In the morning of Monday, you open the computer and receive a message of windows system update notification from the free computer cleaner. It may be a pain, but the truth is updates are more than just bug fixes and improvements to the way something looks. 9 time out of 10, updates provide security features that make the program safer, keeping your data protected while also providing those key features that you rely on.
There’s no doubt about it, auto-updates can feel like bullying, especially if Windows is pressuring you to restart, over and over again. Some people just turn updates off, but that’s no solution – especially when it turns out you really need what the updates offer.
The happy medium is learning the tricks to controlling auto-updates. Changing the settings so that these things still get through, but on your schedule.
Windows and Microsoft Updates
Control updates that come from Microsoft by opening the Windows search and typing Windows Update. This will open the update manager, a controller that will tell you how your computer is set to receive updates.
Security Updates
Security platforms are a little different – not just those from Microsoft, but all anti-virus and anti-malware free download programs work by routinely downloading new profiles for harmful malware and viruses. These profiles are called definitions and depending on the program, it may retrieve definitions on very frequent schedules, even daily.
Controlling these is a matter of going into the settings menu of a given security program and adjusting the default update options. This is easier said than done in some cases, but generally a Web search will tell you how to manage updating for your security program.
If it can be managed that is. Often, merely having the program on and actively looking for bugs includes the routine download of definitions. Given this situation, you’re safer leaving things like “active scanning” or “active protection” or “real-time protection” set to on.
But even so, it’s your computer. So if updates are part of the active scanning process and they’re hampering your computer by making it slow, you might want to reconsider your security setup. There are lots of good and reputable security platforms that may work well, but act a little bullish when it comes to managing their definitions downloads. If you have one of them, you have to weigh the value they provide against the inconvenience of routine updating and how it impacts your day-to-day computing.
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