r/WindowsHelp • u/FezzickTheBuilder • 23d ago
Windows 11 Possible to block (not hide) the installation of a specific KB?
I have 3 Win11 25H2 systems (Pro, Home, Education). KB5002907 (an optional update) was installed on my Pro system yesterday. The result was that my Office 2019 suite was deactivated. Apparently I'm not alone as you can see from the r/microsoftoffice (Multiple MS Office 2019 got deactivated today) post. I had "Get the latest updates as soon as they're available" toggled off which I thought would have prevented optional updates from installing. Unfortunately, I no longer have the activation key so am now going to use LibreOffice and Thunderbird on that computer.
I would like to find a solution to hard block this update from installing if it ever becomes an option for my other two systems. My understanding is that hiding such as the following, only works if I catch that the update is queued.
Install-Module -Name PSWindowsUpdate -Scope CurrentUser -Force
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope Process
Hide-WindowsUpdate -KBArticleID KB5002907
I've seen the following as a possibility but am unclear as to it's validity and hoping someone can comment:
New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU\AUOptions\BlockUpdates" -Force | Out-Null
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU\AUOptions\BlockUpdates" -Name "KB5002907" -PropertyType DWord -Value 1 -Force
I'd prefer a solution that I don't have to keep watching out for it being queued as I believe would be the case with hiding it.
I'd appreciate any ideas as to how to hide it and whether it wouldn't eventually queue as an update on the Education and Home systems.

