How to turn off/on the automatic maintenance function of Win10/Win8.1?

Automatic maintenance is a newly added feature in Win8/Win8.1. This feature continues in Win10. Windows will automatically run scheduled maintenance tasks according to the daily schedule when you are not using the computer, including software updates, security scans, system diagnostics, etc. If you are using your computer at the scheduled time or the system is behind schedule, automatic maintenance will run the next time your computer is idle.

The automatic maintenance function is designed to complete maintenance tasks in the background without affecting the user's use of the computer, and generally works well. But sometimes there are some problems, such as a blue screen suddenly appearing when idle or the system getting stuck. If you happen to encounter such a problem, you might as well try turning off automatic maintenance to see if the problem can be solved.

Microsoft does not provide an option to turn off automatic maintenance in the control panel or settings. To achieve this, you need to modify the registry. The detailed operation process is as follows:

Note:Since you need to modify the registry, it is recommended to create a restore point for your system according to "Win10 How to Create a Restore Point and System Restore Complete Guide" before operating so that you can restore it in case of an error.

1. Press Win+R to open Run, enter regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor;

2. Expand the following registry location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsNTCurrentVersionScheduleMaintenance

3. Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value named MaintenanceDisabled on the right;

4. Double-click the new value MaintenanceDisabled, change its value to 1, and save to turn off the automatic maintenance function.

5. Restart the system.

If you want to re-enable the automatic maintenance function, you only need to change MaintenanceDisabled to 0 or delete the key value.