There is, but Windows 10 will disable this functionality after a month so you have to keep logging in to reset it. We had problems using a remote PC with a 4G dongle - programs like Office kept downloading updates even when Windows update was disabled. Having turned on metering, we didn't even think about it until the bill came through.

The link:

http://www.itprotoday.com/management-mobility/q-how-can-i-di...

That must be a new feature. The registry keys are still set on my only Windows 10 machine to make all possible network connections metered.

It won't install the newest update anyway so I'm probably safe.

This is unfortunately not reliable. The only way to completely stop Windows 10 and certain other recent MS products from updating (for bandwidth cost or not-wanting-to-reboot-right-now reasons) is to not let the machine connect to the Internet at all which probably makes it useless for many situations.

You could try running a server version of Windows instead, but you might find yourself unsupported in other ways (some hardware drivers, some software deliberately refusing to run or accidentally doing so due to using a broken compatibility check) in that case. The license will also cost a chunk more currency.

In the Pro version you also can set it to "always ask before downloading updates", and that has worked reliably for me so far.

Pro licences here. Can't say as I've found an option like that. Is it relatively new? I've not dug around terably recently. Everything else people have suggested either hasn't worked or did for a while then changed after an update.

Group Policy for Windows Update "configure automatic updates" can be set to "notify for download".

I'm pretty sure I've tried that and it reset itself a time later.

Looking again now, there seems to be no such option. I can defer updates for a fixed number of days (with separate settings for quality updates and feature updates), which might be useful if the defer is cancelled by a manual "check and install updates" rather than having to reset the setting to get them to install at a convenient time rather than waiting for them to go in at Windows' will at the end of the defer period.

Force connection through a VPN, deny the VPN access to anything microsoft related.