How to Disable the Windows 10 Upgrade Notification

Windows 10 is out and Microsoft really, really wants you to upgrade.  You’ve probably noticed the “Get Windows 10” notification icon in your System Tray, and the an incessant popup reminder which seems to appear more frequently as each day passes:

But what if you’re just not ready to upgrade yet?  Is there a way to stop the nagging?

Windows 10 looks to be a great operating system and I’ll definitely upgrade soon, but for now the following steps should stop the popups, it worked for me.  Remember, you must have Administrator permissions on your PC, if you’re machine is locked down by IT this approach probably won’t work.

STEP 1:  Open your registry

You can do this by either of several ways, for example:

• Start / Run -> “regedit”
• Start -> Search for programs and files -> “regedit”, then clicking on “regedit.exe” in the search results

STEP 2:  Once in the registry, navigate to the Windows key

On the left pane, drill down until you reach the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows

STEP 3:   On the left pane, click on the key “Gwx”

Note:  If it the key Gwx does not exist, then create it:

1. On the left pane, right-click on the key “Windows”, then select New/Key
2. Enter a key value of “Gwx”

STEP 4:  Create a new DWORD value “DisableGwx”

1. Make sure you have the key Gwx selected on the left pane. Then, on the right pane, right-click anywhere and select New / DWORD (32 Bit) Value.
2. Enter a value of 1 for the new DWORD

STEP 5:  Close the registry, reboot your machine

The “Get Windows 10” system tray icon should now be gone, and the “Upgrade to Windows 10” popup should stop appearing.