Would editing the hosts file temporarily block Windows 10 updates?

Question

Like several other people, I'm annoyed by the inability to choose when to update in Windows 10 Home, and this issue is one of the (several) reasons I hesitate to upgrade from Windows 7.

I don't have Windows 10 yet, so I can't try it for myself, but I thought that if I edited the hosts file and pointed update.windows.com (or whichever URL update uses) to an invalid IP address, that would effectively block Windows from seeing if any updates are available until the line was commented out.

Would this strategy work or does Windows 10 have a way to detect and bypass it?

Note: I don't consider this question to be a duplicate of Stopping all automatic updates Windows 10 as it's asking about a certain method. I understand it could be an answer to that question, but I couldn't post it as one without knowing if it works.

Solution 1

According to Microsoft Answers, these are the hosts you would need to block to prevent updates.

http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com
http://*.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
https://*.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
http://*.update.microsoft.com
https://*.update.microsoft.com
http://*.windowsupdate.com
http://download.windowsupdate.com
http://download.microsoft.com
http://*.download.windowsupdate.com
http://wustat.windows.com
http://ntservicepack.microsoft.com
http://stats.microsoft.com
https://stats.microsoft.com

Solution 2

Edit your windows host file to include these

########################
# Block windows update
########################
0.0.0.0 *.download.windowsupdate.com
0.0.0.0 *.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 *.update.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 *.windowsupdate.com
0.0.0.0 *.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 download.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 download.windowsupdate.com
0.0.0.0 ntservicepack.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 test.stats.update.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 windowsupdate.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 wustat.windows.com

Comments

[Moab]

In this link the method posted worked for Windows 10 build 9926

[Moab]

Confirmed applet reg hack no longer works in RTM.

[Moab]

I doubt that is all of them, maybe someone will confirm they block Windows 10 updates for sure.

[Scott - Слава Україні]

Is there some way to block a subdomain (like *.update.microsoft.com) by editing the hosts file?  I believe that this is impossible, so the above is not really an answer to the OP's question.

[geek1011]

@scott You can use a custom DNS server and redirect those domains to an invalid IP.

[Scott - Слава Україні]

Fine.   You have written an answer to a (slightly) different question.  You have not answered this question.

[Justin Goldberg]

Use 0.0.0.0, it will drop the connections much quicker and use less cpu and memory.

[Dean Van Greunen]

@JustinGoldberg changes made, thanks.