When you are not using your PC, Windows 10 performs automatic maintenance. It is a daily scheduled task that runs out-of-the-box. When enabled, it performs various tasks like app updates, Windows updates, security scans and many other things. Here is how to disable Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10 and why you might want get rid of this feature.
If you happen to be using your PC intensively during the scheduled time period, the maintenance will be postponed for another time. Most users should not disable Automatic Maintenance, but there can be a situation when you really need to disable it.
For instance, if you faced a Blue Screen of Death (severe error) or if your PC hangs during idle time, this might indicate that some task running as part of the Automatic Maintenance causes it. So for troubleshooting purposes, you might want to disable it and the check the OS behavior when it is idle.
To disable Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10, you need to do the following:
- Open Registry Editor.
- Go to the following Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Schedule\Maintenance
Tip: You can access any desired Registry key with one click.
If this key doesn't exist, then just create it.
- In the right pane, you will see the MaintenanceDisabled value. If this value doesn't exist, create a 32-bit DWORD value of this name. Even if you are running 64-bit Windows, you still need to create a 32-bit DWORD value. Set it to 1 to disable Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10.
- Restart Windows 10.
That's it. Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10 will be disabled. To enable it again, set the MaintenanceDisabled value to 0 or just delete it.
I prepared ready-to-use Registry files, so you can avoid manual Registry editing. You can download it here:
In the comments, feel free to share why you had to disable Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10.
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There’s something related to this that doesn’t happen daily but after 4 minutes of inactivity. That might be worth a separate article.
If you leave Task Manager minimized on the tray, it’s especially noticeable after not touching the PC for 4 minutes. CPU activity maxes out.
Maybe it’s not maintenance, but whatever is is built-in to Windows 10, it’s not a 3rd-party thing. There’s nothing so important that it would need to happen this frequently. I would like to disable it.
Because automatic updates are a bitch.
useless for me.
how about a simple solution that can be done?
REM — Disables automatic maintenance
reg add “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Schedule\Maintenance” /v “MaintenanceDisabled” /t REG_DWORD /d “1” /f
Great. Thanks for sharing this time saving batch file.
Is it my imagination, or is the quality of Microsoft software, especially on the maintainability/configuration end, going down hill lately. This is the third case where I would expect to find a basic system setting in a GUI (turn maintenance mode on or off) and instead have to hit the registry. I don’t mind using regedit, but having to do a Google search to find how to adjust a basic setting seems rather odd. A few months ago our domain controllers “forgot” all domain computers after a power failure, and they needed to be re-synchronized. One would think there would be a button somewhere in AD to do that, especially since the condition is so terrifying. But no, the procedure is to set a registry key and then restart a service. So much for user friendliness.
Great idea, I am trying it on one computer first and if it works out I will do this to the other 3 or 4 computers. I use these computers in a lab and have had no end of trouble with automatic update hangs and interruptions.
I often keep web pages and unsaved notepads of URLs open on my desktop. When I go to sleep I hope to find them there in the morning. But occasionally an update will happen where the computer is rebooted and I lose my work. I’m not happy about it. In short – its my computer and I should have say when to reboot. Thanks for the bat file!
We are using satellite internet and pay monthly fee for 10GB download. We have to pay extra if we go over the10GB limit and these automatic updates are costing us money and using up our download budget. They should have made a simple way to stop automatic downloads. Can’t even find a way to force them to update at 2:00am when we get extra download allotments.
You people do understand that Winaero Tweaker turns on and off the Automatic maintenance with a simple checkmark from its menu, right? A batch file isn’t even needed to change it.
Everytime computer is idle, automatic maintenance starts, and slows everything down. Geeksquad couldnt fix issue, so thank you for the help in disabling it.
sorry if my comment out of topic but regard to this, i’m actually start to hate the automatic maintenance that launches several task include automatic updates and stuff (especially when “windows module installer worker” start firing up, it takes hours to done itself).
I have monthly subscription broadband so i dont mind if windows keeps the system up-to-date.
my PC use SSD which the impact of automatic maintenance barely can be noticed. the only thing i notice is sometimes my system defragment drive D. i find the services running in task manager. overall, SSD make things easier.
however, my laptop still use traditional HDD and oh damn, you know what to expect.
and i can’t just buy SSD since these day SSD cost so expensive and i dont know if i really need it.
i havent try the registry tweak from winaero but at the end i just decide to upgrade it to SSD.
yeah Microsoft getting me anxiety these day with their “the last and only” OS.
i had experience i broke my PC after using batch tweak (or similar) to tweak stuff from internet. doesnt mean i didnt trust winaero, but upgrade to SSD is the only worth investment instead of stick with traditional SSD and tweak stuff just to be broken at the end.
both my PC and laptop now use SSD and i am happy i did this. then i use the HDD as regular storage.
I just have 1 thing to say and that is this, this auto maintance mode F**KING SUCKS A$$!!!!
“and many other things”
Basically nobody knows what Automatic Maintenance fully does. Not a single article in the entire internet explains. So yeah, disable it.