On July 29, users of Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium and those on the non Pro version of Windows 8.1 will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 Home for free. The interesting language in the specifications page for this upgrade path is also the bit where it mentions updates.
Windows 10 Home users will have updates from Windows Update automatically available. Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise users will have the ability to defer updates.
Although the wording isn't crystal clear here, it seems to suggest that Windows 10 Home users will not have the ability to defer updates - as was previously possible in 8.1 and 7 - and will be updated automatically.
This suggests two things: that when updates become available, they will be downloaded and installed immediately, but not necessarily force a user to restart right away; and secondly, those on the Home edition will not be able to bypass a potentially troublesome update.
Currently in the Insider preview, updates are set to Automatic with an option to schedule a restart, there's no option to check manually for updates, or delay the downloading either, like in previous versions of Windows. This example could actually already mirror what will happen for the Home edition, while the Pro version will get the option to defer again with RTM.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\
In addition, the above key is also no longer present in the registry for the Insider preview (build 10130) which previously let you set certain conditions for update methods through the registry.
We have reached out to Microsoft for clarification on this issue and will update this article when we hear back.
Update: Microsoft told Neowin that they have no further comment other than what has already been stated in the specifications page.
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