How To Undo A Windows 10 Update

Windows updates often bring bug fixes, security patches, and new features to your PC, but they can also backfire—introducing problems like performance deposition or fifty-fifty panic-inducing information loss. If you're noticing some quirkiness later on installing an update, you tin roll it dorsum to try and get things working again.

There are two main kinds of Windows updates: Quality Updates and Characteristic Updates. Quality updates include security patches, bug fixes, and other modest tweaks inside those regular "Cumulative Updates" you'll see on the Windows Update page in Settings. Feature Updates are larger, and come up every six months or so packed with new features and major changes. Each of these can be rolled back through unlike methods.

How to Uninstall Quality Updates

If a smaller Windows update has caused some odd behavior or broken one of your peripherals, uninstalling it should be pretty easy. Fifty-fifty if the figurer is booting fine, I generally recommend booting into Safe Mode earlier uninstalling an update, simply to exist on the safety side.

Open the Start bill of fare, click the Power button, then concur Shift as you press Restart—that should nowadays y'all with Windows' recovery menu when your computer reboots. (If Windows won't starting time upwardly at all, you can concord the ability button every bit your computer'due south booting to invoke the recovery menu the adjacent fourth dimension you turn it on.)

In the recovery bill of fare, head to Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Settings > Restart. Once your computer restarts, you'll be presented with a list of options, and yous can press the number 3 on your keyboard to enter Safe Mode.

list of Windows updates that can be rolled back

One time you lot're in Safe Fashion, head to Settings > Update & Security > View Update History and click the Uninstall Updates link forth the summit. Windows will present you with a listing of recently installed updates, consummate with links to more detailed descriptions of each patch alongside the engagement you installed information technology.

If you tin can remember when your bug started happening, that install date should help yous make up one's mind which update to remove. Select the update in question, and so click the Uninstall button that appears above the list. It'll have a moment, but once it's finished, you can see if your problems persist.

Annotation that in one case yous uninstall an update, it will try to install itself again the adjacent time y'all check for updates, and then I recommend pausing your updates until your problem is fixed.

If that Uninstall push button doesn't prove up on this screen, that particular patch might be permanent, meaning Windows doesn't want y'all to uninstall it. I've heard tales of unsupported trickery that gets around this, but I oasis't tested myself. Instead, Microsoft recommends using System Restore or a organization backup to roll your computer back to a previous state. (You do have a backup, right?)

How to Uninstall a Windows ten Characteristic Update

Smaller quality updates come to your PC on a pretty regular basis, only Windows 10 Characteristic Updates are dissimilar. Twice a year or so, Windows will prompt you lot to download one of these major versions, similar the May 2020 Update. Microsoft tries to avoid issues by testing these updates on many different hardware configurations, and only rolling it out after your setup is deemed suitable. Still, problems happen, and so Windows offers a rollback pick.

There'due south one catch: y'all can only uninstall a major update within ten days after installing information technology, and so act fast if you recall the update may accept borked your system. After 10 days, Microsoft removes the old files to gratuitous up infinite on your hard drive, and you tin no longer roll back.

To uninstall a Feature Update, head to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery, and scroll down to Go Back to the Previous Version of Windows ten. Click the Get Started button to showtime the uninstallation procedure. If the button isn't clickable, information technology'south possible your x days are already upward, or you removed the erstwhile files with Disk Cleanup and it can no longer curl back. If you have a system backup, at present would be the fourth dimension to use it.

If Your Computer Won't Kick Into Windows at All

If, after installing an update, y'all tin't even kicking into Windows to follow the above instructions—even through Safe Way—Windows should automatically attempt to coil itself back. If that fails, however, you have one terminal pick (earlier restoring from that backup you definitely accept).

Hold the power button as your estimator's booting to plow it off, and so turn it back on. This should bring you to Windows' recovery options, merely like when you boot into Safe Manner. Only this time, head to Troubleshoot > Advanced Options and choose Uninstall Updates. This will present you with the pick of uninstalling the latest Quality Update or the latest Characteristic Update, which will hopefully allow you to boot back into Windows safely again.

Information technology doesn't nowadays you with a listing of recent updates the fashion Windows' Command Panel does, so nosotros nonetheless recommend trying the steps in the above sections if you lot tin. All the same, if all else fails, this recovery option is a last-ditch effort.

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