The Windows team is pairing its Point-in-time Restore recovery feature with a new calendar-based pause option for Windows Update.
You can now pick a specific end date for pausing updates, up to 35 days out, which gives you a much cleaner way to block updates around travel, a busy work stretch, or any other window where a surprise reboot would be painful.
How the new Windows Update calendar pause works
The new experience replaces the old dropdown that offered fixed one-week increments. Instead of picking “pause for 1 week” or “pause for 4 weeks,” you now select a specific date from a calendar view directly in Settings > Windows Update. The 35-day window has not changed, but the date picker makes it easier to align the pause with a real deadline rather than counting weeks in your head.
Microsoft is explicit that the calendar pause is not a permanent fix for updates. When the pause ends, Windows checks for updates again and may re-download anything that was pending. A few behaviors to keep in mind during a pause:
- Updates that require a restart will not download or install until the pause ends.
- Windows will not restart automatically to finish the update installation while paused.
- Any updates already in progress when you set the pause are canceled.
- When the pause expires, Windows immediately checks for, downloads, and installs the latest available updates.
How to set up the Calendar Pause
To set a pause end date:
- Open Settings with the Windows key.
- Go to Windows Update.
- Select Pause Updates.
- Pick your end date from the calendar.
You can now extend the pause indefinitely
You should also note that updates can only be paused for up to 35 days from the current date, which prevents you from trying to select a date in a future month beyond a 35-day window.
However, if you’re truly diligent and really dislike updates, you can manually reset a 35-day pause window by going in and extending the update pause using the same process. When you are budding up against your previous paused update deadline, you can go into the Windows Update settings and add another 35-days from the date you’re currently on.
As we first covered when Microsoft began testing this change in April, this effectively lets you run Windows 11 without ever installing an update, though that is not a strategy anyone should lean on given the security implications.
Driver, .NET, and firmware updates now consolidate into one monthly restart
If you finally succumb to an update or your IT manager foists one upon you, the Windows team is also addressing that process by reducing the number of reboots required to install different update components. According to the Windows team, “We are starting by coordinating driver, .NET, and firmware updates to align with the monthly quality update, reducing update experience to a single monthly restart.”
The Windows team is now rolling out its emergency out-of-band (OBB) updates, and non-security updates into the same update experience that will house driver, .NET, and firmware updates into a single reboot experience. That now translates to Windows Insiders in the Experimental and Beta channels will still get their roughly weekly updates, while Persistent Seekers in retail will get their updates bi-monthly, and the normie retail users will be the beneficiary of this new single monthly reboot update experience.
The customary process of Windows snatching those updates in the background remains. The change now appears when the system will wait for the associated installation periods dictated by your chosen update and restart cycle. If you’re not bothered by updates, you are still free to manually update your systems when the updates become available.
If you want to know exactly what’s being downloaded during these bundled updates, you can:
- Hit the Windows button
- Navigate to Settings,
- Choose Windows Update
- Hit the collapse button to see the full list of installations
Shutting down without installing updates is also fixed
Alongside the calendar pause and the single-restart cadence, Microsoft has also fixed the “Update and shut down” behavior that has frustrated users for years. The Power menu will now always show the standard Restart and Shut down options, even when updates are waiting. Clicking Shut down will shut down the PC; it will not silently install pending updates first. We tested this in Build 26300.8289 and confirmed it works as expected.
When these changes arrive on your PC
The calendar pause is already shipping in the June optional update KB5095093, confirmed in our hands-on coverage of that release. The single monthly restart and Power menu fix are currently available to Windows Insiders in the Experimental and Beta channels.
