
    Reply

    It work Thanks !

  15. Tom Hawack said on February 16, 2022 at 3:33 pm
    Reply

    So do I. Dirty hint : disabling Javascript brings back Ghacks as we knew it.
    One thing which has always been constant is that Ghacks turns perfectly well without Javascript, which is not such a common feature.

    1. Shiva said on February 16, 2022 at 5:08 pm
      Reply

      Yep. I don’t see any problem with this new website layout, indeed it is an additional option that can be customized for example with Stylus without disable Javascript:

      #comments {display: unset !important;}
      .ajax-loaded-post {display: none !important;}
      .near-posts {display: none !important;}

      1. nicolaasjan said on February 16, 2022 at 7:00 pm
        Reply

        @Shiva
        Thanks for this!
        It makes the site usable again.

  16. ShintoPlasm said on February 16, 2022 at 2:39 pm
    Reply

    I really really hate the new website layout, esp the weird thing you’ve done to the comment section.

    1. vanp said on February 17, 2022 at 5:13 am
      Reply

      I never cease to be astonished by the stupid ideas software/website people manage to come up with to aggravate their users. It is truly, literally, physically beyond my ability to comprehend.

      Thanks for nuthin’, people.

    2. Anonymous said on February 16, 2022 at 10:36 pm
      Reply

      I really hate any and all change too. Things should stay as they were when I was born.

      Life is change. Adapt and embrace it.

      1. Corky said on February 17, 2022 at 6:57 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous: The reason people dislike change is because what drew them to something in the first place is no longer there. If you invest the time and effort into finding something you like and it changes it’s no longer what drew you to it in the first place, is it.

        If you woke up one morning to find someone had replaced your car would you just accept it, say life is change, adapt and embrace it?

      2. ShintoPlasm said on February 17, 2022 at 11:06 am
        Reply

        Reasons why I hate the new UI:
        1. Clicking on the ‘comments’ icon at the start of the article no longer sends me to the comments section.
        2. Clicking on the ‘Show/Hide comments’ button instead of simply loading and showing me all the comments immediately is annoying, time-wasting, and in no way improves upon the previous UI.
        3. Automatically loading another article at the bottom of the current one makes no sense, but is in line with recent stupid UI trends from other websites.

        Happy now?

      3. Tom Hawack said on February 17, 2022 at 2:25 pm
        Reply

        @ShintoPlasm, nothing to add, you wrote it all. UI trends indeed happen to be idiot, counter-productive, irritating.

        As much as i do understand the pertinence of adding a “Related articles’ component, as much I consider adding to an article’s page the very next article’ full content makes no sens. If the aim is to give an immediate access to previous/next articles then just add a component to do so. That would lead for instance to :

        – The article
        – Related articles’ BOX
        – Previous/Next articles’ BOX

        But don’t add another article’s content in the very article’s page, this is damn nuts!

      4. Tom Hawack said on February 17, 2022 at 10:47 am
        Reply

        The point is to know why we dislike changes, when we do : is it because it bothers an unhealthy comfort or is it because it conflicts with a rational argument we hold for legitimate? In the former case I’ll agree with you, in the latter I’ll say : Followers adapt to life changes and embrace it accordingly, leaders change it. Sheep; be welcomed.

      5. Jody Thornton said on February 17, 2022 at 1:19 pm
        Reply

        The saddest part is – notice after dozens of complaints spread over several threads, nothing has been changed back. Sigh! It sure is nice to be listened to.

      6. Jody Thornton said on February 23, 2022 at 2:59 pm
        Reply

        Apparently the comment’s change was reversed. Yay!

    3. Corky said on February 16, 2022 at 7:20 pm
      Reply

      Seconded, why I’d want to see a previous article when it maybe of no interest to me or totally unrelated to the article i click on is anyone’s guess. Not only that but now we have to click on show comments to read the comments, a part of gHacks that made it unique among all the sites who want you to signup just to make a comments.

    4. Ipnonymous said on February 16, 2022 at 5:44 pm
      Reply

      One niggle is on a kindle fire tablet the “reply” button is too close to the edge of the screen frequently opening the comment box when all i am trying to do is scroll the page with the right thumb while reading.

    5. Mikhoul said on February 16, 2022 at 4:36 pm
      Reply

      Exactly ! :(

  17. beemeup5 said on February 16, 2022 at 1:34 pm
    Reply

    For many years now I’ve been controlling updates using StopUpdates10:
    https://greatis.com/stopupdates10/

    Still works great!

  18. Anonymous said on February 16, 2022 at 10:45 am
    Reply

    Simple. If it actually works it is easier than remembering to do it via advanced update settings, pause updates. When ready, back up, give control to Windows, cross fingers.

  19. microfix said on February 16, 2022 at 9:47 am
    Reply

    Good catch Martin,
    I’ve recommended Steve Gibson’s work over many years and this will help a lot of non-techies out there get some control back on Windows 10
    For Home editions this will be a one-click wonder for those who don’t want/ know how to ‘tinker’ with the registry.
    For Pro Editions> I don’t see anything that’ll see me change from relying on the GPl WUfB section settings.

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