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Howto: Disable Automatic Windows Updates in VMware Template

If your not using guest customization specifications, get going now!  Some people ask why do this in a VMware Template when you can do it via Active Directory using Group Policy.  We use our templates a lot for test machines which may or may not end up joined to a domain.  This ensures that no unwanted updates get applied  to these test machines. Works great across Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 and Windows 7 (might also work on Windows 2000 but I didn't check).  If you don't know what guest customization specifications are checkout my other posting explaining all about them and howto create one.

To disable Automatic Windows Updates, all you need to do is add this entry to the RUNONCE area of your customization specification:

reg add “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update” /v AUOptions /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

It's that simple!

Related posts:

1. Howto: Build a Windows Server 2003 R2 VMware Template
2. Howto: Build a Windows Server 2008 R2 VMware Template
3. VMware: Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass specialize
4. List/Export Installed Windows Updates
5. Improve Windows VMware Guest Performance with these Tweaks