Can You Control Windows Update Notifications for Team Without Making Things Worse?

Ever felt torn between keeping users informed and preventing endless update popups? You’re not alone. Windows Update notifications can help or hurt your IT setup. Getting this balance right matters more than you think.

What Controls Windows Update Notifications?

Update Notification Level is your main tool for managing what users see. This policy works in two different ways – through old-school Group Policy or through modern Intune management. Both let you decide what update messages reach your users.

The policy links to a specific spot in Windows registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU

It uses a value called UpdateNotificationLevel. This doesn’t control when updates happen. It only controls what users see about those updates.

How to Set Up Notification Control in Intune

Here’s how to configure this step by step:

1. Get into Intune admin center using your login details
2. Find Devices on the left side panel
3. Go to Configuration under Manage devices
4. Pick Settings Catalog for Windows 10 and later
5. Fill in policy name and description in the Basics tab
6. Add settings using the + Add settings link
7. Search for “Windows Update for Business” – this shows 77 results
8. Enable “Update Notification Level” from the list

What Are Your Three Options?

You get three choices for notification control:

• 0 (Default): Shows all regular Windows Update notifications
• 1: Hides all notifications except restart warnings
• 2: Hides all notifications, including restart warnings

Value 0 keeps things normal. Users see all the usual update messages and restart prompts.

Value 1 cuts down on interruptions but keeps users informed about needed restarts. This works well for most businesses.

Value 2 goes silent on everything. Users won’t see any update alerts at all. Use this carefully.

Important Things to Watch Out For

Critical Updates Might Get Missed

When you turn off notifications, users might not know about important security fixes. This creates risk if you’ve also set up policies that delay updates. Devices could stay vulnerable longer than planned.

Deadlines Still Show Warnings

Even with all notifications off, Windows will warn users when a deadline arrives. But this only works if you’ve turned on the “Specify deadlines for automatic updates and restarts” policy. This prevents updates from getting stuck forever.

Active Hours Affect When Notifications Show

If you’ve set active hours for user work time, notifications get hidden during those periods. How this combines with your notification level setting changes what users actually see.

Getting Your Policy to Users

After setting up the notification level:

• Assign to groups in the Assignments tab
• Use scope tags to limit which admins can manage the policy
• Review and create to check everything before applying

The policy applies at device level only. It works on Windows Pro, Enterprise, Education, and IoT Enterprise editions. You need Windows 10 version 1809 or newer.

Checking If It Worked

You can verify the policy took effect by:

• Looking at Event Viewer under Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > DeviceManagement-Enterprise-Diagnostics-Provider > Admin
• Searching for Event ID 813 or 814 for status updates
• Checking the MDM PolicyManager log entries

Managing Your Policy Later

Deleting the Policy

Removing the notification policy takes just a few clicks. Intune’s interface makes cleanup simple when you need to change your setup.

Removing Group Assignments

You can also unassign groups from the policy without deleting it entirely. This gives you flexibility to adjust who gets the policy over time.

Does Windows 10 to 11 Upgrade Really Need This?

Whether upgrading to Windows 11, managing feature updates, or handling quality updates, notification control plays a key role. Many IT teams find Value 1 works best – it reduces interruptions while keeping users informed about restarts.

The registry path ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Policy/Config/Update/UpdateNotificationLevel shows where this setting lives in the device configuration. This helps troubleshoot when things don’t work as expected.

Your notification strategy should match your update approach. If you’re controlling when updates install through other policies, hiding excessive notifications makes sense. But always keep restart warnings visible to prevent user frustration and system issues.