How do I stop Windows Update from bringing my entire network to a screeching halt?

[Aegys]

I've got several computers in my household and anytime one of them is downloading a Windows Update, every other device on my network gets incredibly slow. It's especially annoying if I'm playing an online game because my ping skyrockets to over 1 second.

On an individual basis, I've tried going into my Router's QoS settings and under the Bandwidth Limiter I select the device that's downloading an update and even going so far as to set the limits to 0.1 Mb/s down&up but that seems to have no effect.

I'm pretty ignorant in general when it comes to this kind of thing so I'll take any help.

 

[greens]

What kind of service do you pay for?

 

[boosted1g]

If you have a low bandwidht internet plan there is not really anything you can do to make a difference outside of turn off all computers when gaming.

 

[SgtScream]

Do you have windows 10?
https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-10-windows-update-delivery-optimization
You can also alter windows update settings to "choose how updates are installed" in advanced options.

 

[ahnilated]

Let me guess, this is a wireless connection.

 

[HEXiT]

windows updates shouldnt slow down your network if QOS (quality of service) is set up and working properly.

on each machine

go to run
type gpedit.msc
in the box that opens look under computer config/admin templates/network/
and double click on Qos packet scheduler
double click on reservable bandwidth and click enable
you should see 80% if its at default. reduce this to 20% and click apply.then ok
this should give you more bandwidth to your network while at the same time allowing windows enough reserved bandwidth to still carry out its updates in good time.

let windows hand the qos rather than at the router
also try spybot antibeacon it will get rid of a lot of needless microsoft traffic from your network. as well as being able to block telemetry at the host files.

 

[Wolfshadw]

If you can be diligent about updating Windows 10 (when you're not gaming), you might want to consider Metering your Internet Connection.

Whether you're on a limited bandwidth connection or not, this registry edit tells Windows Update not to do anything until you tell it to.

-Wolf sends

 

[bill001g]

Microsoft pretty much says they don't care. This was asked in a conference and they said they felt it was more important to update machines even if that means it make peoples networks unusable for periods of time. The guy was extremely arrogant but they have not backed down. At least they could put in a download limit manager like every other software downloader.

Used to be you could trick it into being a metered connection but microsoft has fixed this hack in the anniversary update. You can only set it to metered if you are on wireless there is no way to it on ethernet.

You can use the group policy method as listed above but that does not work on win10 home edition.

You can set when it will actually apply the update but you have no control over when it download it.

There is no realistic way to run QoS. I have tried very hard to block win10 update with firewall rules. There appears to be many hundreds of ip addresses used by the update and they seem to even change from month to month. There is no easy way to identify update traffic so there is no way to limit it with QoS.

Pretty much microsoft feels they own everyones machine. I just wish more software run under linux.

 

[Mister_MO]

Turn off updates and turn them on to update manually, that is way how to limit it. Other way is to buy netlimiter and set limit for update process.