When managing a PC you’ll normally want software updates to be installed just as soon as they become available. But there may be occasional exceptions.
If you’re working on a slow and expensive mobile internet connection, say, or you’re going to make a really important presentation tomorrow and want to be sure your PC behaves exactly as it does today, then you may want to disable updates, just temporarily. And Update Freezer is a compact, portable and free utility which makes that very straightforward.
Just launch UpdateFreezer.cmd and you’ll immediately see the current update settings for Windows, Adobe, Google, Java, Firefox and Skype. The program also displays the various update options available in each case – “Disabled”, “Notify Only”, “Automatic”, whatever they might be – and you can change them at a click. (Which of course you could do from the individual applications anyway, but Update Freezer just simplifies the process by making several settings available from a single interface.)
And, conveniently, Update Freezer also includes a Restore All option which resets your update settings to whatever they were before you first ran the program. So when you’re happy to receive updates again, simply hit the “Restore All” button and you’ll be back to normal.
Of course while disabling updates can be convenient sometimes, you don’t have to use Update Freezer for that purpose: the program is just as handy for checking a PC’s status, or turning updates on. If you’re troubleshooting a computer and wondering what its update settings might be, say, running Update Freezer from a USB stick will quickly tell you more, and you can correct any problems with a click.
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