Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices

Let’s check the options to Disable or Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Windows 10 devices. I have also seen many Twitter threads and questions in the HTMD Forum to hide Windows 11 upgrade notifications.

There are different methods to hide/disable Windows 11 Feature Update offered on Windows 10 domain joined and SCCM managed devices. Many organizations noticed this notification last month (May 2022).

The Windows 11 upgrade notification started appearing on Windows 10 devices because Windows 11 was recently made globally available via Windows Update as per Bryan Dam. At least he thinks so!

Ankit mentioned in his HTMD forum post that a few of our users started to notice a notification inside windows update mentioning ‘Upgrade to Windows 11 is ready -> download and install’. Even though auto-updates are off for users, the check for updates settings is grayed out on devices.

Patch My PC

Updated on 5th July 2022 – If the Windows 10 machine is missing the latest security update, then the device will get the banner notification. You can use the registry key to fix the banner issue.

Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification

Let’s check the purpose of the notification “Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready” in the settings -> Windows Updates section. This notification empowers the end-user to decide when to upgrade to Windows 11.

It’s good news that Microsoft is not forcing end-users to upgrade to Windows 11 immediately with this notification, and there is an option to Stay on Windows 10. The End-users can stay with Windows 10 until they are ready to migrate.

Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 1
Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 1

This Windows Update notification to upgrade to Windows 11 is something enterprises didn’t want to show to end-users because that would create a lot of confusion for users. This could also cause many help desk calls because the users might get confused.

Adaptiva

Target Release Version Settings to Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification

There are group policies available to set the Target Release Version of Windows. This is the first preference to avoid users getting the accidental/unexpected notifications to upgrade to Windows 11. There are different ways to configure the following two settings to prevent/block upgrades (maybe notifications as well):

  • TargetReleaseVersion (Register Value)
  • TargetReleaseVersionInfo (Register Value)

NOTE! – I have seen Microsoft recommend using Windows 11 ADMX Template instead of Windows 10 group policies, even for Windows 10 devices. But Windows 11 ADMX is missing some of the GPOs available in Windows 10 21H2 ADMX.

You can check the differences between the Windows 10 and 11 ADMX policies from the GitHub repository. More Details – Diff Windows 11 21H2 – Windows 10 21H2 v2.0 (2/2) from Manel Rodero.

Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 3
Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 3

You can test either policy (Windows 10 or Windows 11 ADMX) to hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready notification for end users.

  • Windows 10 ADMX Policy -> Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > Windows Update for Business -> Select the target Feature Update version.
    • Target Version for Feature Updates
  • Windows 11 ADMX Policy -> Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > Manage updates Offered from Windows Update -> Select the Target Feature Update Version.
    • Windows Product Version = Windows 10
    • Target Version for Feature Updates = 21H2

If you enter an invalid value, you will remain on your current version until you correct the values to a supported product and version. The following is the Group Policy from Windows 11 ADMX.

Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 2
Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 2

IMP! – I have seen mixed messages on this policy and registry settings. Some reports say this Target Release Version policies help hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification. On the other hand, I hear that this setting didn’t work for them. So Test, Test, and Test.

The information you sometimes get from Twitter is overwhelming and can easily get confused. I see there are other different policies mentioned to hide this notification.

Onboard the device in WUfB and get a safeguard hold; Set WUfB deferral or Target Version policies to prevent devices from seeing Windows 11 upgrade notification when clicking “check online for updates.”

  • The registry entries configuration to Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is ready notification-> Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate.
Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 4
Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 4

SCCM to Deploy the Registry Configurations

One of the ways is the registry fix using Configuration Items and Baselines in SCCM. The other option is configuring it via Group Policy, as explained below. I have seen many organizations start using CI and Baseline policies using CMG instead of Group Policies because of remote work situations.

You can also use the less productive (quick and dirty) way to deploy the registry configurations from SCCM. This is using the SCCM Script deploy method.

SvOfferDeclined Registry Entry to Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification

I have seen Microsoft support (yet to be confirmed) suggest using SvOfferDeclined registry entry to Hide upgrade to Windows 11 is ready notification.

But this registry entry SvOfferDeclined helps hide the notification for many more organizations. Even Ankit confirmed that this registry works fine for the devices on the HTMD forum thread. You can follow the steps to create the registry entry on one of the Windows 10 devices.

  • Launch Regedit.exe.
  • Navigate -> Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings.
  • Create registry -> QWord key with the name SvOfferDeclined.
  • The value of SvOfferDeclined = 1646085160366.
Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 5
Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 5

If you want to automate this registry fix/hack, you can use any of the SCCM methods mentioned in the above section of this post. You can use the following PowerShell command to create the registry value.

set-itemproperty HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings SvOfferDeclined 1646085160366 -type QWord
Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 6
Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 6

How to Enable Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification

Let’s see how to enable Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification. You must change the Group Policy or registry settings if you want the Windows 11 upgrade notification back on Windows 10 devices.

You can delete the SvOfferDeclined registry to revert the change that is applied in the above section of the post. The one-liner PowerShell command to delete the registry entry to enable upgrade to Windows 11 is ready notification.

Remove-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings" -Name "SvOfferDeclined"
Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 7
Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices 7

Author

Anoop is Microsoft MVP! He is a Device Management Admin with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is Blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. He writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc.

8 thoughts on “Disable Hide Upgrade to Windows 11 is Ready Notification on SCCM Managed Devices”

  1. Thanks Anoop – that was helpful.
    One small suggestion for the regedit explanation. By default the value type is set to Hex when you open a new Qword value but the value you supplied is in decimal. It may be helpful to not in the text that it is a decimal value – or give the hex alternative.

    Reply
  2. The Windows 10 ADMX Policy instruction did the trick. The W11 upgrade notification (“check if your computer is able to get W11”) vanished instantly. Thank you!

    Reply
  3. Be advised, the ‘SvOfferDeclined = 1646085160366’ no longer works, the updated QWORD value that works for it is ‘1672893413437’

    Reply
  4. the QWORD value for SvOfferDeclined seems to be changing every time I hit stay on windows 10.
    Dont know why MS dont just have it as a 1 or 0 value.
    On the same machine if I hit “Stay on Windows 10” in the GUI, the key gets created with a new QWORD value. Delete the key and hit “Stay on Windows 10” again the value is different

    Declined upgrade via GUI 3 times on the same machine and these were the values for svOfferDeclined:
    1674179288965
    1674179309695
    1674179334041

    If I use any of these values again by setting the reg key each seems to work

    But the value from this blog and the post above do NOT work
    1646085160366
    1672893413437

    Doesnt seem like a reliable method overall if you need to set for multiple machines.
    MS should make this so much easier, 1 or 0, how hard would that be!?

    Reply
  5. Fun fact: The SvOfferDeclined Value is just a unix milis timestamp containing the last time the user declined windows 11.

    So just setting it to a high value like 2679345163099 (just the first digit swapped to a 2) makes the notification disappear since the value is way in the future and windows thinks it need to wait ages till it can bother the user again.

    It being a timestamp is also the reason why the values posted only have a short shelf life. Setting the SvOfferDeclined key to a value too much in the past triggers Windows Update to show the notification again.

    Reply

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